Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by moritzwarhier 47 days ago
Didn't watch it really, I just meant that at the time (early 2000s), the very idea of the show made people say it's unethical, even with consent.

It being scripted doesn't really change much, but yes, I think your tangent is correct.

I wanted to illustrate the shift in what's considered "normal", fully acknowledging that a scripted show catering to voyeurism is different from the situation discussed here. Completely different, just related.

The "outrage fuel" that I meant was that some people consider it immoral to incentivize people to overstep boundaries of privacy, decency and human dignity.

Staged or not, the selling point of the show was that it was about "regular people".

I'm aware that this small and short-lived public discussion seems antiquated today, that's why I mentioned it.

1 comments

Gotcha, thanks for the clarification (and FTR I never watched either).

> some people consider it immoral to incentivize people to overstep boundaries of privacy, decency and human dignity

I'd be one of those people. Mr Beast is a cancer on our society and the fact that he is the most popular YouTuber says volumes about our society as a whole (again--never watched, but I've read enough). Though I imagine much of his stunts are staged as well, I think it just goes along with what you're saying about Big Brother.

I don't think this kind of public discussion is antiquated (assuming you're talking about this meta-discussion in this comment thread), I'd say it's just rare to see unless you look for it (HN for example). And I'd also argue that those who criticized pop culture were always in the minority (almost by definition). I think it's a good callout regardless.