> > the result ends up being very formulaic.

> Yeah that’s very true, but I still think it’s pretty funny and original.

Either it’s formulaic or it’s original, it can’t be both.

According to an original formula hehe

The problem is not that it fails to be cheeky, but that "its funny" is depressing in a context where there was a live question of whether it's a sincere attempt at prediction.

When I see "yeah but it's funny" it feels like a retrofitted repair job, patching up a first pass mental impression that accepted it at face value and wants to preserve a kind of sense of psychological endorsement of the creative product.

Honestly it feels like what I, or many of my colleagues would do if given the assignment. Take the current front page, or a summary of the top tropes or recurring topics, revise them for 1 or 2 steps of technical progress and call it a day. It isn't assignment to predict the future, it is an assignment to predict HN, which is a narrower thing.

Right, because you would read the teacher and realize they don't want you to actually complete the assignment to the letter. So you would do jokes in response to a request for prediction.