Or you know, they may be serious and grown up enough to not be bothered by an image of an anime cat girl. There's really nothing there to be offended by.
I am also not a fan, but since a recent discussion on HN I have been thinking about what I don't like about it.
The conclusion I have come to is more general: I just personally don't like nerd-culture. Having an anime girl (but the same would be the case for an star trek, my litte pony/furry, etc.-themed site) signifies a kind of personality that I don't feel comfortable about, mainly due to the oblivious social awkwardness, but also due to "personal" habits of some people you meet in nerdy spaces. I guess there is something about the fact of not distinguishing between a public presentation and personal interests that this is reminiscent of. For instance: A guy can enjoy model trains, sure, but he is your college at work and always just goes on about model trains (without considering if this interests you or not!), then the fact that this subsumes his personality becomes a bore or even just plain unpleasant. This is not to generalize that this is the case for everyone in these spaces, I am friends with nerdy-people on an individual basis, but I am painfully aware that I don't fit in perfectly like the last piece of a jigsaw puzzle -- and increasingly have less of a desire to do so.
So for me at least this is not offence, but in addition to the above also some kind of reminder that there is a fundamental rift in how decency and intersocial relations are imagined between the people who share my interests and me, which does bother me. Having that cat-girl appear every time I open some site reminds me of this fact.
Does any of this make sense? The way you and others phrase objections to the objections makes it seem like anyone who dislikes this is some obsessive or bigoted weirdo, which I hope I don't make the impression of. (Hit me up, even privately off-HN if anyone wants to chat about this, especially if you disagree with me, this is a topic that I find interesting and want to better understand!)
Thank you for putting into words what I could not. "Nerd culture" has fallen a long way since the early 2000s and your quote about decency and intersocial relations spoke to me.
It is really bizarre how everybody tries to make it about politics. While I may or may not disagree with a developer's politics, it's their conduct that I care about, and I associate those who express appreciation for anime at every possible opportunity with especially poor conduct and have yet to have encounter an exception to the rule.
The amount of flags I'm seeing for posts simply expressing disagreement on the matter is quite worrying.
It's not just "not wanting" something, the original comment wasn't nearly that mild. It's being enraged by it to the extent of making petty, low, personal attacks on someone who steps just barely out of line of their preferred behaviors.
This whole comment chain solidifies my opinion that disgust is one of the driving human emotions. People feel initial, momentary disgust and only then explain it using the most solid justification that comes to mind, but the core disgust is unshakable and precedes all explanations. No one here has managed to procure any argument for why seeing a basic sketch in a certain style is objectively bad or harmful to someone, only that it's "weird" in some vague way. Basically, it goes against the primal instinct of how the person thinks the world "ought to work", therefore it's bad, end of story.
To me it seems obvious. The anime art style is in, especially in Western countries, especially^2 among younger people, and especially^3 among techy people. Ergo, you may see a mascot in that style once in a while in hobbyist projects. Doesn't seem like anything particularly objectionable to me.
Your comments are almost all of the kind that the guidelines ask us to avoid – i.e., combative and escalatory, rather than curious and kind. Please take a moment to read the guidelines and make an effort to observe the if you want to participate here.
If those 2 are in any way close in your mind... maybe think about why a cartoon character and explicit sexual image seem related? There's nothing weird about an anime cat girl for me, but also I don't see any relation to anything sexualised in it.
Mister simplex, having a preference for small internet to crumble under the shit LLM companies are piling upon it to being exposed once in a while to an inoffensive image of an anime character would make for a very worrisome direction of my priorities if I were you.
When did this notion that caring about things and wanting things to be professional is bad, or makes you a "man-child"? That would mean that practically everybody in human history has been a man-child. It feels like the whole world (even formerly professional areas) have decided to be casual and it's frustrating to those who think things matter.
I want less professionalism, thanks. I think the idea that everything needs to be an emotionless product has been largely harmful to the internet as a place of community and expression.
Adhering to a narrow definition of a "professional" look signifies immaturity, stemming from a desire for approval from a stereotypically "adult" third party. Personally, I wouldn't take seriously anyone who has a problem with Anubis but doesn't blink when presented with people drawn in the corporate Memphis style.
> That would mean that practically everybody in human history has been a man-child.
I would argue that this statement is blatantly false. Currently, most people really do not care about anubis anime cat girl icon which is actually fairly tame and boring picture.
In history, people used all kind of images for professional things, including stuff they found funny or cute.
Or you know, they may be serious and grown up enough to not be bothered by an image of an anime cat girl. There's really nothing there to be offended by.
I am also not a fan, but since a recent discussion on HN I have been thinking about what I don't like about it.
The conclusion I have come to is more general: I just personally don't like nerd-culture. Having an anime girl (but the same would be the case for an star trek, my litte pony/furry, etc.-themed site) signifies a kind of personality that I don't feel comfortable about, mainly due to the oblivious social awkwardness, but also due to "personal" habits of some people you meet in nerdy spaces. I guess there is something about the fact of not distinguishing between a public presentation and personal interests that this is reminiscent of. For instance: A guy can enjoy model trains, sure, but he is your college at work and always just goes on about model trains (without considering if this interests you or not!), then the fact that this subsumes his personality becomes a bore or even just plain unpleasant. This is not to generalize that this is the case for everyone in these spaces, I am friends with nerdy-people on an individual basis, but I am painfully aware that I don't fit in perfectly like the last piece of a jigsaw puzzle -- and increasingly have less of a desire to do so.
So for me at least this is not offence, but in addition to the above also some kind of reminder that there is a fundamental rift in how decency and intersocial relations are imagined between the people who share my interests and me, which does bother me. Having that cat-girl appear every time I open some site reminds me of this fact.
Does any of this make sense? The way you and others phrase objections to the objections makes it seem like anyone who dislikes this is some obsessive or bigoted weirdo, which I hope I don't make the impression of. (Hit me up, even privately off-HN if anyone wants to chat about this, especially if you disagree with me, this is a topic that I find interesting and want to better understand!)
Thank you for putting into words what I could not. "Nerd culture" has fallen a long way since the early 2000s and your quote about decency and intersocial relations spoke to me.
It is really bizarre how everybody tries to make it about politics. While I may or may not disagree with a developer's politics, it's their conduct that I care about, and I associate those who express appreciation for anime at every possible opportunity with especially poor conduct and have yet to have encounter an exception to the rule.
The amount of flags I'm seeing for posts simply expressing disagreement on the matter is quite worrying.
1 reply →
[flagged]
> grown up enough to not be bothered by an image of an anime cat girl
This is some real four-dimensional chess. "You're the childish one for not wanting Japanese cartoons on software projects!"
It's not just "not wanting" something, the original comment wasn't nearly that mild. It's being enraged by it to the extent of making petty, low, personal attacks on someone who steps just barely out of line of their preferred behaviors.
This whole comment chain solidifies my opinion that disgust is one of the driving human emotions. People feel initial, momentary disgust and only then explain it using the most solid justification that comes to mind, but the core disgust is unshakable and precedes all explanations. No one here has managed to procure any argument for why seeing a basic sketch in a certain style is objectively bad or harmful to someone, only that it's "weird" in some vague way. Basically, it goes against the primal instinct of how the person thinks the world "ought to work", therefore it's bad, end of story.
To me it seems obvious. The anime art style is in, especially in Western countries, especially^2 among younger people, and especially^3 among techy people. Ergo, you may see a mascot in that style once in a while in hobbyist projects. Doesn't seem like anything particularly objectionable to me.
5 replies →
> This is some real four-dimensional chess. "You're the childish one for not wanting Japanese cartoons on software projects!"
I would be OK with the sentence if it was "You're the childish one for not wanting Japanese cartoons on your software projects!".
As you wrote it, well, that's none of your business.
[flagged]
Your comments are almost all of the kind that the guidelines ask us to avoid – i.e., combative and escalatory, rather than curious and kind. Please take a moment to read the guidelines and make an effort to observe the if you want to participate here.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
> an anime cat-girl
> an animated cock and balls
You don't see a difference between these things?
4 replies →
If those 2 are in any way close in your mind... maybe think about why a cartoon character and explicit sexual image seem related? There's nothing weird about an anime cat girl for me, but also I don't see any relation to anything sexualised in it.
Mister simplex, having a preference for small internet to crumble under the shit LLM companies are piling upon it to being exposed once in a while to an inoffensive image of an anime character would make for a very worrisome direction of my priorities if I were you.
I don't, actually. Why is it weird?
Only man-children can be bothered by anime catgirls enough to post about it on on hacker news, so it says more about you tbh
When did this notion that caring about things and wanting things to be professional is bad, or makes you a "man-child"? That would mean that practically everybody in human history has been a man-child. It feels like the whole world (even formerly professional areas) have decided to be casual and it's frustrating to those who think things matter.
I want less professionalism, thanks. I think the idea that everything needs to be an emotionless product has been largely harmful to the internet as a place of community and expression.
1 reply →
Adhering to a narrow definition of a "professional" look signifies immaturity, stemming from a desire for approval from a stereotypically "adult" third party. Personally, I wouldn't take seriously anyone who has a problem with Anubis but doesn't blink when presented with people drawn in the corporate Memphis style.
2 replies →
> wanting things to be professional
Nothing says "professional" like starting a debate on HN about the weirdness of the mascot of a free software project, likely for political reasons.
2 replies →
> That would mean that practically everybody in human history has been a man-child.
I would argue that this statement is blatantly false. Currently, most people really do not care about anubis anime cat girl icon which is actually fairly tame and boring picture.
In history, people used all kind of images for professional things, including stuff they found funny or cute.
Why is this worse than the octocat?
[flagged]