not to mention that you get what you deserve wrt. the outcomes / kind of people this attracts. honestly, seems like good matchmaking to me-- shallow meets shallow.

If it works for him, that's his business.

No one asked for your judgements.

agreed. i don't view people like him as competition at all, as their and my interests in the dating pool are nearly completely disjunct.

that said, no one ever asked for anyone's "judgements" ever-- not here, nor anywhere else. but yet they have this shiny "comment" button, and i guess i just can't help myself... welcome to an online forum, where people share judgments (among other things).

Well, by posting on HN I suspect he's seeking more social currency via upvotes. That is judgment in a sense.

EDIT: Forgot 'posting'

I'm glad the culture of Instagram has finally trickled up into HN

Would you say the same thing if a spammer posted here saying how they managed to make money off of email spam?

Even in that context it would be a weird comment: "I worry about what kind of people would fall for such spam, probably stupid attracts stupid"

It is an insult-like judgment coming from moral highness, both of the posters and of the women mentioned.

As an example, in both cases a comment like "this is a disgusting toxic way to use the platform" would have been less of an unwarranted insult that still communicates strong feelings.

Yes, I agree with that. I just found it odd that people jumped to defend the guy that clearly was doing something pretty unsavory, especially when the line of defense was "well it works for him" - spam and dark patterns also work, otherwise people wouldn't use them.

whats unsavory about sending messages from a popular profile and people finding that attention intriguing and less likely to ignore?

not "earning" the popularity the way anyone imagined? every form of valuable popularity requires capital and external help. it has the same affect with the populous. sycophants with romantic interest are predictable.

It's dishonest. You know you're not selling what they think they are buying.

Can you elaborate on what exactly you think is happening here?

Sounds like they were doing the work mostly as work, and the women were a side perk.

Women who value popularity on instagram tend to be pretty hot as well.

> Women who value popularity on instagram tend to be pretty hot as well.

hot, yes, and another important factor being: fun!

the combination is anomalous in SF since the demographics do not select for it, so the evolutionary pressures are non-existent.

but here and everywhere you see them on dating apps and they don't see you at all and won't respond to you at all on the gram as this is their way of passively increasing their follower count and engagement. But when you show up with a lot of the thing they value? It is disingenuous to find this perplexing. Its wealth, social proof, and ingenuity in a tough market all in one. This has been attractive to our species for a very long time.

The profiles can be about anything even scantily clad women (maybe not actual memes though, but maybe), and they don't even know what I look like and they come through at least to the cafe. No different than any other date, just all the exceptions you ever wished for, and with fun and hot people that otherwise ignored you. Its more about getting a response than anything and recognizing that you are incapable of being the strangest or most precarious circumstance that many women have ever been in, just offer and invite. You are already rich, in followers, and recognize that this is a currency, just like they do.

And what kind of fun hat do you wear for peacocking?

Goorin Brothers!

oh shoot! It was when I said social proof wasn't it! well the other term I was specifically avoiding was demonstrating higher value. Yes, gotta update those concepts to conform to things people actually value this decade, especially when wealth and education credentials are more ubiquitous and not unique (in SF/Bay Area) and both genders have it more often. I just don't want to be associated with the twisted and lost "red pill" crowd so I don't use the terms but try to describe similar concepts.

It’s all the same stuff. I’ll never understand the appeal.

The appeal is to remove the randomness from society and specifically regarding attraction and consensual intimate outcomes.

I didn't like having an average case success with average people an average amount of times. I was and still am very allured by having best case success with consensus attractive people an above average amount of times. Consensus attractive and whatever I specifically find to be extremes of attraction, of which there is significant overlap.

Most of the attraction things I would do are gender neutral and are useful outside of courtship contexts. More like sales. Live in a desirable neighborhood, enjoy certain experiences. If I would portray a certain accurate lifestyle in a client meeting where the business itself is in the back of our minds but relevant, I would portray it on a date where the "business itself" is in the back of our minds but relevant.

Yeah, I find sales and marketing to be distasteful in general, and casting human relationships into that mold turns something beautiful about life into a hollow commodity. I have strong desires for community, and personal meaning, so I am happy to have deeper relationships even if it means they are fewer in number. It also feels to me that the urge to pursue a large volume of experiences in this gamified way is an attempt at finding validation without being vulnerable, which is ultimately self-defeating. But hey, if it makes you happy then who am I to say anything. But that perspective is why I don’t understand the appeal.

It was an analogy about how benign it is and not exclusive to cisgender courtship. Things that make me attractive in one environment make me attractive in another environment as well, compared to putting on a hallow mask temporarily for women. Oddly enough, I don't mind their makeup.

> It also feels to me that the urge to pursue a large volume of experiences in this gamified way is an attempt at finding validation without being vulnerable

Or its exclusively an attempt to have sex with a variety of people that look like the people I always wanted to have sex with, and it is as fulfilling, entertaining and intriguing as I expected it to be? I was wondering if you considered that.