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PaperclipPerfector  2yr ago (text post)   2996 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for October 6, 2023

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

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I have a strong moral distaste for when one, especially one who's otherwise sensitive and competent, finds "STAND IN THE CIRCLE FOR THE LONGEST AND GET TEN THOUSAND DOLLARS" entertaining and spends a nontrivial amount of time consuming it. The challenges are enormously dull, chosen for mass relatability, and the financial reward serves as a hollow source of drama without any of the complex technical or social games that make IRL life or good fiction interesting. The video in OP is a minor case of that, and I just won't participate as a result. And it's just as bad to produce that content - you could be doing something interesting, and instead you're optimizing your facial expression to make 7 year olds click on the exploding train thumbnail. It's the same thing where I wouldn't work as marketer for a clothing or shitty mobile game company even if I were very good at it, and it paid well.

Whereas for a lot of people I really think 'this is super weird and unusual and cringe and I don't want to do it' plays a bigger role than you think, and they'd probably make a different decision in a different social context.

I'm not entirely sure the 'no guarantee it's for real' part is actually true? I sort of expect that, given the popularity of 'give you money for stuff' videos, a substantial fraction of things that look like 'yo i'll give you $500 if you catch this football' with someone filming are genuine (or, if something's rigged, it's that the challenge is harder than it appears, not that the money's fake). Just because there aren't that many big free stuff youtubers, but there aren't that many people doing fake challenges either.

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