Hacker News Reader

Comment by jkestner | Hacker News Reader

For better or worse, sunsets are just a social bridge. The value is, apparently, in sharing a moment with others. Both are ephemeral.

View on HN

Sounds like you need to look at more sunsets.

This is a pretty useless and unnecessary attack. Sunsets make up a very large percentage of Instagram, Snapchat, and FB photos shared at my university, which shows apparent social value.

Sure you may appreciate the experience of watching a sunset live, but clearly the social sharing aspect may be more important to others.

Are you really gonna argue that sunsets aren't beautiful, and merely a form of social currency?

What? I never said sunsets weren't beautiful. That's why people share them. I don't think of them as just a social bridge as the previous poster, but I was merely stating that sharing them can be the biggest value seen by others.

My original remark was a bit tongue in cheek - here we really can define every life experience in terms of engagement metrics.

Aside from sharing, we like to photograph things as some sort of time-space marker for ourselves, even if we never do anything with it. "This is memorable, so I should take a photo to affirm that." That's why everyone takes a goddamn photo of the Eiffel Tower.

No, the branch of the discussion is regarding sunsets in the context of social media/apps. Outside of that, they can be any number of things to a variety of people.

Who doesn't? But I'm with you. I personally don't share photos of sunsets, or food, or anything that someone can experience themselves.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com