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Comment by neilk | Hacker News Reader

The blog was called "Zed's So Fucking AWESOME", and he had his name in flaming letters and silhouettes of strippers on the blog, as I recall. Did you really think it was a sincere effort?

There may be a part of Zed Shaw that is Fucking Awesome and that is highly opinionated (the audacity to even have an online persona, and to start software projects, points to a large amount of ego). But it was clearly always a self-parody. Unfortunately, self-parody doesn't work on the internet. Everyone always takes you at face value.

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Did you ever know a kid who would say something mean and then quickly follow it up with "JK!"? That kid was annoying.

I don't think it was a sincere effort. That's my point. Zed just wanted to be able to say mean things about people and not experience any consequences for it. And that's silly.

This fumbling around now is annoying. If he wants to be a mean person he should be a mean person. If he wants to be nice he should say he doesn't want to be mean anymore and be nicer. Changing his behavior and saying it's because I wasn't smart enough to handle his persona – and by the way don't criticize him for anything he said... What is that?

You have a point. On the other hand, people are contradictory. I think it is quite possible to think to yourself "heh, heh, I'm going to create the most ridiculously aggro coding blog ever" but in doing so also express the worst aspects of your own personality.

[tangent] Walt Whitman once wrote:

"Do I contradict myself? Very well, then I contradict myself, I am large, I contain multitudes."

Always loved that quote. Maybe it applies here in a way.

I'm not saying it's not annoying, but whether or not it was sincere, I don't see where you're getting that Zed doesn't think he should experience consequences. If you give him the benefit of the doubt, you'll realize that you didn't read what he wrote before ZSSFA, and therefore he pretty much proved his point that people listen to assholes and blowhards, however mind-numbingly obvious that may have already been.

He wants attention, that's all. Watch a video of him speak; he exudes nerd. The 'tude and the copious public blathering is just over-compensation.

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