All of the above, although I think millennials and Gen Z are demonstrably worse when it comes to vanity.
My mother's a 2nd grade teacher and does the usual "what do you want to be when you grow up?" bit each year. The last couple years she's had a very significant number of her students say "YouTube or Instagram star" instead of the usual firefighter/police officer/doctor/soldier/etc. (Also not the most disturbing trend to come from her recent batch(es) of kids.)
I'm really glad our country is at place where being funny on a social media website is enough to make a good living, but I can't help but feel there's something missing—something keeping them grounded.
I get that boomers and Gen Xers are vain—I love to rag on them, and, really,
we all are vain to some extent—but millennials and Gen Z seem to be taking it to a different level.
Is wanting to be a YouTube channel host really a marker of vanity? It's essentially saying that you want to be an actor, scriptwriter, director and entrepreneur for your own television series. It's the "solo app developer" equivalent for the entertainment industry. Like app developers, I would expect people to get into the business more out of a desire for freedom to set their own hours and not have a boss, than out of a desire to be seen. Except where programming is for introverts, screenwriting and acting comes more naturally to extroverts.
Basically, I see the "YouTube biz" as being much like stand-up comedy, but without the travelling.
Sometimes I'll open the 'search' part of Instagram and just scroll through the posts and wonder how so many people have their own brands when all the do is post selfies. I'd totally do it if I could. But it's definitely vanity.
There are two usages to the word "vanity." The one you're referring to has more to do with dignity (the desire to be respected by everybody.)
The property under scrutiny by the parent poster, though, is (I think) more like "narcissism"—the desire to be perceived as the best person ever by as many people as possible.
The desire for dignity is universal; whereas narcissism is a (rather uncommon) personality flaw.
> dignity (the desire to be respected by everybody)
Weird. I thought dignity is self-respect(not respect from others).
So do you have a list of what earns you dignity vs what is narcissism? Like covering your gut in loose clothing is fine but god forbid you post your abs on insta where only people who see it are people who willingly followed you to see it and the people who went on to explore tab to see it and then jumped on hn to whine about it.
> the desire to be perceived as the best person ever by as many people as possible.
I don't know - sounds like ambition to me.
Insta has given aspiring models a mostly democratic platform. You don't have to be a size zero or white or what have you. Build your reach and you are a model. Same goes for youtube - it has vastly empowered indie content creators. Of course there are millions of people who post their photos seeking validation from friends and strangers but what of it? Humans have been seeking validation from strangers since time immemorial otherwise why have lavish weddings or expensive wedding rings or expensive cars...
IMO people complaining over overt insta sharing are self-righteous whiners. I see it on the same level as being outraged over Rebecca Black. Don't like it, don't seek it. You think you are better than others? Don't tell, go actually be better.
> So do you have a list of what earns you dignity vs what is narcissism? Like covering your gut in loose clothing is fine but
but what has it to do with dignity? And why would anyone need a "list"?
> Don't like it, don't seek it.
I can be aware of something and have an opinion about it without engaging in it. And I surely do not need your permission for that, and calling anything negative you don't like "complaining" without considering your own complaints as just silly.
> Build your reach and you are a model. Same goes for youtube - it has vastly empowered indie content creators.
Don't even need to go into models, they are there to sell product, but I'll just say that calling people "content creators" is like calling someone who is attacked as maybe not being such an earnest author a "page filler". That's the low we sunk to, that's already normalized. "Creating content" has as much "value" as people give it in form of "attention". The capitalism of the mind, the destruction of all information. Work 50 years, rob someone who worked 50 years, you can buy the exact same thing... get X views doing A, or X views doing B, it's still just X views.
I guess I should make a youtube video about it, then it'd be valid even if it called out other youtubers? Help me out here, since apparently typing a comment in a text box is not creating content if it rubs you the wrong way.
> Humans have been seeking validation from strangers since time immemorial
Yes, but that doesn't make it less dysfunctional, and others have been calling them out for being fucked in the head for just as long. The idea kinda is that you do not constantly "seek validation", but you already more or less have that figured out after a while, and then it's more about responsibilities and challenges and things you enjoy. And yes, it's fun to be liked. Just like it's fun to like people. But if validation and self-esteem are some kind of elusive fix you constantly have to seek, you're doing it wrong.
Last but not least: You're basically saying, if you found a bug, don't talk about it, fix your own copy and just use that. Fuck that. What would you know about ambition? What if my being better includes speaking my mind? Riddle me that.
> but what has it to do with dignity? And why would anyone need a "list"?
Conversations have context, you know. Parent poster mentioned dignity being different. Did you not read the or are you intentionally clipping it.
> "Creating content" has as much "value" as people give it in form of "attention"
Is..is that supposed to be an insult or some deep insight you stumbled onto? I don't understand why you are stating the obvious with such conviction and quotes.
> Work 50 years, rob someone who worked 50 years, you can buy the exact same thing... get X views doing A, or X views doing B, it's still just X views.
You are kinda going off the rails here buddy.
> I guess I should make a youtube video about it, then it'd be valid even if it called out other youtubers? Help me out here, since apparently typing a comment in a text box is not creating content if it rubs you the wrong way.
Cool. Now you are making up arguments on my behalf and posting your retorts.
> You're basically saying, if you found a bug, don't talk about it, fix your own copy and just use that.
That doesn't even come close to being an analogy.
> What would you know about ambition?
I can explain that to you. Or you can go back and read the conversation again, slowly.
> What if my being better includes speaking my mind? Riddle me that.
Maybe try to be actually ambitious rather than being content with raging over people doing better than you.
> Conversations have context, you know. Parent poster mentioned dignity being different. Did you not read the or are you intentionally clipping it.
No, I got that. And then I asked, why would one need a "list of activities" to make that point? I don't see how that would work, seeing how those activities also have contexts and motivations which matter. It's like "taking bread from a place and putting it somewhere else" can be various things like making breakfast, stealing food, giving food, playing with food.
> You are kinda going off the rails here buddy.
Off what rails? Your comment was an own goal, I'm just beating a dead horse.
> Maybe try to be actually ambitious rather than being content with raging over people doing better than you.
It's more mocking people who I consider lame. Which brings us back to your projected "Now you are making up arguments on my behalf and posting your retorts." haha.
> And then I asked, why would one need a "list of activities" to make that point? I don't see how that would work, seeing how those activities also have contexts and motivations which matter.
All right. I will give it a last try. You would need a "list" if you are the one making a point that hiding your gut is just dignity while posting your abs online is narcissism. I was pointing out to parent poster that this point is not conducive as your are defining dignity and narcissism to suit your point of view. I don't understand how you missed it when it's written verbatim in the comment you replied to.
> Your comment was an own goal, I'm just beating a dead horse.
And here we go again. You think of something and put it down in your comment irrespective of context. What dead horse are you beating and why does this phrase make an appearance out of blue here?
> It's more mocking people who I consider lame.
At least we have the same agenda here. I too enjoy mocking bottom feeders who write diatribes out of their jealousy for people leading a better and more fulfilled lives than them.
> Which brings us back to your projected "Now you are making up arguments on my behalf and posting your retorts." haha.
Again, I am sure you think you have a point here and I am supposed to have an epiphany when I grok it, but honestly, all I see is random sentences chained together. I once saw a video of some pastor who brought a rock to a talk show as an irrefutable proof against evolution. I am kinda feeling the same as the talk host felt.
Cool man. You do you. Continue "caring for others" by, uh, posting comments on hn I suppose, and "being better", uh, again by posting comments on hn.
> The last couple years she's had a very significant number of her students say "YouTube or Instagram star"
When I was growing up, lots of people wanted to be Movie/TV stars. I think YouTube stardom has lowered the barrier to making being vapid a carrier choice.
"The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise. Children are now tyrants, not the servants of their households. They no longer rise when elders enter the room. They contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up dainties at the table, cross their legs, and tyrannize their teachers."
Just replace Youtube Star with Movie star. At least growing up in LA, lots of my friends wanted to be movie stars and rock stars. Some of them actually are now.
They apparently provide value to someone, because they make millions of dollars.
>he last couple years she's had a very significant number of her students say "YouTube or Instagram star" instead of the usual firefighter/police officer/doctor/soldier/etc.
To be fair, I'd rather be a youtube star than a professional murderer, too.
> "YouTube or Instagram star" instead of the usual firefighter/police officer/doctor/soldier/etc...disturbing trend
Does your mother moralise her second graders' choices like this? (I'd guess not.) The number of people helped or even saved by movement leaders or other cultural icons can easily exceed the contributions of the public sector roles you described. I don't see why "Instagram star" is that different from "movie star" or "astronaut" for that matter. (It certainly seems better than "football player.")
I don't think it's moralizing to acknowledge that certain career choices lend themselves to vanity. I mean, we can come up with other less-than-desirable traits for other careers like programming, can't we?
Vs. rapper, or sports player? An IG / youtube star is being a lower-middle class celebrity, which is actually a first in many ways
What on earth does lower-middle class celebrity mean here? Where does the alleged class difference come from?
There are many valid criticisms of YouTube/IG stars, but is Michelle Phan really lower-middle class compared to say Nicki Minaj?! Because lots of the private-school mums I know are more than happy to watch Michelle Phan with their daughters but ban Nicki Minaj.
In the past being a profitable artist meant superstardom or poverty, with a rare few in between with middle class incomes. Now with Youtube/patreon, there is a good chunk of 'middle class artists' that are developing today that didn't exist in the numbers that these platforms created.
No, its "making six figures if you nail a niche" once.
Like the grown men dressing up as Elsa from Frozen and Spiderman and recording two minutes of weird sounds, just because they figured out why the analytics said 35 year old women watched that, while the marketers couldn't figure out that it meant their kids were seeing it on internet connected toys that happened to play youtube videos.
I guess it's hard to ascend to stardom. What's the ratio between stars and non stars? Stars have to stand among other people. If everybody is a star nobody is. Those kids are going to be as deluded as every past generation or are looking forward to a more difficult battle.
This is tangential, but I believe vanity has been increasing with every generation for a while now. Each generation is more vain then the generation that came before it.
I don't know if that statement holds beyond the last 100 years, but certainly it does till then. I would chalk it up to being the result of the communications expansion, with each year our audience increases (by virtue of our increasing ability to travel the world, and by the ever expanding internet), and with that expanding audience comes a desire for us to be liked by the greatest number of them, which involves out-competing everyone else.
The only "valid" (imo) complaint in this comic is in 1905:
>"The profession of letters is so little understood"
I wish the humanities played a larger role in our engineered society. I see a lot of technical people who've never read Popper (which is relevant to technical fields) or any other philosopher (which are always good reading, or at least interesting).
>I'm really glad our country is at place where being funny on a social media website is enough to make a good living, but I can't help but feel there's something missing—something keeping them grounded.
I am the opposite of "glad" about this. It's highly concerning to me. My sister is also a school teacher and her students are just 4th graders and see this as legitimate life goals. Think of how that forms the development of a young child.
> Think of how that forms the development of a young child.
It depends.
Option 1:
"Hey buddy. So you want to be a youtube star. Which ones you like? The funny ones? The lifters? The fashion vloggers? It's actually a lot of work. You will need a script, a cameraman, a director, actors etc. And all said and done, for every youtube star, there are tens of thousands who just toil in obscurity. But that's a risk which comes with a lot of life's decisions and you can decide later on if you really want to do it or if you want to do it part time.
Back to the production process. It's not very different from what we do in our school's theater except that there is a massive potential increase in your reach. Why don't you try coming up with a concept and I can walk you through the iterations it takes for the final product. We can even try to schedule a screening for the class and put it on youtube."
Option 2:
"Youtube star? SMH. What has become of today's generation?"
When I was in secondary school in the UK ( mid-1980s ) career guidance was just being introduced as a concept. I think it was a couple of half-hour sessions one year and then being left with a folder of job descriptions.
So most of us in my year left school and picked a university course without having any career goal or aspiration. I am mid-40s now and still don't know what I want to do but unfortunately it is too late for many opportunities.
I have a good friend who was the school sports champion and even she just fell into an unrelated career by accident.
If kids today want to be YouTube stars then that's great, hopefully it will give them an objective and a reason to study particular subjects instead of "the teacher seems nice" or "I need to pick one subject from that category"
My mother's a 2nd grade teacher and does the usual "what do you want to be when you grow up?" bit each year. The last couple years she's had a very significant number of her students say "YouTube or Instagram star" instead of the usual firefighter/police officer/doctor/soldier/etc. (Also not the most disturbing trend to come from her recent batch(es) of kids.)
I'm really glad our country is at place where being funny on a social media website is enough to make a good living, but I can't help but feel there's something missing—something keeping them grounded.
I get that boomers and Gen Xers are vain—I love to rag on them, and, really, we all are vain to some extent—but millennials and Gen Z seem to be taking it to a different level.