Why would that be funny? I just wonder how these people have no sense of embarrassment. I suspect part of the reason is that isolated communities encourage this kind of behaviour.
Not sure if this is what's going on here, but I've noticed sometimes isolated communities don't want too much attention and front load these types of things as scarecrows to keep the general public away.
As much as I hate "both sides" discourse[0], it's interesting that I see the same memes in both right and left contexts - I wonder of a creation of a "second language" to discuss divisive politics is enough of a force to spread it, or of it is intentional coopting of another sides language to dilute it.
E: [0] HN is not the place for the rest of my feelings on this. Both sides aren't the same is enough to suffice here.
honestly that's probably a great filter for "interesting" clients, if you want to keep the fortune 500 bureaucracy away and just work instead of push papers all day
It's basically 'book babes'. Booth babes went out of fashion a while back for good reason. This kind of thing is relatively harmless in the instance but in aggregate puts out a vibe.
I think in some parts of US culture not that familiar with Japanese culture there is the misconception that anime is all tentacle porn or something and so you should be embarrassed for liking anime.
While that stereotype still exists in some corners; I've actually found that there is more mainstream understanding and acceptance of anime these days. I work in an office that terminally online folks would call “full of normies”; but I have found people here are at least aware of anime, if not active consumers. These days, it's not “cringe” to enjoy anime itself, and I'm guessing that the majority of commenters in this particular thread are over-analyzing the presence of an anime girl on a website.
The author probably likes seeing an anime girl, and feels that displaying one on their page expresses an interest in anime, tech, and a casual tone for their writing.
It's likely the reason they don't feel embarrassment is because they couldn't care less about your unwarranted judgement, and delight knowing that some people actually take the time to be upset about it.
This always comes up in these discussions, my impression is that there is some kind of a split when it comes to understanding the concept of embarrassment. It is not about the individual judgement of people and being upset is the wrong word, but it is difficult to find the right words to explain it. When thinking to myself why I'd never do these kinds of things, setting aside the lack of interest, I wouldn't want a kind of general perception that people have of me to be associated with these cultural symbols. It is an interesting question, especially because it appears obvious until I reflect on it. I guess I am not the only one who feels like this, and some people get upset because it is difficult to articulate these "unwritten rules of behaviour in polite society".
To me it's sad that you took that lesson away from that. :(
Watching someone be genuinely enthusiastic about something is wonderful. Society has far too much cynicism, and watching it beat that into children as they grow up is no fun. I see a lot of adults who treat things that way.
Maybe it's a generational thing, maybe it's my circles, but I've seen plenty people appreciating and gushing about people sharing their interests. It's even in the memes, here's an example:
> Everyone wants an autistic gf who infodumps abt video games and linguistics and whatever up until day 43 of the relationship when you get a paper cut and she starts trying to drink your blood
> Watching someone be genuinely enthusiastic about something is wonderful.
But isn't the question what they are being enthusiastic about? I would certiainly agree that there are some things that considered noble and respectable (helping the sick, science, the right kind of activism for the right kind of people, ...) that most admire. At the same time I think most recognize that there are destructive or non-productive things one can be enthusiastic about to the point of obsession. While having an anime girl on your website or being a furry is usually not destructive and ignore the cultural popular images of people like these, then they are at least non-productive in the sense that neither society nor the individual themselves grows from engaging with the topic. You can study engineering and improve human technology or write and learn how to better express yourself, but I don't see how anyone can progress as an anime weeaboo beyond a self-contained culture that might value if you know the names and details of all characters by heart. As soon as you step out of this bubble, the value disappears.
> Maybe it's a generational thing, maybe it's my circles, but I've seen plenty people appreciating and gushing about people sharing their interests.
I don't know what generation you are referring too. I'm Gen Z and obviously have different feelings about this. Sure, I enjoy talking to people who share my interests, but I know when and where the right place is. I don't go out with friends and insist on talking about e.g. Emacs, and I certainly don't want to be perceived as someone who superficially is only interested in my own topics, not caring to engage with topics that others care about.
(Btw. thank for your respectful tone, I appreciate that).
I'm...not sure why it would be embarrassing? People have things they're interested in that aren't related to work, and besides, the suit-and-tie image of the workplace is deeply rooted in a load of nonsense (nonsense which ought to be recognized as nonsense, but which is often confused for professionalism).
If you check my other replies in this thread, I've tried to describe why I feel the way I do. But if I may, I'd be curious to hear what you'd consider to be "embarrassing", not as an act but as a personality trait.
As an example, I believe to recall the first time I felt this way as a child, perhaps age 4 or 5. There was some sort of a meeting and somehow a kid felt prompted to go up to the whiteboard and start explaining everyone the Bionicle alphabet (https://bionicle.fandom.com/wiki/Matoran_Alphabet) with unreasonable enthusiasm. I was into Bionicles myself, but remember thinking to myself, "Don't you know how you look like? Don't you know that nobody cares? Have you no sense of how others perceive you? If I hadn't seen how this looks like, would I have done something like this eventually?". I don't know how others brush these impressions away with a "Good for him".
I used to have something similar to this, as a teenager. I pretty quickly realized I was drawing arbitrary lines delineating things that I found cool as being better than things other people found cool, treating other people's interests as somehow more embarrassing than my own even though I was a textbook cargo-pants-wearing wannabe-hacker nerd. Between that and my struggle with depression, I ended up deciding that it's more important to enjoy things than to look cool.
Anyway, to answer your question: I'm not sure there's any personality traits I would call "embarrassing". There are some I would call harmful, sure, and there are some that are associated with being socially inept or less cool, but I don't think there's a category of personality traits that are just embarrassing.
To your specific example: Being enthusiastic about things isn't embarrassing; it invites others to share that enthusiasm, either because of a shared interest or simply because watching someone be enthusiastic about something is enjoyable.
I'm curious why you think that's something to be embarrassed about. I feel like it's a cultural thing but for example here in Japan it's very common to see this style everywhere (on TV, on billboards, on the train, on random websites, etc) and several of my coworkers also have these kinds of backgrounds or posters at work (in an open office).
It was frankly weird and bit disturbing to see some of the neckbeards in engineering school obsessing about cute depiction of young girls. To this day, it definitely colours how I see random use of anime girls on CS related topics.
I have no issue with it in its original Japanese setting and I wasn’t aware of its use by the LGBT community but it seems far less depressing in this case.
There are a surprising number of pedophiles (who will immediately 'correct' people to use the term "ephebophile" instead) amongst the techbeard community. I agree it becomes uncomfortably apparent after spending a bit of time with these types.
I don't know, this is mostly instinctual, but my guess is that this is subconsciously associated with the kind of cultural image of an anime enthusiast or furry as socially inept, meagre or generally nerdish.
Or perhaps they simply see no reason for it to be embarrassing, because they have a different set of values, coming from a different culture which we, as old people, simply are not part of.
> I just wonder how these people have no sense of embarrassment.
A lot of these people tend to be quite isolated from society in general, so they end up losing their sense of embarrassment entirely. Doing things that other people find weird or that make other people uncomfortable ends up becoming a sort of hobby for them (and often becomes their personality entirely) since they effectively have nothing to lose over it.
That is a good point. If you don't need to deal with everyday people to socialize, you don't have to adapt your behaviour to the mean expectation of what is proper and not. I remember reading an interesting socialist argument once, that this is historically unique because capitalism allows people to reduce social relations to that of monetary exchange. As long as you can pay your bills and buy what you need, nobody can complain. It is this perspective that people who retort with "Why do you even care?" implicitly hold, that I am not a fan of.
I’m in this picture and I don’t like it, but I vouched anyway. It’s an interesting perspective I hadn’t considered before, and broadened by horizons a bit.
The comment I responded to was dead. I don’t feel it really violates the site guidelines. Although some people might take it personally, which could make it sort of flame-bait-y and result in flags.
