Comment by blhack | Hacker News Reader

Comment by blhack | Hacker News Reader

I've said this before: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4195909

and I'll say it again: if you want to do something, do it.

A great story I heard recently:

A old comedian is talking to a younger, struggling, perhaps up-and-coming comedian. The young comedian is frustrated because he isn't finding the work that he wants (writing), and is bitter about "the business".

The old comedian asks

"So, lets say some famous person wants to hire you for $10,000 a week to just write funny tweets for them. Do you think you'd be able to do it? Come up with something really funny for them every day to post to twitter?"

"For $10,000 a week?"

"Yeah"

"Yeah, sure, for that much money I'm sure I could write something funny for them every day."

"Well then why won't you do it for yourself?"

It is so, so true. I know so many programmers and designers who insist that they want to work either in tech, or in design, yet if you ask them what they're working on, they respond that nobody has hired them yet.

--

The story was on this episode: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vWH-8v_x68Y

Of the Joe Rogan podcast.

Not that I disagree with the overall message but that's a silly example. Writing a joke tweet for yourself wouldn't likely lead to $10,000. At $10,000 a week you can dedicate many hours a day to coming up with a killer joke instead of working some other job or searching for a job... Unless that story is supposed to be a joke, in which case, I didn't get it.

Anecdotal and not super pertinent, but joke Twitter accounts can absolutely net $10,000 a week. There are glorified bots (think something along the lines of @MensHumor or @YaBoyBillNye) with hundreds of thousands of followers that sell advertising (either external links or 'sponsored' tweets) . It's an entire bizarre community that profits massively off of retweet-happy teens.

Unless I am missing something, hundreds of thousands of followers on these types of accounts definitely does not equal close to $10,000 a week.

Anecdotal and not super pertinent, but joke Twitter accounts can absolutely net $10,000 a week

Citation needed.

Oh wait... here goes:

There are glorified bots .. with hundreds of thousands of followers that sell advertising

Ok. So you dont make money tweeting tweets. You make money farming followers and selling ads.

That's acceptable if you can make that work for you, but don't present it like you make money from tweeting when in fact you're make money selling ads.

The money is not even close to the point.

It is about practice. If you <fill in the blank> every day, you will get better and better and better. You will get better much faster than if you try to create the perfect <fill in the blank> on each attempt. And if you keep at it, eventually someone will notice.

So true. We are conditioned by education to look for a job when our natural inclination is to simply do.

My 8yo niece wants to make money and wanted to have a lemonade stand. Her dad literally told her, no, you need to start thinking about getting a job.

I hope they don't wear her down eventually.

8 years old and get a job?

Labor laws be damned

He didn't mean she should get a job as an 8 year old but that her long term goal should be a job.

Jokes pay about $50. At 1.5 tweets per day, the most someone is going to pay is $2,250 a month. But, when they are sending that much work they are going to ask for a discount. $1,500 a month tops.

Sure, down-vote the joke writer. Classy.

HEY POOR PERSON, INSTEAD OF TRYING TO PREVENT A MISERABLE DEATH FROM STARVATION AND EXPOSURE WHEN YOU'RE CAST OUT ON THE STREETS FOR NOT PAYING RENT, JUST TELL JOKES OR PAINT PRETTY PICTURES ALL DAY, OR WRITE LOVE NOTES, OR JUST STARE OUT THE WINDOW AND DREAMMMMMM!!! BECAUSE THAT'S WHAT YOU LOVE TO DO ISN'T IT? GOD, IT'S ALL SO SIMPLE AND OBVIOUS, WHY DON'T YOU JUST "GET IT"???

...oh, and by the way, stop hitting yourself. stop hitting yourself. stop hitting yourself. why do you keep hitting yourself. stop hitting yourself.

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