[HN Gopher] "The Onion" founder explains his strategy for sparki...
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"The Onion" founder explains his strategy for sparking creativity
Author : Brajeshwar
Score : 87 points
Date : 2023-08-02 15:06 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (bigthink.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (bigthink.com)
| pier25 wrote:
| > _One way around that is this beautiful exercise called "morning
| pages." You set an alarm clock for 30 minutes, and you just type
| or write. Don't stop to correct anything. Don't stop to make it
| good. Just plow ahead. Write about anything while trying not to
| repeat yourself. This primes the pump and gets the gunk out._
|
| I've done this technique and it's really amazing to learn to tame
| the inner critic.
|
| AFAIK the origin is the book The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron.
| cubefox wrote:
| Reminds me of
| https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/j4WmrPTYk57teTQ7C/a-method-o...
| Fricken wrote:
| I read that book in the late 90s, and the morning pages was the
| one thing I took to heart from it.
|
| The weird thing is when I go back and read what I wrote a week
| or 2 later, it's all from outer space. I have no idea where
| most of it is coming from, and usually have no recollection of
| writing it. You transition seamlessly from dreaming to writing,
| and like dreams, you forget it soon after you wake up.
| notjoshjames wrote:
| This year, I've been trying a variation of "morning pages" where
| I'll take a 15-30m walk and speak with myself. I use a pair of
| old Beats around my neck, which have surprisingly good noise
| cancellation, and Otter for transcription (moving to a local
| Whisper workflow soon).
|
| I've A/B tested this against using a text editor, with the
| control as doing nothing in the morning, and at least for me
| personally, I find I'm practically itching to sit down and write
| more or edit my spoken thoughts before I'm even finished with my
| walk.
|
| I'm generally more motivated and productive on days I begin with
| this routine. I think it's all about getting momentum for your
| brain; once there's a flow of output, it tends be much easier to
| direct or filter that flow in whichever directions you choose.
|
| I still work to reduce friction and lower the activation energy
| when sparking output, but there is very much a discipline
| component here. I know plenty of executives that use daily
| standups or assistants in lieu of a mental morning routine... I
| wonder if future personalized language models may help?
| RedditKon wrote:
| Out of curiosity - what are you actually doing on these walks?
| You're talking outloud to yourself and then editing later or
| what?
| notjoshjames wrote:
| Typically, I run through lists like to-dos for
| companies/projects, the day's agenda, topics/ideas,
| recollection of the previous day, reflection on mental and
| emotional state.
|
| Some days are more structured than others, and I don't try to
| conform too tightly to any particular structure. The goal is
| to get my brain outputting _something_ , and later in my
| morning I'll transform or rewrite whatever I spit out. During
| very busy or demanding periods this also ends up functioning
| as my primary daily journal entry.
| ilaksh wrote:
| Is this the same Onion as The Onion News Network on YouTube?
| khazhoux wrote:
| Yes
| unparagoned wrote:
| I thought it was about the Tor onion network and found it really
| confusing at first
| staplung wrote:
| Wait, you mean Friedrich Siegfried Zweibel isn't the real
| founder?
|
| https://www.theonion.com/taking-care-of-business-1819583590
| __666__ wrote:
| The Onion is not funny or creative anymore...it used to be...now
| it is just a mockery for masses
| sergent_moon wrote:
| "It's the children who are wrong"
| anononaut wrote:
| The Babylon Bee easily nabbed the torch from The Onion in the
| last few years. Surprisingly more edgy, too.
| sjustinas wrote:
| me reading 89th "attack helicopter" joke in a row: _WHEEZE_
| jw1224 wrote:
| I'm guessing you're referring to their YouTube channel, in
| which case, I totally agree. But AFAIK the website is still
| just as good as always.
|
| They used to put out brilliant high-production value videos
| like this one: https://youtu.be/Y2j3PsDW33E
|
| Now it's nearly all low-effort YT Shorts like these...
| https://youtu.be/-0CVJS1FTmY
|
| Perhaps the satire has just gone over my head? But it's hard to
| give them the benefit of the doubt when all their videos are
| like this now...
| kridsdale3 wrote:
| They're merely adapting their product to the unforgiving
| dramatic shifts in the market's consumption model. Those that
| don't (like College Humor), die.
| Jasper_ wrote:
| They've been funded my whoever pay their bills. For ONN/Today
| Now, that was paid for by IFC, a TV network. Their Onion
| Digital years (Sex House, Onion Talks) were basically ads for
| them as a creative agency (aka Onion Labs, which was shut
| down in late 2015). Since then, they were sold to G/O Media,
| and have been basically been gutted.
|
| There's more than one series which was funded by a streaming
| platform that has since shut down, and is basically lost
| media at this point.
| OfSanguineFire wrote:
| I recall reading somewhere that the high-quality Onion videos
| of a decade-plus ago (I loved _Today Now_ and _Sex House_ )
| cost a lot of money but simply didn't make much money. Which
| I guess is obvious if a for-profit company stopped making
| them, but still, it is a shame quality wasn't rewarded.
| yamazakiwi wrote:
| Did they target some issue you're sensitive about?
|
| They're the same as they have always been. I've been reading
| the Onion for over 2 decades.
| OfSanguineFire wrote:
| My impression (as an American abroad with no longer any dog
| in the partisan political fight) is that _The Onion_ has come
| to feature a lot more (and a lot more acrid) political satire
| than in the late 1990s or early 2000s. That would only be
| expected, because even real newspapers have found that
| increasing coverage of hot-button politics or other culture
| wars can boost ad impressions.
| yamazakiwi wrote:
| They were doing the same thing in the 90's and 2000's. We
| just have stronger mechanisms for advertising and social
| media now.
| redwall_hp wrote:
| > We believe creative people are born geniuses or have their
| brains wired differently or enjoy "ah-ha!" moments in which ideas
| come fully formed as easily as switching on a light bulb. In
| reality creativity is -- and always has been -- a process, one
| that takes time and discipline to achieve. Anyone with the
| impulse to be creative can do so, courtesy of our human heritage.
|
| This is a common point of irritation for me. If you become good
| at something (a form of art, software development, whatever)
| people tend to basically reject the years of hard work and
| cultivated skills you put in, ascribing it to a natural and
| magical talent that they simply don't have. It basically turns a
| compliment into a backhanded dismissal.
| spondylosaurus wrote:
| Paraphrasing here, but I know George Saunders has basically
| said that he attributes his success as an author not to any
| ability to crank out excellent drafts on the first try (and tbh
| I mildly distrust anyone who claims they can do this), but to
| having the stomach to sit with crummy first drafts and refine
| them over and over until the final edited product is good. Even
| for someone who's spent years cultivating a razor-sharp ear for
| language (which is a skill in itself!), the act of creation
| still involves the brute force of patience and persistence and
| plain old time.
|
| I find it pretty motivating, actually. "Natural and magical
| talent" as a frame of reference is less accommodating to bad
| days and false starts and crummy first drafts; a combination of
| persistence and honed skills, on the other hand, gives you the
| freedom to try things and fail and then gradually make them
| better--without the shadow of that initial failure looming over
| you and undermining your so-called "natural talent."
| pitched wrote:
| I read once an explanation of Brazilian soccer greatness as
| being because they played a hacky sack game which was bouncing
| a soccer ball across their knees kind of.
|
| Talent is transferable skills. Getting good can't come without
| practice but you don't have to be practicing the exact thing.
| tiffanyg wrote:
| On the one hand, I'm all for other people having stupid ideas
| that interfere with their own lives. Since I know that these
| ideas are substantially false*, and I'm not inclined towards
| giving other people's _opinions_ "rent-free space" in my own
| head, I largely ignore this sort of stupidity these days.
|
| On the other hand, I'm not a fan of the disservice these types
| of opinions do to people in general. In the young, it sets them
| up for "failure"**, and also DOES diminish and disrespect the
| work the people put into what they do. That's maybe, just,
| "like their opinion, man", but, it's part of a whole range of
| "lack of empathy / social cohesiveness" issues that are helping
| push our species towards its "brink" far more quickly than
| 'strictly necessary'.
|
| * There are many papers on studies, including "twin studies",
| examining genetic vs environmental influences on performance,
| expertise, etc. There is an undeniable genetic component - the
| simplest examples are typically in the realm of athletics.
| There is no environment that turns me into a viable NBA
| player***. However, just as people are incredibly "innumerate"
| and just plain bad at "statistics" elsewhere, absurd numbers of
| people apparently believe that there is some "talent jar"
| (most, even worse, viewing it in terms of "born with / without"
| vs. an at least more sensible "set up within the first 3 - 5
| years of life, substantially") and either someone was given a
| certain "talent" from the jar, or they weren't.
|
| As a certain "muppet"**** once said:
| https://youtu.be/VmXSfFY0CO0?t=4m36s
|
| ** In the sense of "not reaching THEIR full potential" -
| studies in psychology have clearly established that ideas like
| "talent", rather than "work invested" are 'caustic' - they can
| massively interfere with performance, learning potential, etc.
| Simply search for terms like 'talent', 'work', 'practice',
| 'belief', 'skill' etc. on PubMed or Google Scholar etc. (tight
| on time, else I'd add some refs right here)
|
| *** _Edit / important note: this concerns POTENTIAL, not
| realization of such a goal which obviously takes just as much
| hard work, generally, as reaching high levels in any other
| area._
|
| **** Who apparently COULD join the NBA, most likely, despite
| height limitations...
| jkaptur wrote:
| A comic that puts this perfectly:
| https://tapas.io/episode/923459
| pier25 wrote:
| Talent is really an excuse people make up to not do the work.
| wccrawford wrote:
| I 100% agree with you about that when someone has worked hard
| to get where they are.
|
| But there are people who legit just have a knack for something
| and it's easy. For someone without the skill, both types of
| people probably look the same.
|
| Even though it's a backhanded compliment, take it anyhow. It
| shows that you do it so well that they can only tell you're
| really good at it, but nothing about how you go there. It'll
| probably always sting, but there's no need to let the wound
| fester.
|
| Sorta related: I heard once that it's a lot better (for the
| child) to tell a child that they worked hard than that they
| were smart. Saying that it's an innate part of them makes them
| more likely to slack off and rely on that innate talent, and
| telling them that they did good work makes them more likely to
| work hard to make it happen again. It seems such a little
| thing, but I think it's the same kind of thing that leads to
| your pet peeve.
|
| We should all be complimenting people's accomplishments, rather
| than their abilities.
| saulpw wrote:
| From my experience, that knack is "just" such a love of the
| field that they are not only willing but compelled to lose
| themselves in the process. When you can sit for hours trying
| to figure out some damn bug or playing the same phrase over
| and over and over or editing your writing to within an inch
| of its life, you're going to become good at it. You probably
| won't be the best in the world--there is certainly a gap
| between Mozart and Salieri--but out of 100 people who have
| demonstrated brilliant success in the world, 99 of them
| aren't those preternatural geniuses. "Just" people for whom
| 10 hours a day of practice is as natural as breathing.
|
| And yeah, tell those children they have passion, not talent.
| Praise their accomplishments as the outcome of exercising
| their joy, instead of a passive outgrowth of their innate
| ability.
| thinkingtoilet wrote:
| [flagged]
| mtsr wrote:
| Kind of like ascribing someone's talents to a handicap (blind
| musicians, creative people with ADHD, supremely skilled people
| with autism). If somebody is good at something, they probably
| put in the hours.
| [deleted]
| tgv wrote:
| I don't see it this way. Talent is real. It's very likely that
| people have undeveloped talents, though. Perhaps not everyone
| appreciates the work or requires to develop it, but many do.
| illwrks wrote:
| IMO natural talent, in an arts sense, is an ability to spot
| something better than someone else can, that give you an edge
| and makes it easier to learn quickly.
|
| Whatever is spotted can be learned though, it just means you'll
| need to put in some more work to tune into things and develop
| that skill.
| bregma wrote:
| "It took me ten years of hard work to become an overnight
| sensation."
| mcmoor wrote:
| Ability to will yourself to endure those hours is maybe the
| talent itself though
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(page generated 2023-08-02 23:02 UTC)