[rantymcrant]

This may be very cool but I'm here to rant

What is it with "I made a _______" posts? Those seem new to me and very braggy. I see them on youtube as well. I feel like if I could check all the posts to HN I'd find a trend of instead of just "Show HN: A tool/app/site to do X" there's a tread of adding "I made" in front. Is that a result of social media conditioning, that you must brag that "I" made?

[saghm]

I can't speak for youtube given that I don't really actively browse it, but I'm not sure how it's "braggy" when the entire purpose of "Show HN" is to demo things that were made by the person posting it (https://news.ycombinator.com/showhn.html):

> Show HN is for something you've made that other people can play with.

At most, it's redundant, but not in a way that hurts anyone.

[fragmede]

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1381172 is the oldest one I could find via the algolia search at the bottom of the page, from 2010, so it's not that recent a phenomenon. A different reading is less that the emphasis is on I made a thing, and more about being a complete sentence with an explicit subject vs implicit.

[rantymcrant]

Checking the years those types of post have increased several X over a few years ago (the year starting april 1st)

    2023 416
    2022 307
    2021 232
    2020 252
    2019 158
    2018 87
    2017 42
    2016 45
    2015 39
    2014 42
    2013 68
    2012 40
    2011 28
    2010 10

That's just "Show HN: I made" and doesn't include all the similar "I built ..." and similar braggy titles.

[fragmede]

I don't have a problem with people bragging about a thing they made. I think if someone spent a bunch of time on a thing, I'll give them time to be proud of the work they did and give them space to show off.

if it's something I'm interested in. The difference between "ShowHN: I built a thing", and "ShowHN: thing" seems inconsequential to me.

But you know that one about how naming things is an unsolved problem in computer science? Looking at random search results, I think it's more about it being a more natural way to describe something. "Show HN: I built a thing that does blah", rather than "Show HN: Foobar, a thing that does blah".

If I do "Show hn: George", what's George? vs "Show HN: I made a thing that does foo called George"

Interestingly enough, there are only 805 results for "Show HN: We" vs 5,060 results for "Show HN: I", What a bunch of loners we are.

[rantymcrant]

I see "I made X that does Y" as self promotion. You're not prmmoting X, your prmoting the fact that "I" made it. You're smart. People should take you seriously. They should offer you jobs and/or praise. Of course you're secondarily promoting X but only in the cause of promoting yourself

I see "X, an app that does Y" as promoting X and sayuhg "reader, you might find X useful if you want to do Y"

The purpose of the posts are entirely different.

Your observation on "We" is interesting though I suspect that teams are more likely to write "X, and app that does Y" because "We made X" doesn't achieve the self promotion goals in the same way as "I made X"

[fragmede]

Another question is, why do you have such a problem with people promoting themselves? On the Internet, no one knows who your sockpuppet is. So if you come across a post that says look at this cool thing I found on the Internet, and you feel one way about it, vs someone says look at this cool thing I made, vs I'm cool, look at this thing I made, and then you feel a third way about the exact same thing.

Human psychology is fascinating.