Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by kittikitti 489 days ago
This is from Reddit, it should be taken with a grain of salt. Most people in the thread don't even trust it.
3 comments

The poster said they have been in contact with Scotch and are sending the scissors to them. I reviewed the poster's account when they originally posted it, and nothing sets off my bullshit alarm.
That's why one says and does those trivial things if one is going to post a hoax. Bullshit alarms have false negatives, and we'll never find out about most of them.
Yeah, there are many motives to fake this:

- derive personal amusement

- embarrass the credulous

- drive traffic to the subreddit

- serve as an experiment on credibility/marketing (to which we are contributing data, even here)

- reddit karma and name recognition, which do correlate somewhat to monetary value if you're motivated enough, and if not, still give you concrete advantages

- create future content for reaction streamers

And the formula for tricking reddit like this is pretty well-known by many, so there's your means.

> reddit karma and name recognition, which do correlate somewhat to monetary value if you're motivated enough

This is usually reason #1, and money doesn't have to be involved. Never underestimate the importance of imaginary internet points.

Their value is not imaginary, unfortunately, even without money ever being involved.
For me, it's always the 'Jason' factor.

Everyone knew a Jason when they were a kid, someone who was seemingly a compulsive liar, and would just say anything and everything to have people listen to them, even if then to say 'that's horseshit'.

Reddit seems to be full of Jasons.

Use your head! Would a person blatantly lie simply to get views on a social media site? No, it's much more likely that Scotch makes titanium scissors that spontaneously combust. /s
....and this is how we end up with Aliens over NJ.