[zoeysaurusrex]

Holy shit HN is extra today. In this thread I counted maybe three responses that were meaningful. The rest were armchair quarterbacking from a lot of folks on how to do it better or how the product sucks without substantive feedback. What happened to HN? Nearly every thread is like this anymore. This quote is becoming more and more relevant here.

“You write your snide bullshit in a dark room because that's what the angry do these days”

[telesilla]

In this spirit of this thread being completely useless to talk about the app itself I'm going to comment on your use of the word "extra" which is a decidedly recent usage for the word and, as a person born in the 20th century, I'm still getting my head around it. I love watching language evolve around me.

[SquareWheel]

I assumed they made a typo. What does it mean in this context?

[master-litty]

This is a funny word. I use it often and I'm finding "extra" difficult to explain.

My best take is that you take the general expectation or main thing about a situation -- Then when something is "extra," the magnitude of the expectation or thing is large. But usually there's an unusual spin involved too, only very slightly.

Example: My fiancee's makeup is extra. Makeup is typically accenting beauty and lightly applied, so when it's extra, it's overwhelmingly pretty and heavily applied.

In this context, Hacker News is known for mostly serious discussion and polite chains of building thoughts. The users are extra today by being dramatically serious and having impolite chains of volatile thoughts, or maybe even chains of echochambering.

[SquareWheel]

That is pretty tough to wrap one's head around. I guess it requires reading into the subject from context and estimating the most likely characteristic being magnified.

Thank you for the explanation.

[master-litty]

It was a tough one to write out too.

Hopefully more help than ramble. Thank you for coming to my TED talk :)

[peteretep]

Does your use of it differ from the expression “over the top”, or are those the same?

[master-litty]

Good find! "Logically" they're pretty close, "emotionally" they can be different.

If her makeup is "over the top" that's a bad thing, she's not dressed appropriately. If her makeup is "extra" it's meant to be encouraging -- it's "over the top" but the "inappropriate" change is welcomed.

"Extra" is sometimes used with that sarcastic element or downward twist (seen by OP) that chips away the welcoming bit. In that context, I think the usage is similar to "over the top".