Shamelessness as a strategy (2019)

by wdaher • 11 months ago

233 163 11 months ago

tines• 11 months ago

I think the shamelessness from Paris Hilton of a different kind than the shamelessness of the 2016 candidate. The former is of the "give them something to hate/gawk at/despise" whereas the latter is a byproduct (first), and results in (second), the breakdown of institutions. When our institutions can't be trusted, the advantage that we thought we were supposed to gain from playing by their rules (stability, fairness, equality) don't seem like they outweigh the disadvantages (waiting and thinking, instead of acting immediately). So we turn to greed and tribalism, and we like to see that legitimized by our role models.

JSR_FDED2• 11 months ago

Weird contradiction in the article - it warns us not to complacently write off those who appear shameless… but also:

any major politician sticking to a pre-2016 playbook today is almost certainly not going to win.

lubsch• 11 months ago

I'm not sure where you see a contradiction. Could you explain it to me? As I see it, the author claims that those who appear shameless are increasingly successful in today's day and age. The second statement is a prediction that basically follows from that and I feel like the prediction is holding up.

lowwave2• 11 months ago

Shamelessly authentic might be what is causing the increasingly success now days.

Doubt that shamelessly corrupt will have the same effect.

JSR_FDED2• 11 months ago

What I meant was that on the one hand the article says that we shouldn’t underestimate the shameless. On the other hand it says that the person who employed shamelessness in the first election likely won’t win again (thereby underestimating the shameless).

Spooky233• 11 months ago

Politics was in this weird stasis. The shameless showman broke the script where some evolution of 1960s Kennedy v. Nixon was displaced by whatever you call this era.

Vice President Quayle was mocked endlessly for spelling the word potato incorrectly. Now we have a dude who can barely string a sentence together.

wredcoll3• 11 months ago

Perhaps it wasn't really about the potato spelling after all. Or the emails.

ctchocula• 11 months ago

My read of "pre-2016 playbook" was referring to someone using a traditional campaign like Hillary (rather than Trump using his pre-2016 strategy), and that they were saying Trump changed the entire game in 2016 so that shameless strategies would be the winning strategy going forward. So I don't see a contradiction.

cat_plus_plus• 11 months ago

The implicit assumption of this article is that ideas approved by current members of community are good and ones expressed by the "shameless" outsider are bad. This would, for example, automatically invalidate Pride movement without considering merits of it's goals. It would be more fair to say that regardless of merit of ideas, stating them directly and forcefully despite community pushback can be a valid strategy to attract new members or shift Overton window.

b_e_n_t_o_n12• 11 months ago

Yes - the author is biased against those behaviours and erroneously classifies it as "shamelessness" but it's really just authenticity.

netsharc2• 11 months ago

I don't think that's the implicit assumption. She ends with:

But what I do know is when I see my peers rolling their eyes at someone or deriding them for being “shameless”, there’s a good chance that, instead of writing them off, we should examine their actions a bit more closely.

What about Donald Trump shamelessly bragging about sexual assault? Incidentally he even has "shame" and is trying to disassociate himself from Epstein - so, it seems he still needs some social acceptance, but that's a curious point about LGBTQ and shame, because many cultures have made these things something bad and to be ashamed about - although I wonder where they've come from, homosexuality wasn't a big deal in Ancient Greece, and they were even the kind where adult men had relations with adolescent boys.

rao-v• 11 months ago

This generally is a version of what economics and game theory knows as countersignalling. A classic paper is “Too Cool for School” https://host.kelley.iu.edu/riharbau/cs-randfinal.pdf

Always worth pondering when it works, and when, for whom, and how it fails.

pyman• 11 months ago

I'd argue that shamelessness and countersignalling are different things but share the same foundation: confidence.

Shamelessness is acting without embarrassment and countersignalling is deliberately downplaying because you're so confident you don't need to prove yourself.

Using the example from the article, another person who comes to mind besides Paris Hilton is Trump. He uses countersignalling as a strategic tool, and sloppiness as a Swiss knife. The followers of both Paris and Trump interpret that sloppiness as confidence and authenticity, which is why it's so effective. And to pull off being deliberately sloppy, you need to be shameless.

jocaal• 11 months ago

I don't think it is that deep for Trump. His sloppiness is great for the media because his choices lead to endless content. He is great for the unofficial media because everything he does is meme worthy. It is no wonder he and Musk teamed up, both their successes come from following the same strategy.

gadders3• 11 months ago

Rory Sutherland had a good description of this:

"If you’re a top executive, turning up to work on a bicycle is a high-status activity because it was a choice and not a necessity. But if you work at Pizza Hut, turning up on a bike means you can’t afford a car."

cjs_ac• 11 months ago

Other examples include the clothes that Rory Sutherland wears during interviews, the ways that Rory Sutherland sits on chairs during interviews, and the ways that Rory Sutherland rambles over others during interviews.

anal_reactor3• 11 months ago

I remember reading about Nikocado Avocado and I found information that he graduated from art school or something and thought "Wait. He's just pretending to be an idiot in front of a camera because this makes money". I talked about this to a friend of mine, who dismissed me. Two weeks later he put a video about having lost all that weight.

jaimex2• 11 months ago

There's no news like bad news.

nickpinkston4• 11 months ago

I kind of agree with Nadia's analysis of what's happening, but it's a fucking cursed reality.

Here's hoping for a New New Sincerity to bring us back.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_sincerity

lowwave2• 11 months ago

All for Post-postmodernism!!!

nickpinkston4• 11 months ago

Have you seen Metamodernism?

There's an art scene and political movement:

Art (mostly): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metamodernism

Movement: https://metamoderna.org/metamodernism/

svara• 11 months ago

I didn't know this term but it really resonates. A general lack of seriousness in nearly everything is a defining aspect of our time, it seems.

nickpinkston4• 11 months ago

Yea, this "lack of seriousness" really gets under my skin, and I really hope there's a broad cultural backlash to it soon, as this being the permanent culture seems toxic and exhausting.

That said, this is about the messaging aspect. Trump say could lack seriousness of rhetoric, but still be seriously pursuing his self-interests.

uniq7• 11 months ago

As someone not familiar with the term, I don't really understand the concept, and Wikipedia's definition doesn't look specific enough:

generally describes creative works that expand upon and break away from concepts of postmodernist irony and cynicism.

That basically refers to anything that is not irony and cynicism, isn't it?

samrus• 11 months ago

Like anything in culture and art, its opaque if you dont know the context, because its all a long conversation where everything is a repsonse to something before. This i feel is a response to how irony and cynicism (which were responses to dogmatic cult like obedience) get tiring and at some point people want sincerity rather than just poking fun at thing

You know how people now hate the "umm that just happened" style of comedy writing? Its basically thay backlash. People dont want quippy remarks and tearing things down, they was genuine appreciation for things

I feel if we think about it more it might have a relarion to shamelessness. But im not so sure. Shamelessness seems to be opposite of cynicism by itself

borroka5• 11 months ago

The article is way off base. Dorsey's playbook, if it even exists, isn't something to be ashamed of, especially in the context of Silicon Valley culture. Has the author never heard of Burning Man (obviously, she has and might have been more than once)? Zuck and Dorsey are two of the most common archetypes among tech company founders: the super nerd who only thinks about technology, and then money, and power, and the more romantic nerd, who seems to have some spiritual goals that technology only partially fulfills.

A more curious case, although it became prominent years after this post was published, is that of the Bidens. Their son Hunter was a big liability, and even the most staunch Democrats, if they thought about it outside the context of the cultural battle between right and left, would have admitted it. But by all accounts, the whole issue became entangled in the cultural battle between left and right, and people took sides depending on where their vote was going.

The same thing happened in Italy with Berlusconi and his interest in younger women whom he paid to have sex with him. He neither explained nor justified his behavior much (just dinner with friends, he said: can I relax the way I want after long days of work?), and the subject became one of many that his friends and enemies discussed daily.

Zelensky allowed himself and his wife to appear in what I consider to be an incredibly misguided and glamorous photo shoot published in Vanity Fair, a shameless strategy, but he had cover from criticism, as any criticism of the photo shoot would have been interpreted as openly siding with Putin.

But shamelessness doesn’t always save you. Strauss-Kahn, a prominent figure in French and European politics up until some 15-20 years ago, failed to weather the storm, but not because of his infidelity or his passion for escorts, but because he, a socialist, had treated some immigrants and low-status people with vicious contempt (in addition to allegations of sexual misconduct). If it had been just about the escorts or vanilla misconduct, the shameless strategy would probably have worked (after all, who doesn't like escorts?).

Although it is always a matter of circumstances, I believe that the shameless strategy works for people of very low status, who do not fear criticism because they have little to lose, or for those of high status, especially when they manage to make it seem normal, that it has always been done, but that it has now become a problem because their enemies want to make it so, for political, financial, or cultural reasons. For mid-level managers in the tech industry, on average, it doesn't work very well.

etothepii• 11 months ago

Would another way of saying this be that while high expectation it's also high variance?

borroka5• 11 months ago

In the context of high-status individuals, the reactive shameless strategy (so what?) has recently proven successful.

It is more difficult to determine whether a shameless proactive strategy, such as Trump's (harshly criticizing others' physical appearance, openly bullying less powerful peers) would work for others. It has proven to be unexpectedly successful for him. However, it is consistent with his personality. A similar strategy might not work for Macron, given the stark gap between his traditionally presidential demeanor and a Trump-like shameless political and personal strategy.

Spooky233• 11 months ago

This stuff is an art. Andrew Cuomo was this weird sex symbol for awhile. Eventually people got sick of him, and the media people just pile on.

borroka5• 11 months ago

It's all about the situation and depends a lot on personality, the real one, not the facade, on intangibles (“aura”) and on never showing any weakness or offering apologies.

Trump's strategy works because it/he has all the elements to do so. Has he ever offered apologies? Never. He always moves forward: the past is the past. From an appearance standpoint, he offers an easy target for his rivals. But why hasn't anyone hit him, or when they have, why have they missed the mark? Because it's not in their nature, it is not them, they would not be consistent, it would be a one-off, not a strategy, but just an expedient tactic.

socalgal23• 11 months ago

I didn't follow Dorsey. I actually hate it when the bosses above me add their personal activities to their posts. The worst was one posting about a business trip halfway around the world while the company had effectively banned all business related travel. In general though, I don't want to hear about how great life is when you're making muliple X more than me. At least not from my bosses.

borroka5• 11 months ago

You may not like him (I have no opinion of him), but that is not the point I was making.

The spiritually inclined tech founder is a common archetype/personality of the post-2000 tech boom, and I found the point the article was making, i.e. that his was a shameless strategy, quite off base.

It is important to differentiate between a way of being (e.g., introvert/extrovert, more or less affected by criticism), a goal, a strategy, and a tactic. An excellent read for those topics is "Winners", by Alastair Campbell, which surprisingly few people in tech, and I dare to say in politics too, have read.

bryanrasmussen2• 11 months ago

Zelensky allowed himself and his wife to appear in what I consider to be an incredibly misguided and glamorous photo shoot published in Vanity Fair

following older narratives of gender dynamics it would commonly be thought that the wife wanted it, because hey, Vanity Fair! and got the husband to go along.

borroka5• 11 months ago

Who knows who wanted what, but the leader of a nation at war showing up at any official event in casual clothes to show his solidarity with the troops and then posing for a glamorous photo shoot like any Hollywood celebrity is so ridiculous that it looks like a parody.

I am baffled that this serious misstep has been forgotten so quickly, but as I wrote in another comment, what you do plays a secondary role in how you are perceived; the main role is to show where you stand, whether that stand is supported by actions or not. Declare yourself anti-fascist, and any criticism of you and your policies will be interpreted as fascist.

glenstein2• 11 months ago

It’s important to note that people were dismissive of Paris because validating her playbook would mean admitting that they were playing an inferior game. Everyone else had invested years into optimizing for the most legible version of the rules. They’d look silly if they were to admit she had found a better way of doing things.

I had a co-worker who was addicted to verbally correcting everyone around him, which was super irritating but he seemed just quick enough and just technically correct enough that his formula kind of worked, for him. I would come into work and he would be in a middle of an argument where he insisted some distinction that everyone else that was asinine, he felt was important, and he always got the last word. Everything from pronunciation to definitions of ordinary concepts, and it was visibly important to his self esteem how right he was about all of these things.

At one point he claimed I "didn't understand comedy" because I enjoyed Tim and Eric. If you don't know them, think adult swim style surrealist meta-humor but in lo-fi live action. And my theory for this particular co-worker is that something about what Tim and Eric make fun of must have hit too close to home, too close to his sense of normalcy, which in this case meant seeing them not as comedic personas but as familiar targets to "correct", only to realize they were part of a comedic persona satirizing a certain idea of normalcy, to his initial bafflement and then resentment. Because for a moment he could make a home in that world, and it was a world they were making fun of.

These are all my assumptions of course, but I think they map on to this Paris Hilton analysis, which is that for some reason he needed to see their entire way of doing comedy as not real or not legitimate, because doing so would mean something fundamental about his psychology was something that could be turned into a joke.

colechristensen• 11 months ago

Eh, I don't think your analysis of your coworker is correct, or it might be technically correct but missing the point.

Some people are obnoxious because they never learned not to be. It's about empathy, bad habits, and never getting the right feedback. Of course there is accounting for people being different and your goal in life shouldn't be "never bother anybody", but some folks take things too far. In a work context a manager needs to take a dude aside and gently suggest they tone the behavior down. We don't want to be surrounded by either tone police or constant needless corrections.

glenstein2• 11 months ago

Those are all things I consider to be familiar generalities. I'm zooming in on a unique dynamic named by the article. And the two are not mutually exclusive, in fact they seem quite obviously compatible.

isaacremuant• 11 months ago

It's another pseudo intellectual article to thinly criticize "the other side in US politics" claiming populism and shamelessness.

The mafia/werewolf example is certainly a bad analogy and maybe there'd be more consequences to labeling if labeling wasn't used all the time as a political maneuver to destroy an opponent.

It's also ridiculously all over the place claiming Paris Hilton somehow popularized being out there. In the US, Fame and "larger than life" attitudes have always been successful provided they come together with money or power.

Animats• 11 months ago

The person who popularized "famous for being famous" was Angelyne.[1] Her boyfriend had a display printing business in LA, and, in 1984, arranged for billboards in LA, with just Angelyne and her picture. By 1995, over 200 billboards. She wasn't a movie star. Or a TV star. She'd done some singing. Yet she became famous.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angelyne

thr0w2• 11 months ago

Unaccounted for: the failure scenario.

You had integrity, put in the work, and failed. Life is brutal - anyone can respect your effort.

You tried to be the next Paris, and failed. You look like a fucking clown.

johnnyanmac3• 11 months ago

There's some survivor bias. But like a virus, the next strain will be stronger and more potent from those survivors.

Very few people in 2004 could pull off the Paris. It's a lot easier in 2024.

nextworddev3• 11 months ago

The real underlying trend is the great shift in what’s good “taste” and Overton window

nextworddev3• 11 months ago

Well who cares about looking like a clown, considering there’s millions of them on LinkedIn and TikTok. Shame is diluted every day and no one cares

thr0w2• 11 months ago

Well who cares about looking like a clown

A lot of people, almost instinctively, and for good reason.

aanet• 11 months ago

This is perhaps the best articulation on the rise of certain cantankerous people... in social media / politics / <everywhere>

The metaphor of the game is a good one for general understanding (though the Signaling / Counters-signaling paper is a TIL for me)

I was hoping that there would be a "solution" of sorts to tackle / handle this issue of when EVERYBODY seems to use this strategy, but perhaps there isn't one...?

(My own way of dealing with this is to, uh, not read / watch any news / social media... but such ways are quite brittle, of course)

lovich8• 11 months ago

I was hoping that there would be a "solution" of sorts to tackle / handle this issue of when EVERYBODY seems to use this strategy, but perhaps there isn't one...?

It’s called government regulation. There’s whole fields of research on how to solve an arbitrarily complicated Prisoner’s Dilemma. A lot of people are allergic to the idea because they don’t want to have limits on their behavior, only on others or on no one at all.

So we get everyone picking the bad square in the Dilemma

johnnyanmac3• 11 months ago

A lot of people are allergic to the idea because they don’t want to have limits on their behavior, only on others or on no one at all.

So are we doomed? if we don't vote in people who can properly regulate this, it seems the dilemma continues. But how does one convince an entire society to stop being so selfish and myopic?

b_e_n_t_o_n12• 11 months ago

Government regulation of shameful behaviour? That's worked out wonderfully in the past.

pjc50• 11 months ago

The problem is now coming from the top: Trump is the ultimate victory of shamelessness. It evolved like antibiotic resistant MRSA. Which is why demanding a government solution is meaningless.

potato37328425• 11 months ago

You're peddling government as a silver bullet. It's not. You're no less ignorant (a much milder word than I want to use) than the people who think various flavors of near-anarchy can magically work fine.

Some people are allergic to your knee jerk silver bullet solution because often times it comes with downsides that are on comparable orders to the original problem, same as every other silver bullet being peddled by every other ideologue.

Shit is complicated and care needs to be taken.

mmaunder2• 11 months ago

A return to formality is the antidote, I’m afraid. As austere and priggish as it may seem. You may see brands and influencers emerging that gain traction with a kind of 1950s post WWII flavor of seriousness and formality. I’m not suggesting social conservatives. More the presentation and packaging of ideas and their purveyors. Formal instead of slovenly, polite vs obnoxious, eloquent vs simplistic, cultured vs vulgar, intellect vs spectacle.

PessimalDecimal• 11 months ago

The US isn't that society anymore. My brief trips to Japan and Switzerland suggests they may still be in some ways. But the US is fundamentally demotic and geared towards the lowest common denominator in nearly all aspects of life. Any attempt to reverse that will be a long and slow process, likely doomed to failure.

achierius• 11 months ago

All ideology. No real substance, just the "facade" of seriousness, detached from any underlying reality thereof. Wouldn't that be even sillier than what we have today?

stinkbeetle• 11 months ago

Shame has always been used to establish and maintain social structures and norms.

Is there some sudden rise of it? All my life I've been told by politicians and media corporations and others that I should be ashamed of various things that I think and do and am, as a poorly veiled effort to gain power by controlling people. And before my generation it had been going on a long time, with women wanting independence, black people wanting equal rights, men not wishing to be drafted to wars, gay rights, etc. I think shame and shaming has been a constant, and doesn't arise come from politics or media but human nature.

And I think most upheavals of the status quo have had to overcome this shame barrier. Shaming is probably a very effective psychological tool to conserve social order, but if it's abused or if people want change enough, eventually the lid will pop, and then when there is some critical mass moving away they actually bond together and take pride in being shameless and offending the people trying to shame them, and even might go to exaggerated lengths to do these "shameful" things and rile people up.

So I don't think it is that people or the politicians they vote for just decided they would use it as a strategy. I think it's actually that shame (which they see as coming from an "outgroup") is no longer a viable strategy.

ryandv2• 11 months ago

Bang on the money. This trend is really just a recognition that compassion, empathy, shame, etc. have been weaponized in service of sociopathic attempts to control people and society.

Too often shaming or labelling viewpoints you disagree with as "hateful" without further elaboration is really just a thin veneer over the absence of any actual position. Intellectual laziness masked with the paper tiger of loaded words and language.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thought-terminating_clich%C3%A...

anal_reactor3• 11 months ago

For shame to work we need the whole society to agree that certain behaviors are shameful, otherwise the shamed person can simply change their social circle. In homogeneous societies, like Japan, this still works, at least for Japanese people. But in diverse societies, like most western democracies, you can always find a social circle that will accept you.

overfeed2• 11 months ago

I was hoping that there would be a "solution" of sorts to tackle / handle this issue of when EVERYBODY seems to use this strategy, but perhaps there isn't one...?

We're overdue for a major war, which will be reset on how we treat other humans by the end of it. Humans killing humans on an industrial scale between near-peers is followed by periods where people realize that maybe being dicks to each other isn't the ideal state. More cantankerous politicians being elected only increases the odds of war breaking out due to diplomatic failures.

3D30497420• 11 months ago

I'm not sure history bears out that major wars lead to peace. WW1 led pretty directly into WW2, and after WW2 there were plenty of conflicts by major powers. That major powers didn't start WW3 (to date) probably has more to do with the potential consequences threatened by nuclear war than an increase in human aversion to widespread industrial war.

There's probably an argument for European countries specifically not wanting to return to the near-constant warfare across its history. But I'm not sure that holds for US v USSR (which came perilously close to open warfare several times), or conflicts elsewhere.

snapcaster• 11 months ago

What are you talking about? can you point to a single instance of this happening? 20th century seems to contradict you pretty hard

potato37328425• 11 months ago

This is perhaps the best articulation on the rise of certain cantankerous people... in social media / politics / <everywhere>

It's a comforting one but I think it's also a crappy and wrong one. Take a few steps further back and it looks like the pendulum is simply swinging.

It was over the past 10-20yr very fashionable to invest (or waste, depending on your take) a lot of resources softening up what we have to say and how we say it in order to avoid unnecessarily offending people, avoid imprecision, avoid edge cases of meaning and head off nitpickers and detractors who we'd never agree with.

Now, a more "I'll say more or less what I mean with no shits given about edge cases, I'll handle offense after the fact if it's a problem and the haters can go f themselves because I was never going to appease them anyway" style of communication is taking off because it offers a competitive advantage of less resource investment for message delivered.

ryandv2• 11 months ago

Keen observation. Canadian white progressives have a pathological inability to state anything directly, take definitive stances on anything, or refrain from ambiguity and equivocation in their speech. You end up with so much noise in the signal from all the hedging, mea culpas, and beating around the bush that it becomes impossible to take them at their word.

All the communications overhead comes from this neurotic desire to sanitize speech of all possible offense, all possible negative implication, and indeed all humanity. The end result is vapid corpo doublespeak, which says... absolutely nothing at all.

The information content of the language of a culture that can be offended by everything tends towards nothing.

johnnyanmac3• 11 months ago

much like any cult or counterculture, that person’s goal was to attract a following, regardless of who the members are. The disgust of one’s peers doesn’t matter anymore, because that disgust forms the basis for an entirely new community.

Well that's an unfortunately dangerous effect. But thinking about it, it really only takes a few dozen active members to kindle a community, and then they use that to grab in any vulnerable people who they pitch their scam to.

The concept of a “genius mastermind” is itself outdated, because it assumes that someone needs to be in control. The shameless person is simply a host for a set of ideas, which, like any virus, will continue to propagate as long as there are willing hosts to receive it.

Yeah, fair enough. People just see a catalyst and it will attract a whole swarm of people who will use it to fit their agenda. I suppose it explains a lot of the clshing reports within the US administration this year. Lots of sabetours all trying to do their thing, but they are wrangling a mascot around who they need to keep pleased.

----

As usual, I don't even know how to start to address this. This article was in 2019, and for my country it definitely torpedoed down this decade. It just feels like the few powers left to check it are ransacking the country, and some part of the country is cheering on the destruction of everything. You can't really fight that kind of nihilism.

b_e_n_t_o_n12• 11 months ago

It's not shamelessness, it's authenticity. In today's curated, hyperreal society people desperately crave imperfections, cracks in the armour, they want something real, something human. They desire vulnerability, in part because it gives them courage to also be vulnerable, to not be afraid of judgement and rejection, and the freedom to be themselves.

And I think it's actionable advice for all of us. Be genuine, be vulnerable, and don't be afraid to be your true self. People like that.

SeanSullivan86• 11 months ago

Senior management doesn't like it, in my experience. But I agree it makes sense for many interactions.

mmaunder2• 11 months ago

The legal fiction that is the corporation is the antithesis of authenticity, and the brand they invest so heavily in, its mask. Having an authentic employee risks removing the mask.

b_e_n_t_o_n12• 11 months ago

Not everyone will appreciate your authentic self, that's the inherent risk which requires bravery to overcome. It might also be simply not worth the risk, but either way you should act in a way that you can respect. There are things I wouldn't do because I consider them too risky, but I can still respect myself because I'm the one making the judgement call. It's when I act inauthentically because of the fear, not the risk, that I lose respect for myself and I do my best to avoid it.

apical_dendrite• 11 months ago

No, it's shamelessness.

Shame exists to keep us from engaging in antisocial behavior.

If your true self is a liar, a cheat, a cruel person, then you should absolutely be afraid to be your true self.

b_e_n_t_o_n12• 11 months ago

That's still authenticity though. What's not authentic is people who conceal those aspects of themselves, and it's also far more dangerous.

dkarl3• 11 months ago

It's a very specific form of authenticity. It's the authenticity of people who don't make an effort, who don't feel any need to try, who know that people are going to accept them and look up to them no matter how shitty they are.

But for regular people it's a fantasy. Because it only works if you're rich.

b_e_n_t_o_n12• 11 months ago

That isn't true in my experience. Authenticity doesn't require wealth in order to land.

robocat• 11 months ago

What a weird viewpoint.

But for regular people it's a fantasy

So for authentic people it's a fantasy???

I can only imagine that either

(a) you struggle to differentiate fake authenticity from authentic fakeness

or (b) perhaps you don't have enough authentic non-wealthy acquaintances.

Some welloff people countersignal successfully. But many don't because status signaling is difficult (evolutionarily).

it only works if you're rich

And you imply that you think that people look up to the rich - however many people don't - perhaps that says something about your own pretensions?

Disclaimer: I'm a well off geek - definitely not rich and I'm rather poor at recognizing or playing status games.

potato37328425• 11 months ago

It's the authenticity of people who don't make an effort, who don't feel any need to try, who know that people are going to accept them and look up to them no matter how shitty they are.

Or they know other people won't accept them regardless and they don't care.

It's one of those communication patterns you see at the top and the bottom and if your life consists of working in an office, living in a condo and golfing on the weekends you'll basically never run across anyone that does it.

marcus_holmes5• 11 months ago

Let's take an example: people who play music/video aloud on public transport.

In Ye Olden Days of the last century, this would be a shameful act, and people would be shamed for doing it.

In our enlightened modern times, people don't give a shit, and trying to shame them into not doing it is pointless. They are shameless about their selfishness, and apparently that's OK now.

With the result, as others have said, that we end up in the worst box on the Prisoner's Dilemma choices: we all have to put with other people's shitty taste in music and no-one gets any peace and quiet.

I don't get how we write this up as "authenticity" without also concluding that these people authentically have no consideration for the other people around them, and are therefore bad people. I certainly do not want these people to be authentic around me, I would very much like them to have some shame and maintain a considerate front, even if that's not their true nature.

b_e_n_t_o_n12• 11 months ago

Authenticity doesn't mean you act in a way that the majority approves of, in fact it's often the opposite case. It also doesn't make any presuppositions about the morality of specific behaviour. To be authentic is to be your true self, despite what others think which requires bravery and that is something people admire. If something is considered shameful is a subjective judgement about behaviours that may or may not be authentic.

In fact, people who act authentically are often liked not despite of but because of their flaws. To be human is to be flawed, we're all guilty. And it turns out a lot of people crave permission to not be perfect.

tropicalfruit• 11 months ago

70–90% of people have functional object impermanence, and at least 50% have no inner dialogue

no self awareness, no reflection. just impulse. me, me, me.

blasting music in public, talking at max volume, slamming doors. taking 20 mins to use an ATM when it takes me 30 seconds. and so on.

arkey3• 11 months ago

people who play music/video aloud on public transport

But that's not being authentic, that's being plain rude, and there should be a difference.

You can be authentic and still respect boundaries and be considerate towards other people.

And on the other side, if being rude is your form of authenticity, then you're not authentic, you're just another rude person, probably following a specific type of common behaviour.

woooooo2• 11 months ago

trying to shame them into not doing it is pointless.

Speak for yourself, its at least satisfying. Insult their choice of music and provide suggestions for what they should play instead.

andy99• 11 months ago

The music thing is, I think, a related phenomenon I'll call the demolition man effect. Most people now are so weak and nonconfrontational that someone willing to break social norms can just walk all over them. This is because nobody wants to stand up for themselves or more fundamentally rock the boat.

The shamelessness thing is similar but fundamentally different in that it gets a following. Everyone thinks the kid/boomer without headphones is an ass, they just don't say it.

gadders3• 11 months ago

Unfortunately everyone mocked Karens who at least were a force for good in enforcing social norms and etiquette.

potato37328425• 11 months ago

Let's take an example: people who play music/video aloud on public transport.
In Ye Olden Days of the last century, this would be a shameful act, and people would be shamed for doing it.

Your equivalent ilk of decades past complained about "kids these days" and their boomboxes in public in basically the same way you're doing now.

const_cast• 11 months ago

The problem with shame is that the people who use shame as a tool do not understand how to use it conservatively.

You see, they shame for playing music in public. Okay, great.

But they also shame for your weight, your sexuality, the color of your skin. Your job, your hobbies, your family. Your clothing, your skin, your hair.

And now, shame, as a tool, has been worn down to its bones. Of course then society at large begins to reject it.

thisisit• 11 months ago

This sounds like what social media mangers are telling their clients - If you are acting stupid/dumb/shameless and attracting people through rage bait, you are being authentic. Lots of prank channels who harass people shamelessly are certainly going for “authentic” reactions.

tudorizer• 11 months ago

You might be applying some reverse psychology by claiming shameless == authentic. Does that translate to having shame (in the interpretation of being aware or norms and being considerate to those around) == not authentic?

This "freedom to be themselves" works very well when priviledge is at stake.

b_e_n_t_o_n12• 11 months ago

Shameless != authentic.

anal_reactor3• 11 months ago

I am a very direct person, and conversations with me often include very personal topics. I've noticed that at the beginning yes, this attracts at least some people who want to have serious conversations, but after some time it simply creates a new culture with new set of rules where you wear a different kind of mask. Everyone claims to crave authenticity, but when actually faced with it, most people back off.

metalman• 11 months ago

shamelessness and counter signalling can be seen in another phenominon where the difference between bieng crazy or eccentric(authentic) is a million $

socalgal23• 11 months ago

The latest South Park (Season 27, Episode 2) seems to be related or tangentially related

A student is on social media saying things that upset people solely to make money

wredcoll3• 11 months ago

Increasingly, I think the “shameless” approach is becoming a dominant strategy today. It was first popularized in modern canon by Paris Hilton, who played the “dumb blonde heiress” stereotype so smoothly that everyone assumed she really was as stupid as she seemed.

This seems wildly unsupported. I lived through that era, and admittedly I wasn't breathlessly tuned into the latest celebrity gossip, but from a sort of second hand (or third or fourth) she seemed to say and do the exact same things as any other rich young socialite.

She went to parties with other celebs, had her fashiom choices reported on and occasionally said something mildly vapid.

The biggest moment, of course, was her ex-boyfriend selling their sex tape, but she wasn't the first or the last person to have someone publish private material.

Is the argument that she was the first woman to not commit suicide when that happened and there for she's shameless?

Or just that she was famous despite acting like an average wealthy child and that made people real mad?

It seems like a truly Reed Richards level stretch to get to someone like Trump who says and does a bunch of awful things most people thought were off limits for a politician and was rewarded by a bunch of awful people.

tw04• 11 months ago

I’m guessing he’s more referring to the television show with Nicole Ritchie where they both acted shamelessly stupid for the attention.

I supposed it’s possible she’s really as dumb as she portrayed on her “reality” tv show, but I find it extremely unlikely given the money and education.

wredcoll3• 11 months ago

You know, that's fair, I completely forgot that show even existed. I guess I sort of categorize it as "a tv show" and thus fictional.

dang• 11 months ago

Related. Others?

Shamelessness as a strategy (2019) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32233451 - July 2022 (214 comments)

Shamelessness as a Strategy (2019) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25591066 - Dec 2020 (213 comments)

yalogin• 11 months ago

Shamelessness is the guiding mantra in politics too, I guess the author wanted to stay away from the most obvious and egregious example. I don’t think we will be able to turn the tide here though. The hustle culture of Silicon Valley tried to draw a fine line for a while but it was never going to last. As a society we are an attention economy and that only values shamelessness, not ethics and morals.

hn_throwaway_99• 11 months ago

I kind of hated this essay. Not because I really disagree with the conclusions, but it seems to lump all forms of "shamelessness" into the same bucket. I'm fine with "shamelessness" if it's just bucking societal norms and conventions that have often been there so long that we've forgotten what they were ever about in the first place. But I find it deeply, deeply sad when we see so much shamelessness these days that is fundamentally about treating other people like shit because you like the feeling of selfishness.

I also disagree how the author essentially defined "success" as some sort of follower count. I can't remember how I saw this clip, but it was about Lance Bass' wedding to his boyfriend, and he was talking about it with the Kardashian mom. All the Kardashian mom wanted to know about were what the ratings were for their televised wedding, because that's all that mattered to her. I mean, if that's how you want to be "successful", knock yourself the fuck out. I happen to think it's disgusting and the actual opposite of "success", but what do I know, I actually value my relationships for the people I get to know and care about.

Maybe I would like this essay better if it were titled "psychopathy as a strategy". Psychopathy certainly works, at least from the perspective of the psychopath, but it's not exactly something I want to aspire to.

tsukikage• 11 months ago

You suggest there is an important difference between "just bucking societal norms and conventions" and "treating other people like shit", but in practice all too often the entire difference is whether or not you are one of the people getting screwed over by the behaviour in question.

blargey• 11 months ago

That distinction boils down to thoughtfully considering whether or not an act ought to invoke shame - if you can, in good faith towards others, conclude the act shouldn't be shameful in the first place, then it could hardly be called "shameless" to do it.

Contrast that with acting out specifically because it's shameful, as a social/media tactic instead of a considered moral stance.

jongjong• 11 months ago

I'm shameless but it's not a strategy, it's just that I have no pride (or shame) left. I've been reduced to a pair of eyeballs drifting through space and time.

If I avoid shame, it's to avoid consequences, not to maintain self-image.

highfrequency• 11 months ago

The “establishment” mistakenly assumes that a shameless person wants the approval of their community, when it turns out that, much like any cult or counterculture, that person’s goal was to attract a following, regardless of who the members are. The disgust of one’s peers doesn’t matter anymore, because that disgust forms the basis for an entirely new community.

This is a great point, and we can push it further. Perhaps the more powerful effect is that once the supporting fringe communities grow large and influential enough, the original establishment will move over to the shameless person’s camp. This happens swiftly, like dominoes falling, because the establishment’s opposition was actually not ideological to begin with but rather based on perception of the most socially acceptable / financially beneficial position at every moment.

abc123abc123• 11 months ago

At least in politics, I'd argue that it is not shamelessness. It is a reaction to the fact that our political nobility have sunk so low in terms of achievement and results, that they made a mockery of democracy.

As a reaction, the public makes a mockery of them. As a bonus, getting a politicians that speaks his mind in the common way, is an added spice! Seeing the revulsion in the faces of the political nobility when Trump opens his mouth, gives many satisfaction.

So in politics, this is a sign of health. It is a kind of catharsis. Trump was one of the first in the modern era, and he'll get copy cats, and the strategy will then start to lose its efficiency, but, it will have recalibrated politics away from the previous state where it was a toy for the nobility and commoners were not welcome.

This is also something they fear. That commoners, not part of the nobility, might gain entrance to their domain.

So this is a healthy sign for democracy!

endoblast• 11 months ago

Doubling down and doubling down on some feeling (or lack of feeling) repeatedly isn't merely a strategy. It is the selling of ones's soul. There's no one left inside by the end of it, just a shell, with no creative power or freedom.

Don't envy them!

hermitcrab• 11 months ago

If you want to see shamelessness in action, check out this video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=19OaCHOLoxI

(long, but fascinating)

k0ns0l• 11 months ago

kek >_<

roland35• 11 months ago

Shamelessness works great with our attention economy. Say some real divisive stuff, get eyeballs, monetize.

nektro• 11 months ago

the political takes here couldn't be more off. wow.

Shamelessness as a strategy (2019)

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