A compelling title that is cryptic enough to get you to take action on it

109 points - today at 4:53 PM

Source

Comments

ninjaranter today at 5:57 PM
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.
jasong today at 6:08 PM
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.
joshstrange today at 5:57 PM
> 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.

Eduard today at 5:54 PM
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.
zirkonit today at 6:01 PM
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.
mellosouls today at 6:39 PM
"A Technical Blog Post by a Big Name Expert" (2013)

http://bradconte.com/files/misc/HackerNewsParodyThread/

Discussion (589 points, 189 comments):

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5326511

cperciva today at 6:45 PM
A complaint about the quality of posts and the comments they elicit here, followed by an allegation that Hacker News is turning into Reddit.
saaaaaam today at 7:04 PM
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.
econ today at 6:55 PM
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.

stevekemp today at 6:32 PM
An obvious attempt to insert a link into my own vibe-coded project, in the pretense it is either relevant or related.
CephalopodMD today at 7:07 PM
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.
danhon today at 8:11 PM
This should be read in conjunction with a think piece[0]

[0] https://medium.com/@hondanhon/this-is-a-think-piece-78618692...

Karrot_Kream today at 6:52 PM
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.
Headwig today at 8:22 PM
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.
brandonmensing today at 5:49 PM
A note of gratitude from a first time poster who tries to take some credit by saying they have always felt the same way
ramon156 today at 6:25 PM
A niche reference almost no one gets, except one.
Joeboy today at 6:31 PM
An opinion about the design of the website.
TZubiri today at 8:46 PM
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.

olivia-banks today at 7:55 PM
"If Educational Videos Were Filmed Like Music Videos" - Tom Scott

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G025oxyWv0E

nkmnz today at 8:25 PM
A comment about how this could be achieved using rsync instead.
gabeyaw today at 5:46 PM
A question that was addressed in the 3rd paragraph of the article
boznz today at 7:12 PM
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 :-)
vivid242 today at 8:20 PM
Can I also post a question that is actually answering itself?
r721 today at 6:36 PM
Reminds me of Schizopolis movie (by Steven Soderbergh):

>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/

cpfohl today at 6:10 PM
Anyone struggle with the large font size? I can only consume about 2 lines, maybe three lines at that size before I struggle with tracking.

The article itself was in fact delightful once I zoomed out a bunch.

abstractbill today at 7:30 PM
A complaint asking what this has to do with hackers or hacking.
j2kun today at 6:16 PM
A comment not about the article, but rather about the perceived quality of the HN comments.
salomon812 today at 7:05 PM
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

nusl today at 6:52 PM
This seems like a useful reference when asking AI to create content for you, despite the irony
mhb today at 6:27 PM
An expression of surprise and appreciation that the author, an expert in his field, is actually a HN participant.
nothinkjustai today at 7:17 PM
A comment pointing out that this submission and/or comment section break the HN rules, which are selectively ignored by the VC mods.
wizardforhire today at 5:02 PM
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

throwpoaster today at 7:53 PM
A comment that takes a second to realize it’s a troll.
seamossfet today at 6:46 PM
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.

erelong today at 8:06 PM
"titlemaxxing" / "clickbaitmaxxing"
_doctor_love today at 5:56 PM
Tu caca, Derrida?
ajkjk today at 7:43 PM
I for one am not playing along

I did enjoy this, though. Even the title worked.

deleted today at 7:32 PM
throwanem today at 7:07 PM
...sheesh.
stephbook today at 6:11 PM
[dead]
throw_47720827 today at 7:30 PM
A heavily downvoted comment from a new account registered specifically to comment on this link.
tomi_dev today at 6:16 PM
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 today at 7:46 PM
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.