As an Indian, it bothers me how sensitive, insecure, and thin skinned India is as a country. Every time someone makes a comment on something controversial, or makes a joke on India millions of armchair warriors will get their pride hurt and be up in arms boycotting and protesting it on facebook, reddit, etc. (sometimes there are real life protests too). It's so silly really.

On the contrary, countries like the US, Australia, etc. are far more tolerant of public remarks like this. Had Evan said that the French are too stupid to use Snapchat (for example), no one would have even batted an eye.

Even in US people get pumped up and start boycotting at any issue. Recently, I have seen Boycott Target (transgender bathrooms?), Boycott Starbucks (hiring refugess?), Boycott Lowe Hardware (abortions?), Boycott some fast food chain (CEO said he opposes same-sex marriage?), and many more ...

Obviously, its always only a vocal minority which participates in #Boycott, but same is the case in India too! On the other hand, "as an Indian" you should not be so much affected by this #Protest. Please remember that India is a vast country and no single group represents can represent all of India. And this action is quite trivial (and non-violent!) and 0% (after rounding off) of the population participated in it.

I live in the US and haven't heard of any of these, with the exception of Chick-fil-A.

Boycott Target is apparently a huge phenomenon affecting their bottom line (mainly in Southern States) and prompting many customers to switch to Walmart.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-target-botched-its-response...

I guess either you place yourself in amongst company or in an area that is not significantly politically active.

I'm in highly politically active company (college) in a highly politically active area (Cambridge), and I've also only heard of the Chick-fil-A boycott. I don't use Facebook, though, so if people have only been spreading it over traditional social media and not word-of-mouth, I may not have heard of them.

Three of his examples were "socially conservative" boycotts, and one was a "socially progressive" boycott. So it's not all that surprising that you only heard of one (guess which) while going to college in Cambridge.

Honestly as an outsider I feel that India is in a position where it speaks the same language as the west(English) but is still mocked inside of the English speaking sphere as an outsider would be. If you can go on Reddit you can tell how much people jump at the opportunity to insult India whenever it's mentioned. This happens with a lot of other countries but India is the only English speaking one can notice.

You and the GP are both right.

We're terribly insecure, but that is in part fuelled by how much we get looked down upon. The Indian reaction to mockery and racism during the British era was pumping up nationalism and self-pride. That was a justified reaction to a truly evil empire, but unfortunately, that culture has not evolved after independence.

I don't think so. In my recent memory, people boycott StarBucks because of its CEO's words on hiring refugees. They also went on to boycott Ivanka Trump's product, because a Trump is a Trump.

Outrage culture is the norm in social media era. U.S is a big market, I think very few companies is dare to insult it on a national scale. And US is rich, such idiotic remark is just going to be ignored for it is simply not true. But it doesn't mean if something sensitive is touched, there wouldn't be a backlash, such as race.

I think poverty is still a big issue in India, and people are sensitive to be looked down because of that. So it comes the outrage.

You are probably right. In the same sentence as India he also mentioned Spain but nobody there seems to care.

I know nothing about Indian and Spanish culture so I can't speculate on the reason.

Snapchat is down to 1 star in spain too. Apparently, they care.

When I first heard about this story, I thought that "poor countries like Spain" was the funniest thing I'd heard all week. (If you think Spain's poor, I hope you never witness the heartbreaking poverty of Taiwan and South Korea, its rough peers by GDP-per-capita.) But I can certainly see how it was a lot less funny in Spain itself...

> "poor countries like Spain" was the funniest thing I'd heard all week.

I take it you aren't familiar with the term PIGS[1]. "Poor countries like Spain" is a common sentiment in Europe.

> PIGS or PIIGS or PIIGGS is an acronym used in economics and finance. The PIGS acronym originally refers, often derogatorily, to the economies of the Southern European countries of Portugal, Italy, Greece, and Spain.[1][2][3][4][5] During the European debt crisis, the term was also increasingly used to refer to the economies of Portugal, Ireland, Greece, and Spain, four EU member states that were unable to refinance their government debt or to bail out over-indebted banks on their own during the crisis

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PIGS_(economics)

Do you seriously think that anyone on this website doesn't know the term PIGS? Do you think that I wasn't alive four years ago?

And the PIGS weren't the poorest countries in Europe; they were the most over-leveraged. Spain is much better-off than Bulgaria and Romania -- and certainly much better-off than a genuinely poor country.

> Do you seriously think that anyone on this website doesn't know the term PIGS? Do you think that I wasn't alive four years ago?

If you'd like to explain why you took offense to my comment, please do. I'd like to foster discussion where people do not take personal offense to my words on a message board when I didn't mean to offend anyone. I'd legitimately appreciate any feedback you have.

> And the PIGS weren't the poorest countries in Europe;

I'm not talking about objective reality, but about popular public perception.

> Do you seriously think that anyone on this website doesn't know the term PIGS?

N≥1; I couldn't have said what it was.

I am not sure but I don't believe Snapchat is widely used in Spain.

We live in an age of "looking to be offended."

(That said people say unnecessary things when they should just follow the golden rule.)

I think it's a great example of the market working. These people are willing to change their behavior and put their proverbial and literal money where their mouth is.

If more people were willing to do this, "vote with your dollars" would transform from an ideal that might work in theory to a vehicle of effectual influence on the market.

There is an inclination to get offended at the slight hint but I don't think this incident is a good example of that. Unintentionally or otherwise, the media packaged the news to create maximum outrage, even though, the actual facts might have been thin—a fired employee claiming that CEO said so. Few start a campaign to boycott an app and everyone else joins in. How is it any different from #boycottuber campaign after they removed surge pricing during driver strike?

We have natural expectation that people would stop to learn the facts and make a smart choice but that's not how it works. Social media triggers a strong impulsive response and people react by doing whatever they've been asked.

I do agree that what aggravates this is irrational feeling of nationalism and defending country's pride among our folks.

I think there's also some selective bias. The people ranting and raving on twitter, i'd imagine they're the vocal minority(of an even more minority of people on social media). I also think a lot of people are just trolling, or just joining in the fun without actually believing in the cause.

So i don't think there's anything to be bothered about. I think billions of Indians are just going about there business and not shouting out on twitter. Of-course there are other serious social problems/believes that bother me more. But only a few of them are ever discussed on social media.

I think their anger is very justified. And honestly they aren't missing out on much by boycotting Snapchat. There are lots of other ways to send nudes now.

Ha ha. It is true there are a lot of ways to send nudes now. But it is nothing new. In ancient times they used to send it by literally carving intricate statues. People in that region of the globe were way ahead of the times.

This is true for most countries and not isolated to India. The whole thing gets exemplified because of the population.

Much of the outrage originated on Twitter with influential accounts like this one[1] commandeering their followers to follow their nationalistic call to action. Many messages on Twitter and Whatsapp came with detailed instructions[2] on exactly what was to be done: 1) Install Snapchat 2) Leave a review on the app store 3) Uninstall

These messages reached audiences that had never heard about Snapchat, and in some cases, had never reviewed apps before.

This was a case of "manufactured outrage" by social influencers and the media, and I think it showcases mob-like tendencies when it comes to subjects like national pride. Many memes appeared cheering India's billionaires claiming they'd buy out Snapchat. In normal circumstances, the billionaire class in India is routinely accused of stashing money in Swiss bank accs.

What a glorious mess.

[1] https://twitter.com/SirJadeja/status/853314615018758145

[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JT7rBxEa0LU

Snapchat is for people who are able to figure out its god-awful UX. And most of them are too young to have their own money. So it is either implausible or downright ironic.

Not here, please.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

sorry, attempt at humor

I find it somewhat amusing that anyone would even consider snapchat being for "rich people". I've never used it myself, but I get the impression it is just a kids app, and not a particularly interesting one at that. Perhaps they make their money from boring, bratty rich kids.

Not so much "rich people" as "people in countries with a high wealth baseline, where even kids with no jobs have smartphones and data plans for no useful reason."

Yes, "rich" compared to India, although there is increasing wealth in India, and my SaaS product now has quite a lot of income from India right now. (Admittedly it is B2B rather than B2C, and targets online tutoring which is a very large market in India).

> even kids with no jobs have smartphones and data plans for no useful reason.

There are plenty of reasons to have a smartphone regardless of age or employment. If nothing else, messaging apps are an important part of socialization.

it wasn't the ceo's comment, he didn't say this. a pissed off former employee made the comment, and the "news" misreported it. or so they say.

This is nothing particular to India. On the day Snapchat went public, investors in the US bought the wrong company - Snap Interactive. These were investors, who were putting their money at risk!

Point is, this happens everywhere and people are irrational.

http://www.cnbc.com/2017/03/02/snap-interactive-shares-brief...

I've heard there's also a penny stock with the symbol NEST, which shoots up every time Nest (which is privately held) is in the news...

It is amazing what mob mentality can do on the web these days. Regardless of the authenticity of the news, I saw the number of reviews for Snapchat on the iOS store go from around 4000 to ~60K! That to me is terrifying.

A faceless mob can ruin your business if one "social influencer" chooses to.

This is what worries me. And I do hope app stores start protecting apps against these organised campaigns. In this case, even a simple CAPTCHA would've worked since people who aren't tech savvy were following step-by-step instructions on how to rate apps. An additional step would've easily thrown people off.

It wouldn't surprise me if companies began leaking news stories that would trigger fiery reactions against competitors. For e.g. Facebook could keep Snapchat from ever expanding in India if it were to covertly portray Snap/Evan as disrespectful towards Indians. Social media influencers could profit from providing back-channel services to corporates.

And best of all, that "leak" was made by a former pissed of employee, and our people who fall for Clibait headlines without evem reading the news have proved we are idiots in large numbers with smartphones. Snapchat CEO can file for a defamation suit on all FB pages spreading false info and can win it hands down.

Judge a country's wealth when you are earning profit

the title should have read "snapchat ceo did NOT dis India, a disgruntled former employee did."

Interesting that the official response from Snapchat never denies the quote.

We've banned this account and detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14135290.

India is a third-world country, there's no doubt about that whatsoever. And we are weirdly nationalistic, or at least there's a vocal minority who are overly nationalistic.

But making fun of the other things you mentioned is really just making fun of poor people. I have hard time seeing the funny side of it.

I don't really see why that's any funnier than any of the myriad of things we do here in our own countries that aren't practiced elsewhere.

It's funnier because of hypocrisy, partly a result of cultural norms. For example, a strange accent (to an American or many other English speakers) could be perceived as "funny" unless conditioned otherwise, even if this has nothing to do with a person's status or a country's level of development.

I didn't say it wouldn't be funny, just hinted that people were laughing at the OP on the other side of the world too :)

For instance, this episode of Last Week Tonight on the french elections is just full of "ho ho the french eat snails and like pastries" jokes https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hkZir1L7fSY

I'm sure there's the equivalent jokes for americans.

Cows being sacred is no more funny than God killing his son to forgive humanity for the crime of some couple in ancient history eating an apple.

Religions are weird. If you find some funny but not the others, you probably have blinkers on.