>they admitted it

He's now denying that he instructed others on how to skip the line, although it's not really that clear of a denial.

The post specifically told others how to skip the line, which was lying about their profession to say they were one that was qualified but that then people on site couldn’t prove.

Where can I see this? Did the OP make a screenshot?

The parenthetical is more to indicate the comment isn't doxxing/a witch hunt.

It has a real "snitches get stiches" vibe to it.

You have no expectation of privacy if you announce (let alone advocate for, or instruct how-to) behaviour against public health policy _during_a_pandemic_.

The contrast with people who have been working hard to match people with appointments couldn't be more stark.

It does indeed have that vibe, and irrespective of what actually happened - it makes him look bad.

If he was indeed talking about inappropriately skipping the line, then this guy is a bad actor. But I should point out that we don't have any idea - the situation could have been very misrepresented - and he could have done nothing wrong.

But given the public information ... this Tweet is going to come of 'Snitches Get Stitches' in a 'lacking in self awareness' kind of way, as opposed to the 'I was slandered and misrepresented publicly, and that can be very damaging, I'm glad this issue is behind us" kind of way.

Why are adults in the US using Twitter/GIF memes instead of finding thoughtful and mature ways of communicating this stuff? I don't like this evolution.

> Why are adults in the US using Twitter/GIF memes instead of finding thoughtful and mature ways

This way they evoke more emotion, so, more of the unthinking (feeling-based) approval: retweets, reposts, just being remembered. When it's funny, it makes people happier along the way, when it's angry, it may make people also feel anger, but a righteous, just anger.

It's a potent drug which is very hard to stop taking recreationally, and also for a just cause. Not as a poster, but most importantly as a reader.

Memes pack more information and context into less content.

We're basically going through a mini printing press style communications revolution right now.

Before (say 1999) you had print which was cheap and audiovisual which was expensive/time consuming. Now thanks to tech audiovisual content is something the masses can use to communicate and it's affecting culture greatly.

'Images' can communicate some things, like emotions, in a better way.

But 'memes' are things which are pushed onto situation that probably call for more nuance i.e. 80% of the 'Karen' memes I see are not actually 'Karen' memes.

But they don't necessarily communicate 'more' information, and more often than not, they're just used to put an emotive 'playround' spin on something. If the issue is important, words are almost always a better choice.

Irrespective of what happened, a GIF response to something semi-serious I think is bad form. If people aspire to assume responsibility for some important thing ... like processing payments ... then they can assume responsibility for making basic, conscientious communications.

I almost agree. I think it's not information and context that's being packed, it's emotional load.

As any writer or poet knows, words are handles to emotions. Choose a slightly different word, and your readers will tend to feel very differently after reading a line containing, otherwise, the same information. It's a wetware equivalent of RPC API.

Memes are this, but taken up to 11. They transmit a much more complex and powerful emotional payload, in readily digestible form.

Like in this case, I could write a whole paragraph listing the kind of emotions that little GIF communicated. Calm distancing, depreciation, disrespect, feeling safe, ... Written out as words, it wouldn't fit in a Tweet, and wouldn't be as powerful a message.

Almost. Tamarians were using references to shared cultural stories. Many, but not all, memes work like that. This meme is of a different kind - it packs emotional payload mostly directly, with only a reference to a simple activity and related concept (popcorn + Internet drama).

Put another way, if you consider a story to be a collection of handles (in programming sense, like a pointer) to concepts and emotions, then Tamarians communicate by speaking handles to stories. That's one level of indirection extra over this meme, which itself is a (simple) story - a collection of handles to concepts and emotions.

I kind of miss the old days when I could go through life without ever knowing that some guy in North Carolina got in a fight with his brother-in-law over a borrowed lawnmower. My solution is to stay off social media altogether.

It's hard to pack thoughtful and mature communication into 280 characters.

Postscript: the person in question states that this was an open site with no restrictions, and I am pleased to read that. However, it is still unclear if this was because of a special campaign to reach at risk populations (like undocumented people) and I can't help but think there was a naive element of playing the system here.

Regardless, they or YC should have addressed this publically at the time, rather than waiting and staying silent. The YC brand is damaged because we don't know if they acted ethically, or enforced the omerta. Everyone's reputation is taking an acid bath because of unclear communication.

It increases my respect for YC knowing that they would kick a member out of the club for airing another's dirty laundry.

At this point in the US, anyone who wants to get a vaccine can get one. That makes getting it a personal choice.

Then you have this person try to damage Ycombinator because one of their founders spoke internally about the matter. Absolutely tactless. You'd expect future founders to be able to consider potential repercussions for biting the hand that's serving them.

Why would alleged poor behavior among a handful of YC founders damage its reputation, unless it’s either endorsed by YC leadership or widespread enough that it’s unfortunately representative?

If anything, criticism of poor behavior within the cohort would reflect well on a culture that values sharp contrarian takes and productive disruption.

Or at least, it could...

>At this point in the US, anyone who wanted to get a vaccine can get one.

Pretty sure when this actually happened, vaccines were not actually open to anyone that just wanted one.

that site was well known locally at the time to accept anyone who walked up

Perhaps... But perhaps not everybody was supposed to go walk up in the first place: https://twitter.com/SarahBelleLin/status/1370071520953835520

Bingo. He uses the announcement of vaccines opening up to all in May as "proof" that it was allowed, but I can't see anything in the announcement that indicates that.

> At this point in the US, anyone who wants to get a vaccine can get one. That makes getting it a personal choice.

But since this all happened in March, when not anyone who wanted to get the vaccine could get any, your comment is irrelevant.

"Try to damage Ycombinator"... How?

It's a divisive political topic, and he associated an individual post made on an internal Ycombinator forum with Ycombinator itself. Comments of individuals don't represent the company, and by framing it like he did, he publicly dragged Ycombinator right into the middle of a contentious political debate.

That's like saying students at a university don't represent the university, and yet they do and don't, both in the eyes of the people and the institution. It's difficult to say how attribution will be finally concluded in society, no?

In this case the relationship between member and institution is even tighter, and the desperation of sink or swim is more palpable.

All I've been hearing on HN for the last 6 years is how so many things are inherently political, that to not act is to condone, and that organizations should be made to take a stand by their employees/students/passers-by. Why does YC get an exception?

I don't know how you missed the many comments saying the opposite.

Because we'd have to change bookmarked websites apparently.

It's like these two people are competing for the worst self-own. From what I can tell (and the communications on this are very confusing), Biggar goes after Prafulfillment without having his facts straight enough to avoid issuing a nearly immediate correction. Then when Biggar gets canned, Prafulfillment gloats in a way that draws attention to their identity, without clarifying what actually happened, leaving Biggar's version as the only account of events. Additional tidbits of information are coming out, mainly in responses to responses to tweets... but this is a ridiculous way to conduct public relations.

> Prafulfillment gloats in a way that draws attention to their identity, without clarifying what actually happened, leaving Biggar's version as the only account of events. Additional tidbits of information are coming out...

Tidbits which, AFAICS, slowly tilt the balance back over in favour of Biggar having been more right than wrong: https://twitter.com/SarahBelleLin/status/1370071520953835520

Nice to see that everyone involved are definitely fully grown adults.