A comment complaining this was obviously written by an AI, and the standard template is a tell. A philosophical observation about what that says about the state on online discourse. Link to the Dead Internet Wikipedia page.
foltik 23 hours ago [-]
Wistful nostalgia about the golden age of HN from an account created 11 months ago.
Bonus mention of a pg essay which the commenter clearly only read the title of.
fenomas 18 hours ago [-]
Curmudgeonly comment from someone trying to sound like a wise elder about how actually all this was the norm even in the days of Usenet.
jantissler 23 hours ago [-]
An unrelated comment added as a reply to the current top comment to get more views
Mordisquitos 1 days ago [-]
A response appreciating the comment above for saving ones time.
tsumnia 1 days ago [-]
A bad faith response that attempts to derail the conversation from the original article.
hperrin 1 days ago [-]
A snarky and insulting joke where the above commenter is the butt of the joke, calling attention to the bad faith response.
euroderf 23 hours ago [-]
A modest plea for civility.
cyanydeez 22 hours ago [-]
Off topic summary of the discourse regarding a pet peeve that litterally no one has.
irishcoffee 22 hours ago [-]
A reminded that the riff raff can go to the “other site” when these threads occur.
dmittman 13 hours ago [-]
A haiku comment,
Describing its own structure,
Hoping for upvotes.
mkarliner 12 hours ago [-]
A celebration that wit and good humour still exists on HN.
acidtechno303 11 hours ago [-]
a passive-aggressive attack from a self-righteous hilltop
freehorse 10 hours ago [-]
[flagged]
dijksterhuis 8 hours ago [-]
a comment that only make sense to people with showdead turned on
1 days ago [-]
mckirk 1 days ago [-]
Nitpicky reply questioning the adherence of OP's comment to HN guidelines.
bavell 7 hours ago [-]
Self-aware meta commentary on HNers breaking HN guidelines to cite HN guidelines.
rwoerz 17 hours ago [-]
A reference [1] in an attempt to go one level of self-reference further.
A poor attempt at joining the convo too late because I don't browse /new like everyone else. No one upvotes, and I question my intelligence for the 3rd time today.
awkwardpotato 1 days ago [-]
A random reply hours later, long after the post has left the front page
mjmas 13 hours ago [-]
A second reply that happened because the article reappeared on the front page.
dgan 8 hours ago [-]
Motivational comment to remind OP that his life matters, even and especially, in difficult times
rolandog 19 hours ago [-]
A suspiciously highly upvoted psyop disguised as lengthy diatribe authoritatively waxing poetic in a tone that conflates the thing that has been linked with everything that is wrong with humanity but that can be boiled down to empty platitudes that end up tiring the average reader and successfully prevents more people from engaging with the content.
valiant55 19 hours ago [-]
A comment the adds nothing to the discussion but derails the conversation with an anecdotes from the writers childhood because how this topic vaguely reminds them of something kind of similar.
bpavuk 4 hours ago [-]
A simplification inquiry. Gets downvoted to death.
joshstrange 1 days ago [-]
> Cherry-picked quote from the article cut off too early
Bad faith argument that could only be made by not reading further into the article or cutting the quote off before it answers the exact question/argument posed here.
freehorse 1 days ago [-]
Comment asking the previous commenter in a passive aggressive manner whether they had actually read the article, without providing any further context or counter to the argument made.
23 hours ago [-]
Eduard 1 days ago [-]
A comment at Hacker News which provides a nuanced critique and which gains plenty of upvotes as a lot of users agree to the comment's sentiment.
sillysaurusx 1 days ago [-]
A comment disagreeing with the central argument, presenting factual evidence for why it’s mistaken. Downvoted for an hour before balancing back out to a score of 2.
mapontosevenths 8 hours ago [-]
An irrelevant screed about AI reminding everyone that only organic, free-range, cage free code is completely bug free and perfect every time.
zirkonit 1 days ago [-]
A comment based on the reading of the title that could only be conceived if the commenter didn't bother to click the article at all.
mihaic 1 days ago [-]
A snide and vitriolic remark that observes on how the first paragraph actually addresses the concern of the person which hasn't read the article. A further continuation on this being representative of the state of modern online discourse.
stevepotter 8 hours ago [-]
A condescending put down from someone who has expertise in this area but also didn’t read the article and just felt like feeling superior this morning
ted_bunny 8 hours ago [-]
A low-effort continuance of the format of these comments, demolishing the comedic premise and irreparably Redditizing the thread.
stevepotter 2 hours ago [-]
Well played
bryanrasmussen 12 hours ago [-]
Since I haven't actually read the article I'm just going to note that the title obviously wasn't cryptic enough to get me to take action on it; I'm not saying this to brag, the brag is totally accidental like.
mellosouls 1 days ago [-]
"A Technical Blog Post by a Big Name Expert" (2013)
An obvious attempt to insert a link into my own vibe-coded project, in the pretense it is either relevant or related.
stitched2gethr 6 hours ago [-]
A question asking how your project compares to x so I don't have to do the research for myself.
mcdeltat 11 hours ago [-]
A suspiciously upvoted hyperspecific critique of niche features of the project which are not relevant to most users
stevekemp 11 hours ago [-]
Thanks!!!1!!
alphawhisky 1 days ago [-]
A scathing review of the project in one or two sentences. With no help or improvements to offer.
andromaton 18 hours ago [-]
A highly voted comment that seems insightful if you don't know the domain but amateurish if you do.
Karrot_Kream 1 days ago [-]
A comment making a subtle point about something discussed in the middle of the article that languishes near the bottom of the page because nobody read the full article.
CephalopodMD 1 days ago [-]
A link to the HN discussion from when this was already posted here 6 months ago, possibly to be helpful, but also possibly as an attempt to admonish others for not knowing this is a repost.
ijk 16 hours ago [-]
An ouwardly earnest reminder that reposts are explicitly encouraged on HN, but disingenuously omitting to mention the "after 12 months" part of that.
cperciva 1 days ago [-]
A complaint about the quality of posts and the comments they elicit here, followed by an allegation that Hacker News is turning into Reddit.
Aurornis 1 days ago [-]
> followed by an allegation that Hacker News is turning into Reddit.
A reminder that saying Hacker News is turning into Reddit is explicitly against the rules here, delivered in an unnecessarily condescending manner.
beemboy 22 hours ago [-]
A note from the original author, possibly even a minor nerd celebrity, expressing surprise at this making the HN page and gratitude for those that rediscovered and reposted it.
stevepotter 8 hours ago [-]
Praise about one their older projects that I used in the good ol’ days
saaaaaam 1 days ago [-]
A schtick that is at least as old as the internet, revitalised for new audiences who think it is brilliantly original, to make the author look clever.
It is especially effective because he is doing all the things he is describing at a high level.
Joeboy 1 days ago [-]
An opinion about the design of the website.
terramex 1 days ago [-]
Link to HN guidelines with following quote pasted below:
> Please don't complain about tangential annoyances—e.g. article or website formats, name collisions, or back-button breakage. They're too common to be interesting.
A related comment to mention the perceived good performance of the website and how the web would be much better if such simple and performant designs were more prevalent.
A second paragraph vaguely taking aim at every common framework and library used and why they're all the real fundamental problem.
chrismorgan 11 hours ago [-]
Which in this case will be a complaint about the preposterously large font-size, and will be warranted iff the author is in the thread.
Headwig 24 hours ago [-]
A comment going along with the joke of the article, but in a meta way. Thusly creating a meta context loop that needs to be addressed.
wavemode 23 hours ago [-]
A comment dismissing the author's problem as irrelevant since AI agents will soon be able to solve it for us.
econ 1 days ago [-]
Repeat the title 3 times in the first 3 lines then again as the start of the next paragraph.
Fill the rest of the article assuming this is the readers first day on planet earth. Like, an article about a CPU architecture should start with the early history of mathematics.
brandonmensing 1 days ago [-]
A note of gratitude from a first time poster who tries to take some credit by saying they have always felt the same way
olivia-banks 1 days ago [-]
"If Educational Videos Were Filmed Like Music Videos" - Tom Scott
A question that was addressed in the 3rd paragraph of the article
disgruntledphd2 1 days ago [-]
A subtle counterpoint from paragraph seven (7)
Liftyee 14 hours ago [-]
An unnecessarily long comment that rambles on about a simple core point, that could be summed up in one sentence but has excessive detail added to ensure that everyone gets it.
(Are sentences like this akin to literary quines? The sentence describes its own purpose/function, while also fulfilling that function. It feels like constructing one should be easy, but ends up being harder than it looks.)
olmo23 7 hours ago [-]
A short reply without much substance
wiredfool 22 hours ago [-]
It goes like this, the fourth, the fifth
The minor falls, the major lifts
j2kun 1 days ago [-]
A comment not about the article, but rather about the perceived quality of the HN comments.
ramon156 1 days ago [-]
A niche reference almost no one gets, except one.
ambicapter 1 days ago [-]
A comment haughtily linking to the original appearance of said reference.
TZubiri 23 hours ago [-]
Complaining that the joke is ruined, but secretly a way to belong to the in group without actually knowing the joke beforehand
MathMonkeyMan 15 hours ago [-]
Admonishing the joke for excluding some, allegedly, particularly me, as a venue for wider grievences about feeling to be in the out group.
nkmnz 24 hours ago [-]
A comment about how this could be achieved using rsync instead.
noman-land 19 hours ago [-]
A link to the infamous Dropbox comment.
CompoundEyes 22 hours ago [-]
A comment from a representative of the company getting raked over the coals in the article and discussion in an attempt at damage control.
brumar 22 hours ago [-]
A comment overgeneralizing the current comments trend to then write something less conformant.
Also that: I never saw HN being so playful before.
LocalH 5 hours ago [-]
A shitty comment that pisses people off enough that it gets flagged to death
<insert favorite bigoted insult here>
danhon 1 days ago [-]
This should be read in conjunction with a think piece[0]
An expression of surprise and appreciation that the author, an expert in his field, is actually a HN participant.
andromaton 18 hours ago [-]
A comment from someone who knows or knew the author or was part of the project sharing details that makes readers feel like they've just been handed backstage passes.
Agentlien 14 hours ago [-]
A personal anecdote which was on my mind as soon as I read the title but doesn't relate to the actual topic at hand.
a secondary comment explicitly explaining why this comment’s author downvoted the parent.
vednig 14 hours ago [-]
> with reference to original text written in the blog
some random thoughts on it and facts about it being literally infinitesimally low chance that this would ever occur irrespective of the fact that somehow it did
r721 1 days ago [-]
Reminds me of Schizopolis movie (by Steven Soderbergh):
>Fletcher Munson: [sunnily, on homecoming] Generic greeting!
Reminds? In a way that's basically a ripoff of the idea just applied to a different topic.
clevor 16 hours ago [-]
An unhelpful comment left by a user who only read a few sentences of the blog post.
stevepotter 8 hours ago [-]
A link to a project that does the exact same thing, except it’s built with Rust
salomon812 1 days ago [-]
A sentence remarking this concept was implemented in a different media.
----
Title of the song
Naive expression of love
Reluctance to accept that you are gone
Request to turn back time and rectify my wrongs
Repetition of the title of the song
metronomer 17 hours ago [-]
A comment commenting all the comments that do not comment on themselves.
boznz 1 days ago [-]
I guess I am too honest to go down the click-bait title stuff. I would love to get more traffic too my web site, but not this way. I prefer to write up interesting hardware of software projects, but i'm in the middle of writing another sci-fi epic and there are only so many projects you can juggle :-)
nout 23 hours ago [-]
Unrelated comment nudging people to use nostr instead of the centralized established solution.
andromaton 18 hours ago [-]
A commenter pointing out that the article is implicitly US-centric
k1t 14 hours ago [-]
A tedious response highlighting that YC is a US investment group and that US-centric articles should be expected.
tnelsond4 22 hours ago [-]
Comment that starts a completely unrelated rabbit trail.
MathMonkeyMan 15 hours ago [-]
600 descendant comments that obscure the main thread.
abstractbill 1 days ago [-]
A complaint asking what this has to do with hackers or hacking.
sunrunner 1 days ago [-]
A mildly annoyed reply quoting the Hacker News Guidelines to point out that:
> On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes more than hacking and startups.
andromaton 18 hours ago [-]
A comment noting that the submitter has posted this exact link multiple times in the last six months.
19 hours ago [-]
andromaton 18 hours ago [-]
A comment explaining that this has long been a solved problem in some other language or domain
andromaton 18 hours ago [-]
A comment noting the article is from YYYY and asking if the mods can add (YYYY) to the title.
Lerc 19 hours ago [-]
I liked this as much as;
Selective Study Confirms Already Held Prejudice.
It makes a good companion to;
Outlier Study Upends Conventional Wisdom.
heliumtera 8 hours ago [-]
Orange reddit is ded
nusl 1 days ago [-]
This seems like a useful reference when asking AI to create content for you, despite the irony
wizardforhire 1 days ago [-]
A simple statement of acknowledgement.
> a quote from the article
A link to something relevant or interesting to add or support a point [1]
An opinionated comment or personal anecdote.
[1] the link from above
bensyverson 1 days ago [-]
A reply which references neither the parent comment nor the article, but makes a strong and likely negative statement.
Redster 1 days ago [-]
>> a quote from the article
> An opinionated comment or personal anecdote.
Counter opinion or added nuance. [1]
[1] A link for support or to demonstrate a counterexample.
zirkonit 1 days ago [-]
An uncalled-for ad hominem that serves to quickly devolve the discussion in opinionated ragebait.
homeonthemtn 8 hours ago [-]
Kneejerk contrarian response
Nevermark 23 hours ago [-]
A link to a web archived version of the paywalled original.
TZubiri 24 hours ago [-]
Deranged comment that has only a vague connection to the article topic, but allows me to explore a thought that I had beforehand, poorly formatted and stream-of-consciousnessy because this is not a blog post or even a linkedin article, it's a random comment buried in the depths of the internet and I wrote it for myself.
Continuation of the thoughts from the first paragraph and repetition, because either I forgot what I had and had not written, but also because the flow of the thought naturally brings me back to the main thesis, as if solving a mathematical problem and then going backwards to the original problem statement with a different technique for verification. Deranged poorly formatted comment that only barely connects to the topic at hand, which I only read the first part of anyways.
23 hours ago [-]
throwpoaster 1 days ago [-]
A comment that takes a second to realize it’s a troll.
nothinkjustai 1 days ago [-]
A comment pointing out that this submission and/or comment section break the HN rules, which are selectively ignored by the VC mods.
An opposing comment that is vaguely on-topic only so that the commenter can talk about themselves and their n=1 experience that they incorrectly extrapolate onto everyone else in the world
gbibas 16 hours ago [-]
Very Meta and very cool. Well written
_doctor_love 1 days ago [-]
Tu caca, Derrida?
NonHyloMorph 1 days ago [-]
ramon156 12 minutes ago | unvote | prev | next [–]
A niche reference almost no one gets, except one
_doctor_love 1 days ago [-]
An appreciative comment making the original niche poster feel seen.
erelong 1 days ago [-]
"titlemaxxing" / "clickbaitmaxxing"
ajkjk 1 days ago [-]
I for one am not playing along
I did enjoy this, though. Even the title worked.
Nevermark 23 hours ago [-]
A weak argument which suggests there is a strong parallel to a famous 20th century expansionist totalitarian.
seamossfet 1 days ago [-]
A false dichotomy that segments typical replies into one of two groups.
Group 1: A thinly veiled straw man that buckets everyone I disagree with, along with an attempt to appear as if I'm being unbiased
Group 2: The group I put myself in and provide better arguments for why this perspective is correct.
Vague motte and bailey statement that gives me plausible deniability when someone criticizes my analysis.
Nevermark 23 hours ago [-]
A thoughtful witty self-effacing on point comment. Which for some reason gets no upvotes. No downvotes. No follow up comments.
1 days ago [-]
smitty1e 23 hours ago [-]
Full-throated denunciation of anyone who can't see the marionette strings of Big Conspiracy behind all of this.
throwanem 1 days ago [-]
...sheesh.
stephbook 1 days ago [-]
[dead]
Jerrrrrrrry 19 hours ago [-]
[dead]
andromaton 18 hours ago [-]
[dead]
supliminal 17 hours ago [-]
[dead]
throw_47720827 1 days ago [-]
A heavily downvoted comment from a new account registered specifically to comment on this link.
tomi_dev 1 days ago [-]
Feels similar with cold email.I used to think it was mostly about better copy or subject lines, but lately it feels like timing matters way more. Same message, different moment, completely different outcome.
Have you seen cases where timing mattered more than the message itself?
Animats 1 days ago [-]
In other words, clickbait.
Fox News used to be awful in this respect, with ledes such as "(Important thing) happens in (unnamed city)". Now they name the city. So that trick apparently backfired. It seems to have died out, along with "One weird trick..." articles.
New York Times opinion articles, though, have become worse. Today, "This May Be the Most Important Medical Story of the Decade". It's not.
Rendered at 20:17:33 GMT+0000 (Coordinated Universal Time) with Vercel.
Bonus mention of a pg essay which the commenter clearly only read the title of.
Describing its own structure,
Hoping for upvotes.
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47727104
A Technical Blog Post by a Big Name Expert - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5326511 - March 2013 (189 comments)
A compelling title that is cryptic enough to get you to take action on it - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43219556 - Feb 2025 (112 comments)
A Hacker News thread where every comment describes itself - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38451203 - Nov 2023 (74 comments)
A request for others to add to the list.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47721995
Bad faith argument that could only be made by not reading further into the article or cutting the quote off before it answers the exact question/argument posed here.
http://bradconte.com/files/misc/HackerNewsParodyThread/
Discussion (589 points, 189 comments):
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5326511
A reminder that saying Hacker News is turning into Reddit is explicitly against the rules here, delivered in an unnecessarily condescending manner.
It is especially effective because he is doing all the things he is describing at a high level.
> Please don't complain about tangential annoyances—e.g. article or website formats, name collisions, or back-button breakage. They're too common to be interesting.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
A second paragraph vaguely taking aim at every common framework and library used and why they're all the real fundamental problem.
Fill the rest of the article assuming this is the readers first day on planet earth. Like, an article about a CPU architecture should start with the early history of mathematics.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G025oxyWv0E
(Are sentences like this akin to literary quines? The sentence describes its own purpose/function, while also fulfilling that function. It feels like constructing one should be easy, but ends up being harder than it looks.)
Also that: I never saw HN being so playful before.
<insert favorite bigoted insult here>
[0] https://medium.com/@hondanhon/this-is-a-think-piece-78618692...
The article itself was in fact delightful once I zoomed out a bunch.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
a secondary comment explicitly explaining why this comment’s author downvoted the parent.
some random thoughts on it and facts about it being literally infinitesimally low chance that this would ever occur irrespective of the fact that somehow it did
>Fletcher Munson: [sunnily, on homecoming] Generic greeting!
>Mrs. Munson: [warmly] Generic greeting returned!
>[they kiss and chuckle at each other]
>Fletcher Munson: Imminent sustenance.
>Mrs. Munson: Overly dramatic statement regarding upcoming meal.
>Fletcher Munson: Oooh! False reaction indicating hunger and excitement!
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0117561/quotes/
----
Title of the song
Naive expression of love
Reluctance to accept that you are gone
Request to turn back time and rectify my wrongs
Repetition of the title of the song
> On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes more than hacking and startups.
Selective Study Confirms Already Held Prejudice.
It makes a good companion to;
Outlier Study Upends Conventional Wisdom.
> a quote from the article
A link to something relevant or interesting to add or support a point [1]
An opinionated comment or personal anecdote.
[1] the link from above
> An opinionated comment or personal anecdote.
Counter opinion or added nuance. [1]
[1] A link for support or to demonstrate a counterexample.
Continuation of the thoughts from the first paragraph and repetition, because either I forgot what I had and had not written, but also because the flow of the thought naturally brings me back to the main thesis, as if solving a mathematical problem and then going backwards to the original problem statement with a different technique for verification. Deranged poorly formatted comment that only barely connects to the topic at hand, which I only read the first part of anyways.
A niche reference almost no one gets, except one
I did enjoy this, though. Even the title worked.
Group 1: A thinly veiled straw man that buckets everyone I disagree with, along with an attempt to appear as if I'm being unbiased
Group 2: The group I put myself in and provide better arguments for why this perspective is correct.
Vague motte and bailey statement that gives me plausible deniability when someone criticizes my analysis.
Have you seen cases where timing mattered more than the message itself?
Fox News used to be awful in this respect, with ledes such as "(Important thing) happens in (unnamed city)". Now they name the city. So that trick apparently backfired. It seems to have died out, along with "One weird trick..." articles.
New York Times opinion articles, though, have become worse. Today, "This May Be the Most Important Medical Story of the Decade". It's not.