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by todfox 1186 days ago
I'm sure the Lessons so Far list really does work, but it seems like mental illness to me. Trying to be entertaining to get followers, tailoring your work so that it gets attention, talking to the right people on social media and being sure to take their side or promote them. It's sickening.

This is why every YouTube thumbnail has a face with bugged out eyes and huge fonts. This is why all news is sensationalism now. It's all about grabbing attention and getting revenue over making or doing something worthwhile.
2 comments
jimhi 1186 days ago
I thought like you until about a year ago. Marketing is a skill much like software development and people much less deserving than you are making far more money than you and actively saying things that making our world worse. I don't think you should dismiss getting better at it.

That said, I don't disagree it's a mental illness.

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koch 1186 days ago
> actively saying things that making our world worse. I don't think you should dismiss getting better at it.

Well now that doesn't sound quite right, either, does it? Get better at saying things that make our world worse?

I feel like both you and @todfox here, I hate what it is but I also know that it's absolutely necessary. It seems to be a lesson I keep relearning. But the ickiness of attention-seeking and going for the lowest common denominator really makes it hard for me to keep it up.

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nebulousthree 1186 days ago
> But the ickiness of attention-seeking and going for the lowest common denominator really makes it hard for me to keep it up.

Attention-seeking, fine, but lowest common denominator is a self-defeating assumption. If my thing was making very elaborate high quality chairs, I don't have to make a bunch of crappy generic chairs to bring attention to the elaborate ones. The fear of failure in your niche may drive this though. But by doing so you're just growing the overall demographic you serve which brings in more people, giving you the impression of finally succeeding..but you may not get more sales of the product you actually care about in the first place: the elaborate chair.

My point is: go for the "denominator" you feel you want to address, and be enthusiastically attention-seeking there. Pretending to care about other demographics, building product for them and supporting all that extra infrastructure is soul-crushing

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todfox 1186 days ago
I agree with you, but any time I've attempted it I just feel sick to my stomach.
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julianeon 1186 days ago
I 99% agree, and I would 100% agree, if it wasn't for one thing:

I need money to survive.

Every one of those things you cited, when you remove the levels of indirection, is oriented towards making money.

So, yeah. If I didn't have to make money I also wouldn't do those things. But I have to, so I do.

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