I don't know whether to laugh at the suggestion that a crowd as diverse as HN has a "cumulative sense of humor" or be offended by the implied suggestion that my sense of humor matches that of Reddit's.
>I don't know whether to laugh at the suggestion that a crowd as diverse as HN has a "cumulative sense of humor"
People overestimate how different they are from the average person all the time, but regression to the mean is a thing. That's how we get a general culture (in the broad sense) -- even if there are subcultures within it.
Besides, how diverse is HN? If anything it's one of the more targeted communities -- most people here already are focused in programming and startups, and have a same-ish background even when from different countries. Contrast with something like YouTube or Reddit (general channels), where people are from all walks of life.
If 9gag, which also gets people from all around the world and with all kinds of interests and ages, can develop a "cumulative sense of humor" (and it has) then surely HN can too. This doesn't mean that everyone on HN will agree on some funny thing -- just that a large percentage will.
People overestimate how different they are from the average person all the time, but regression to the mean is a thing. That's how we get a general culture (in the broad sense) -- even if there are subcultures within it.
Besides, how diverse is HN? If anything it's one of the more targeted communities -- most people here already are focused in programming and startups, and have a same-ish background even when from different countries. Contrast with something like YouTube or Reddit (general channels), where people are from all walks of life.
If 9gag, which also gets people from all around the world and with all kinds of interests and ages, can develop a "cumulative sense of humor" (and it has) then surely HN can too. This doesn't mean that everyone on HN will agree on some funny thing -- just that a large percentage will.