Louis C.K. Takes On TV Hypocrisy, Aiming Scrutiny Back At Himself | Hacker News Reader

Louis C.K. Takes On TV Hypocrisy, Aiming Scrutiny Back At Himself

npr.org

49 pointsdanso22 comments

I think this issue can be made a bit simpler by considering the superficial nature of our 'first' encounter in the dating world. I mean, except in some extraordinary circumstance... the first time you meet someone, you are judging them on their appearance. Do they smell? Are they unkempt? Are they close shaven? Only if you are 'passable' in a person's mind for attractiveness, will you have the opportunity to open a conversation that could lead to more. It would be exceedingly hard to go from 'not dateable' based on first impression, to 'dateable' based on 15 minutes of extreme confidence and charm. Even online dating has only somewhat removed this problem if you consider the lengths to which people go to 'disguise' their appearance on profile photos. Or consider Tinder as an example of at least one class of dating--attractiveness is the requisite for having a chance at beginning a relationship. This is not being shallow or indicative of some character flaw... we are all entitled to choose who we will have as a partner.

To be honest, I think there are plenty of 'curvy' women that are NOT fat at all... in fact, some men would say they find those women more attractive than bone thin stereotypical model types. It's really about a level of maturity that a man attains when he udnerstands his 'wants' vs. his 'needs.' Sure chemistry could develop months down the line, but it's just more convenient to choose potential matches up front with the knowledge of your 'wants.'

Wait, am I reading this incorrectly, or are you implying that men who are attracted to "bone thin" models are less mature?

Women are assessed by their looks, while guys are assessed by their social value. A funny, outgoing, charismatic woman won't get a guy everyone wants. A hot woman will.

Depends... some girls have a really awesome personality that can attract any guy regardless of their looks.

Their not easy to find though i can honestly say I only met 1 or 2 in my life.

Already taken unfortunately but their always a joy to hang around with.

Do any of us actually control who we're attracted to?

I for one can control who I'm sleeping with but not who i find attractive on the other hand I'm not hesitant in enjoying to company of funny, flirtatious fat girl but the likelihood of me actually sleeping with her is very slim.

She just doesn't turn me on.

Then again there's one chubby girl i know that i wouldn't be against sleeping with. There's always exceptions...

There seems to be an effort by some here to turn HN into Reddit 2.0.

How is this content HN appropriate?

My kind of rule of thumb is whether it's interesting and thought provoking, not whether it's related to technology and startups. This article, or rather, the content of the episode, is interesting and thought provoking to me, and presumably other people.

The guidelines here say "anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity". Although of course, that's subjective.

I must say that I don't get it. The subject is TV and TV dating (not to be confused with real-world dating). It's water cooler conversation material, and not even the programmers' water cooler, but the one all the salesdroids hang out around and talk about TV shows and football.

I usually find these kind of comments inappropriate, since it must be interesting to have been submitted and upvoted.

However, in this case I agree... it's a stretch to call this relevant, even though I'm sure a lot of us respect Louis CK.

Can anyone offer some insight into how this fits into Hacker News?

Louis CK is a hacker of culture and comedy. It's totally appropriate.

Louis C.K's comings-and-goings have been on HN's frontpage before, most notably how he's decoupled himself and his work from the demands/constraints of TV comedy conventions, even to the point of him learning to shoot video and edit it on his own laptop, nevermind writing it (he even wrote all the lines for Dane Cook in the episode in which Cook rips on him for a real-life incident in which CK fans accused Cook of stealing CK's work)

Given such freedom in creating and producing content, it's interesting to see what content he actually chooses to produce.

That would have been an infinitely more interesting and appropriate article to read on HN. He seems to have initially achieved escape velocity from typical performer constraints by self-funding shows using his Reddit fanbase, is that right? If he's shooting and editing his own TV shows even at a preparatory stage, I want to read about that shit. I already noticed his show has some unconventional shots in it, and wondered why. That honestly was the most interesting part to me, how it didn't feel like the same old shit on TV in so many ways.

With regard to the topic at hand, talk about this particular TV show has been hitting my RSS reader. And so far all I'm seeing is the replacement of regressive, fact-free bullshit about heterosexual relationships with progressive, fact-free bullshit about heterosexual relationships. Another interesting article would be some sort of empirical approach to understanding these issues.

Here's an idea: new HNers can upvote, but no downvote. If HN's popularity goes up, you'll have a large influx of upvotes for trivial news, and a limited set of users to stop it, which is the typical problem for growing communities. I've been here for almost a year, and I still don't have enough karma to downvote, so I'd guess the number of high karma HNers must not be that big.
Also, according to the guidelines[1], you should use the report button (assuming you have enough karma) instead of commenting.
Edit: it took me longer to write this comment that it took for the article to go down. Nice.

Using Reddit's terms because I'm not sure if there are HN specific ones

[1] http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

"And, I mean, the great-looking ones, like the really high-caliber studs — they flirt right back, no problem. Because they know their status will never be questioned. But guys like you never flirt with me. Because you get scared that maybe you should be with a girl like me. And why not?""

That's not really the reason actually.

There is a version of this that happens once you get older. Young attractive women aren't afraid to talk to you like they were when you were younger. The reason is they don't feel threatened talking to someone who is approaching their dad's age. Because it's very clear where the boundaries are and what the "relationship" is.

Likewise the absolute stud can flirt with the (if you want to call it this) fuggly or the knockout girl can flirt with the pimpled nerd (or repairman) simply because the contrast is so great both parties clearly know their place in the interaction. It becomes an "as if we would date each other situation hah hah".

The closer two people come in looks, social status etc, the more likely there would be pressure to feel as if they could be a match and more likely to send out signals saying "sorry no match".

How does your point actually differ from what you quoted? It seems like you're saying the same thing.

"they know their status will never be questioned" = "the contrast is so great both parties clearly know their place in the interaction"

"you get scared that maybe you should be with a girl like me" = "The closer two people come in looks...the more likely there would be pressure to feel as if they could be a match"

>Young attractive women aren't afraid to talk to you like they were when you were younger.

Ha, yes this is happening to me. Where before there would be tension and standoffishness, attractive young women rarely hesitate to talk with me now, particularly when I'm with my kids.

I like it much better this way, since 99% of the time I really wasn't interested anyway. It always bugged me when physically attractive women assumed I would be interested in them. My physical ideal does not match the ideal of most of my fellow countrymen.

To be clear, I've seen many physically attractive men behave the same way; indeed, my wife and I frequently joke about this now.

In any case, it's a relief now to be able to just relate to people as fellow humans, without some sort of social expectations to live up to regarding our mutual attraction (or lack thereof, more often).

In the words of The Hold Steady: guys go for looks, girls go for status.

Heterosexual dating is inherently hypocritical. You're not a woman, yet you demand to date women, what is the matter with you? Where do you get off with this kind of entitlement? More seriously though (that first sentence was just 70% serious), just consider if you are looking for a partner that is masculine (holds equally for gay or straight relationships). Suppose that you yourself are feminine. But isn't that hypocrisy? How can you demand to only date people that are not like you, in some way? Or you are an extroverted person that wants to date introverted people. Or that you are impulsive, and want to date someone more calculating and planning. Hypocrisy? Or is looking for someone who is different from you in some way, okay?

If you say; but being fat is unhealthy. OK, but is it purely a character flaw? I think not; some people have a harder time keeping the weight off, though they might be equally healthy to someone who is relatively thin. Louise CK might not be a good example of this, though. And, if it is some "flaw", then that fat person might tolerate other flaws than being fat. Do people have to match up symmetrically when it comes flaws and virtues? Besides, people are fat for different reasons; some people eat a lot because they use it to fill a void in their life. Other people may have totally different reasons. So it doesn't even make sense to take two people and say "they are both fat, and thus they both have the same 'issues'". One issue might manifest as sex addiction in one person, alcohol addiction in another, and food addiction in yet another.

I get what you're saying, but denouncing someone for traits you yourself have is in fact hypocritical. If you want to date an honest person but you yourself are a flagrant liar, that's not a "desire to date someone different than you." Anyone with common sense would call that out as hypocritical.

Is it hypocrisy to want somebody who is complementary to you in some way, who can balance out your own flaws while you balance theirs? We do this all the time in business, perhaps you are an amazing programmer but poor at design. So you will seek a co-founder or co-worker with the skills that you lack.

This type of literal pedantry and dissection of minute details is the polar opposite of the type of insightful and revealing observation which Louis CK is so adept at weaving into his work.

The connection to HN, IMHO, is this: Louis CK is extraordinarily creative and committed to his art and craft, attributes demanded of entrepreneurs. He sometimes figuratively "hacks" viewer's brains with clever, surprising, insightful works, even when he gets parts wrong. It's the kind of accomplishment I think we can aspire to. We want our code, or our hardware, or our bare idea, to change minds, to inspire discussion, and even to disrupt lazy convention.

Oh, and the topic of this episode is not at all removed from women in tech, and how to "get it" and treat people well, regardless of age, size, shape, gender, religion, etc; these are perennial HN topics, if I'm not mistaken.

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