Show HN: HN as TikTok, welcome to HN hell
24 comments
·February 5, 2025Liftyee
Fun little project! And possibly my future productivity black hole...
I noticed that on mobile Firefox the bottom part of the screen (username, date) are cut off by the address bar. Just a nitpick
MasterScrat
I think both of these projects miss what makes TikTok (and reels in general) so effective.
A good TikTok video gets "injected into your brain". You have zero effort to provide and suddenly this stuff is in your mind. I'm not saying it's a good thing, I realize the danger, but that's the core mechanism.
A friend in marketing describes this in terms of "brain calories". Eg if people have to think in order to understand your landing page, you failed to communicate your ideas efficiently, as it "requires too many brain calories". TikTok content requires zero brain calories.
One could say that only very shallow information could be spread this way (eg people dancing, video game clips) but I'm not sure that's true. The real challenge would be to turn an arbitrary source of information (wikipedia, hn) and make it immediately graspable. I suspect modern AI models could already go quite far in this direction.
Veritasium is a good example of interesting yet very graspable content: https://www.tiktok.com/@veritasium/video/7329576935317622058
xtiansimon
> "A good TikTok video gets "injected into your brain""
I worked in marketing, so I'm generally immune to outrageous metaphor, such as "injected" into your brain.
That said, I just want to point out the irony we're still using phrases like this after 20+ years of research on networked media and user interaction, and soft science research into cognitive psychology and behavioral psychology, as well as research into human biology and the brain.
So when I hear brain injection as the secret to successful technologies like TikTok's algorithm (plus music licensing), I see a vast gap.
I'm reminded about the general distain for new disciplines such as memetics and problematic disciplines such as semiotics, which nevertheless offer more precise language and less hyperbole. Established disciplines such as behavioral science, for example, say we don't need these disciplines, because they're problematic and add nothing.
So I ask, Why haven't the sciences I speak of contributed more to the general discourse?
micah94
It requires too many brain calories.
xtiansimon
Exactly! If its not experimental, it's crap! /s
MasterScrat
I'd be curious to hear how you'd express these notions in more scientific terms?
xtiansimon
> "I'd be curious to hear how you'd express these notions in more scientific terms?"
?? Did you read past the second paragraph? My lament is that neither of us have this language. And after 20 years very little to nothing has percolated up from research to provide it.
aaron695
[dead]
sebastiennight
The concept has potential...
It's still an aggregator of links though.
You're missing the "zero effort" factor, which could be achieved by summarizing the content and generating some AI cartoon or video based on it. It would be somewhat costly but much more fun to browse.
redbell
Oh, thanks! That was such a quick implementation—and a nice addition to the Show HN gallery, especially for HN-related projects.
When I came across WikiTok yesterday, the first thought that popped into my mind was how this format could work for HN. And here we are!
With the abundance of AI coding assistants available today, creating prototypes, demos, or MVPs can now be done in just a few hours instead of taking days or even weeks. As developers, we should absolutely take advantage of these tools to stay ahead and remain innovative—otherwise, we might risk being left behind!
techjamie
I made a prototype template for a site and had it exactly how I wanted in about an hour. I mocked it up in Photopea, gave Claude an image, and told it to generate HTML that would make a page with those qualities.
A few tweaks and a couple more prompts later and I had all the main elements I wanted in place, and just need to fill content which I won't use AI for.
Probably saved me several hours because I suck at frontend.
fuzzzerd
I also struggle with frontend, can you share any more about how you did this? All local? From a service? My usage so Fae is limited to copilot, but I'd like to try other things.
sirobg
To be fair it is really not great, but it works for the joke and I'm impressed by how good it works for how little time it took.
ge96
haha clicking on this link in the app
busymom0
Bug report: On iPhone (with Safari url bar set to bottom), the titles are all clipped at the bottom. I think it has to do with your website using the screen height instead of the visible part only.
AirMax98
100dvh is your friend.
carabiner
Both URLs blocked by corporate firewall because of bad SSL.
danieldevries
Me likey
pipeline_peak
Use an LLM to summarize each page in one sentence. This takes too much effort to feel like TikTok.
lcnPylGDnU4H9OF
> summarize each page in one sentence
Or the entire comments section. That could be some good comedy.
intalentive
Summarize in one image
null
joseppudev
[flagged]
Inspired by WikiTok (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42936723)
After making HN paradise: https://meet.hn
I had to make https://hnhell.com
Fully created with v0.dev: wanted to make the joke but didn't have time for it. Thanks v0!
It's even better as you will probably enjoy some very cursed errors/problems, which is expected in hell.