Swine Flu: The New Startup Monetization Plan | Hacker News Reader

Swine Flu: The New Startup Monetization Plan

techcrunch.com

16 pointsreevo11 comments

IMHO, this is wonderful. Laughing at the death is the only way to deal with it.

Ask anyone who actually has gone through a long, slow, painful experience. The only way to come out the other end intact is to keep your sense of humor.

Laughing represents the best in the human experience. And if we don't laugh, we'll cry. So mock the Flu, mock the Bomb, mock Death itself. If you don't start enjoying life now, when will you?

I actually think this is a fairly good way to distract people from the media scaremongering.

And there's also TechCrunch which is monetizing swine flu by writing a story about some mediocre attempts to monetize swine flu.

If only I could attach ads to your post, I could monetize of your attempt to ... and then some

I decided that another user was right in saying that it is in bad taste (arguably profiting from others' misfortune), so i deleted my facebook app.

I built it yesterday to poke fun at the panic (it was just a simple counter & invite script with a few viral feed features), but i woke up today and decided it is much more serious, given that people have died.

Horrible type of humor, IMHO.

I am known for making some hardcore jokes, but I try not to laugh, and profit, from others people horrors. Just like I want others to not laugh from mine.

And no, I won't "lighten up and laugh, life is funny". It's like these authors never went into a painful experience. I am pretty sure their grandfathers died of cancer, or something like that. A similar slow destroying, soul crushing process. I wonder how they would feel if random people started making jokes about cancer.

But hey, we're just little monkeys, living in a sphere of indifference.

What if he were a more traditional comedian, and gallows humor was how he coped with, and helped others cope with, a situation that many people find scary and beyond their control?

Would you still feel justified in condemning him for profiting "from other people's horrors"?

I think gallows humor makes sense sometimes. For example, in the case of terrorism, which we really have no way to prevent and can just as easily hit the rich as it can the poor. Hence, the jokes that we hear nightly about Osama, etc.

But the people who buy these shirts or make these games probably won't have to deal with swine flu (or at least die from it), because they likely have good healthcare and their nations are relatively rich with infrastructures that can accommodate a large percentage of their populations becoming sick at once. I don't think they're in a position to mock the disease.

On the other hand, I'm fine the Mexicans who are sprucing up their face masks with funny mustaches as people are dying around them. They're living it. The guys looking to get their startup a few more ad impressions? Not so much.

Mexicans actually play Swinefighter more than any other country.

It is a serious subject, we made the game in a way that was sensitive to that and avoided mocking the victims but was intended to give some amusement. People on the whole enjoy it on twitter etc.

Edit: we also have no ads runing currently

> But the people who buy these shirts or make these games probably won't have to deal with swine flu

You might consider that people's fears about most dangers are far out of proportion to the actual probability of their encountering them.

I think you're doing the "what aboutery" discussed some time ago. These people are not traditional comedians dealing with their own pains using humour, and making life brighter. It's a couple kids here and there selling "funny" t-shirts.

It's not a therapeutical way for them to deal with the problem. It's for a quick buck.

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