[HN Gopher] Why Is Everybody Knitting Chickens?
___________________________________________________________________
Why Is Everybody Knitting Chickens?
Author : mooreds
Score : 78 points
Date : 2025-05-27 15:52 UTC (2 days ago)
(HTM) web link (ironicsans.ghost.io)
(TXT) w3m dump (ironicsans.ghost.io)
| bentcorner wrote:
| Reminds me of the Blender Donut. It's a good beginner project and
| the outcome is pleasing.
| levicole wrote:
| The emotional support chicken isn't a great beginner project.
|
| You want to start with a scarf and move onto a beanie.
| lowhighseco wrote:
| It's a great project to leave the beginners bracket.
| munificent wrote:
| Funny you say that. The top projects on Ravely are:
|
| #1: Musselburgh (a beanie)
|
| #2: Sophie Scarf
|
| #3: Emotional Support Chicken
| alabastervlog wrote:
| Framing everything in terms of mental health is one of those
| things were I can't tell if people are participating in some kind
| of mass social joke, or are serious.
| LandR wrote:
| We are in a time where it's fashionable to have mental health
| issues. It's very strange.
| dylan604 wrote:
| That's what I fell about the 21 pilots track I'm so stressed
| out.
| nemomarx wrote:
| isn't it mostly about childhood nostalgia? "I'm more
| stressed then when I was a kid" seems pretty basic
| alabastervlog wrote:
| I'm more stressed out than like... during Summer, when I
| was a kid.
|
| I've never, ever been as stressed out as during school,
| grades 7-12. If the rest of life had been that stressful
| or worse, I'd have checked out a long time ago.
| nemomarx wrote:
| Maybe I just had an easy time but 7-12 was a lot less
| stressful than office work and arbitrary meetings all
| day. I probably just miss the predictable schedule
| alabastervlog wrote:
| Huh, I'd liken school in those grades to a _series of_
| meetings basically all day, that are mostly
| presentations, every day of the week, with a lot of
| restrictions and harsh conduct & expectations from the
| people leading the meetings, which'd never fly in an
| office. Often with terrible lighting and long stretches
| without seeing the outdoors, even though a window. And
| crazy-early start times that may have you not seeing the
| sun until 3PM or so, for months. And, especially toward
| the end, a couple more hours of work at home every day.
| Mostly of math problems.
|
| Also, all that, plus you're not getting paid for it.
| fragmede wrote:
| OTOH, if you fail out of class, most of us wouldn't have
| become homeless, just placed in a remedial class. Whereas
| getting fired from your office job would land you out on
| the street if you're living paycheck to paycheck.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| If that were a job, I was characterize it as a boring
| job, not a stressful one.
|
| I'm sure experiences differ, but mine was that school was
| trivially easy and inconsequential, but sometimes time
| intensive.
|
| I wouldn't consider a job where I have to go and listen
| to a boring presentation for 8 hours a day stressful.
| What is stressful is the rat race and making sure I can
| afford mortgage payments
| ForOldHack wrote:
| My school had a _lot_ of field trips. I have never been
| part of a job that included trips to "the little farm.
| "I asked a friend from Hong Kong, if he had trips to A
| little farm, and he said he did.
| nemomarx wrote:
| I think this is supposed to be team building exercises,
| but I've never heard of a farm for one. Could be good!
| p1necone wrote:
| Yeah I remember a constant trend in my child->young adult
| years was hearing "oh you think it's hard now? wait until
| you get to "next thing"'.
|
| Every single time without fail (except maybe the jump
| from kindergarten to school) what actually happened was
| that the adults around me breathed down my neck a little
| bit less and I got access to a little more freedom to do
| fun stuff.
|
| Being a kid in school is horrible. You're entirely
| reliant on your parents to buy you everything and enable
| you to experience things, nobody trusts you, everything
| is full of arbitrary rules.
|
| The jump from school to university was especially stark -
| I kept being told it was going to be really hard, I'd
| need to work way harder than in highschool etc etc. Turns
| out what actually happened was I went from 6 straight
| hours of unavoidable class a day to maybe 2 or 3 much
| more interesting ones that were recorded and posted
| online and could be skipped when needed with no
| consequence, roughly the same amount of homework and I
| got to live with people my age 5 minutes walk from a 24
| hour McDonalds.
|
| And working... they pay you quite a lot of money to be
| there (seriously even a minimum wage job is unfathomable
| to a kid, do you know how many gameboys you could buy
| with that?), there's no homework and you get to do
| something you're really good at.
| colechristensen wrote:
| I've seen this plenty of times, young people almost boasting
| about their diagnosis like the old upper class used to be
| proud of gout
|
| Some health care professionals are becoming hesitant to talk
| about diagnoses because it hurts the patient when they start
| identifying with the diagnosis it makes the condition worse
| when the patient starts to act _more_ like the diagnosed
| condition because that 's how they're _supposed_ to act
| lowhighseco wrote:
| Only certain mental health issues. Being a full on
| schizophrenic newspaper hoarder won't ever be in style.
| darknavi wrote:
| Not physically, but digital hoarding is in full swing.
| prmoustache wrote:
| Yesterday newspaper hoarder was just replaced with 90's
| videogames, mangas or hifi / computer manuals.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _We are in a time where it 's fashionable to have mental
| health issues. It's very strange_
|
| I'd argue it isn't. The first edition of the DSM was
| published in 1952 [1]. This is right after "the routine
| annual comprehensive physical examination (PE) became a
| fixture in American medical practice" [2].
|
| Add 25 years for a generation to be educated, another 25 for
| the old guard to retire, and you'd expect the paradigm shift
| around mental health to land around the millenium. Unless you
| have evidence we had a nonlinear jump between then and now,
| I'd argue the trend is analagous to folks becoming aware of
| and culturally assimilating the concept of blood type.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diagnostic_and_Statistical_
| Man...
|
| [2] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK82767/
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| Something can be causal or even predictable but still
| strange and difficult to reconcile.
|
| I do think that there is a component of fashion or social
| currency that has piggybacked on medical awareness, or
| perhaps as a byproduct of its mixing with moral
| credentialism of disadvantage.
| Bender wrote:
| I suspect they are all in support of the soon to be 28th
| amendment _" The right to bear, breed, harvest, and sell
| chickens shall not be infringed."_
| coldpie wrote:
| I think it is a little of both :) Emotional support animals are
| a real thing, but they are expensive and require a lot of
| maintenance and there are limits on where they may be taken.
| Stuffed animals can make people feel better for similar
| reasons, it's a companion to "talk to" or a nice familiar
| sight, and they have a lot lower bar to ownership than real
| animals do. So a stuffed animal can be reasonably considered to
| be in the same category as a real emotional support animal, but
| they are obviously a lot less serious than a real animal. So
| it's fun and funny to choose an animal with a bit of silliness
| and humor to it, like a chicken.
|
| It is a joke, yeah, but it can also be a mood booster. So it's
| both.
| dumbfounder wrote:
| There are also obviously some people that take advantage of
| the rules around emotional support animals. Like Great Danes
| on airplanes (second hand anecdote). So the effect is that
| people tend to suspect everyone is taking advantage. There
| are even a ton of services to make it super easy to classify
| a pet as an emotional support animal. So, I am all for these
| ridiculous chickens. Might buy some for my kids (I am not
| into knitting).
| owlninja wrote:
| My understanding that those services that classify your
| animal are all unnecessary and sort of a scam.
| ForOldHack wrote:
| Clearly not a pet person.
|
| I am a total fan of emotional support chickens, real or
| knitted. I am also a fan of rotisserie chickens.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| Yup. A pretty clear giveaway that a service animal is
| fake is those vests with "SERVICE ANIMAL" in size 9000
| font on the side.
| tshaddox wrote:
| As far as I know, no major airlines have any special
| treatment for "emotional support animals." Most U.S.
| airlines allow pets on domestic flights to fly if they stay
| inside carriers within approved size limits. Emotional
| support animals and therapy animals fly as pets regardless
| of any certifications. So I'm pretty sure there's no
| service that makes it easy to fly with your Great Dane as
| an emotional support animal. You might be thinking of other
| animal-related exceptions, like having a pet in your
| apartment where the lease normally doesn't allow pets.
|
| Service dogs on commercial flights are a separate USDOT
| category. The dog needs to be trained for a specific task
| for a disabled passenger, and the passenger must provide an
| attestation form. Airlines must allow service dogs, but
| they can still deny transport if the dog poses a safety
| risk or causes significant disruption before or after
| boarding. I'm not sure how enforcement works in practice,
| but I certainly wouldn't try to fly with a dog using a
| false attestation.
| tokai wrote:
| You are overreacting. There's nothing about mental health in
| there. They are called Emotional Support Chicken because they
| are comforting. Calm down.
| tshaddox wrote:
| I'm curious what _you_ think counts as "framing in terms of
| mental health." Or more interestingly, if you think this
| article constitutes "framing in terms of mental health," I'm
| curious what you _wouldn 't_ consider as such.
|
| This article does use words related to mental states, like
| "comforting" and "relaxing." But that's pretty difficult to
| avoid in most writing of non-trivial length.
| alabastervlog wrote:
| The name they've decided to give these, "emergency" chickens,
| knitting them for hurricane survivors. It's all a step up
| from just "we like these and they're nice" and into "these
| are Helpful with a capital H".
|
| My point is exactly that that kind of thing reads like a
| joking exaggeration, but this sort of approach to things is
| really common now and I truly have trouble telling when
| people are joking or being serious about it. Most of it reads
| like joking to me, but I don't know. It's also been going on
| long enough that it's making me wonder even more, since,
| judged as a joke, it was played out and over-done years ago.
| tokai wrote:
| There's lots of research showing stuffed animals can reduce
| stress even in adults. There is no joke here.
| alabastervlog wrote:
| You're weirdly concerned about how much I'm reacting,
| which is pretty minimally. Like, I can't imagine how I
| could have raised this while reacting any less. But yes,
| I also saw your other post and got your message that
| you're bothered I brought this up at all. [EDIT] Ah,
| ninja-edited this paragraph into irrelevance! :-)
|
| Maybe you need a chicken. [EDIT] But perhaps we all need
| chickens?
|
| But thank you for helping me understand this. The framing
| is 100% serious, I guess.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| I would say that it is 99% joke, but the 1% is important in
| validating, justifying, and _elevating_ the concept in the
| current culture.
| tshaddox wrote:
| I think you're pretty clearly experiencing a false positive
| on your "major cultural problem" detector. The chickens are
| cute and comforting, no doubt, and people are referring to
| them as "emotional support chickens" and "emergency
| chickens" as a tongue-in-cheek hyperbole. Note how the
| chickens are given names like "Hennifer Lopez" and "Lindsey
| LoHEN." You even say that it reads like a joking
| exaggeration, but apparently your confirmation bias is
| strong enough to override that observation?
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| I would say the topic framed in terms of mental health. For
| one, the chicken itself is called an "emotional support
| chicken" - this itself is indicative of cultural currency.
| The idea and purpose of a knit chicken can be framed in many
| ways. It can be simply fun, creative, or artistic. In this
| case the purpose is psychologically palliative opposed to
| recreational. It is medicalized. You see this elsewhere. A
| day off work to rest, relax, and enjoy isn't just vacation
| (which also implies these concepts), but a mental health day.
|
| One of the leading stories in the article is about delivering
| them to _survivors_ of Hurricane Helene - an interesting
| linguistic choice in its own right (Helene impacted roughly 2
| million people, killing about 200. It had a 99.995% survival
| rate).
|
| I suspect most people make these chickens simply for fun and
| decoration.
| tshaddox wrote:
| Your comment is seething with confirmation bias. You're
| seeing things only because you're looking for them.
|
| You conflate "health" with the word "palliative," when the
| latter specifically refers specifically to _serious_ health
| problems. I go to the gym for my physical health and my
| mental health, but that doesn 't imply that skipping one
| gym session would lead to a _serious_ physical or mental
| health problem. Same goes for "mental health days."
| There's nothing sensational about referring to one's
| health.
|
| And yes, we always refer to people who survive natural
| disasters as "survivors." Google "survivors of hurricane
| helene" and you'll find countless articles with headlines
| like "Survivors Describe Their Frightening Experiences," "4
| Ways to Help Hurricane Helene Survivors," "Federal
| Assistance for Hurricane Helene Survivors Surpasses $137
| Million," etc.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| >And yes, we always refer to people who survive natural
| disasters as "survivors." Google "survivors of hurricane
| helene" and you'll find countless articles with headlines
| like "Survivors Describe Their Frightening Experiences,"
| "4 Ways to Help Hurricane Helene Survivors," "Federal
| Assistance for Hurricane Helene Survivors Surpasses $137
| Million," etc.
|
| Yes, I agree, which is why I used it as an example. You
| are confirming that the observation is not bias! Im not
| claiming that the article is exceptional in this regard.
|
| I think it is precisely the framing and focus on health
| and safety which is interesting!
| tshaddox wrote:
| You claimed that it's an "interesting linguistic choice"
| in the context of an alleged "cultural currency" which
| overly frames topics in terms of mental health, describes
| the purpose of comforting toys as "psychologically
| palliative" and "medicalized." You claimed that this
| phenomenon is everywhere, then gave two more alleged
| examples: the term "mental health day" and the term
| "survivor."
|
| I disagree with all of it. Using the term "survivor" in
| its most basic and widespread sense is not at all
| interesting in the context of your false argument about
| "cultural currency."
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| Thats OK, I'm fine to disagree.
| mindslight wrote:
| You've hit the nail on the head, and it points to what's
| actually driving it.
|
| > _It is medicalized... A day off work to rest, relax, and
| enjoy isn 't just vacation (which also implies these
| concepts), but a mental health day._
|
| The destruction of individual agency, in favor of top-down
| systems of control. The culture is a self-reinforcing
| thing, but what's pushing the culture is individuals having
| to express their own needs in terms of what the system will
| allow them. The "day off" isn't allowed - paid ones are not
| required to be provided by law, and the wealth-centralizing
| economic treadmill has made it so most people do not have
| the finances to lose a day of pay.
|
| Similarly with emotional support animals. Airlines have
| policies that certain types of pets need to travel in the
| cold cargo hold, getting left waiting on a hot tarmac, with
| horror stories abounding. Landlords outright prohibit pets
| or put you over the barrel for "pet rent" (it's not like
| paying pet rent gets you extra space or amenities, or makes
| it so that chewing on the woodwork then becomes "normal
| wear and tear".
|
| So enter people skirting their systems by any means
| possible, in this case the federal laws that created the
| legal concept of emotional support animals. And then comes
| the crab bucket mentality of rolling our eyes at people who
| we deem to be inappropriately using the escape hatch.
|
| To avoid the euphemism/abstraction treadmill, we would need
| to be having these conversations maturely. But politics
| _always_ seems to just end up going sideways ( /me loosely
| gestures at the current ongoing destructionist catastrophe)
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| My thoughts went down a similar track as well. It is
| about justification. As collectivist attitudes increase
| socially, individuals feel the need to frame or _justify_
| and defend their individual actions and desires. Its not
| just that I want a vacation day and have leverage to take
| it (socially unacceptable), but I _need_ it - it is
| necessary maintenance, but ultimately for the greater
| good. Like you said, it is a play on values that are
| socially acceptable to express to get what people want
| anyways.
|
| As a result a recreational hobby gets dressed up as self
| care or pro-social action. There can be an element of
| truth to this of course, but I do think it introduces a
| lot of exaggeration and conflation.
|
| Putting my biases on the table, the whole thing strikes
| me as childish and dishonest. Kind of of like a kid
| rationalizing to a parent how they will use some new toy
| to get their homework done faster.
| jsharpe wrote:
| I feel this may be an appropriate place to link this video:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XkDJueqppHo
| HocusLocus wrote:
| Actually there is a reason everybody is knitting chickens, but
| the FDA has asked the court for a 75 year slow FOIA records
| release.
| LargeWu wrote:
| Feels the the homogenization of culture driven by social media
| and online communities. Somebody makes a chicken, and it gets a
| good reaction, so everybody starts making chickens. At first it's
| organic but it turns into clout chasing. Pretty soon the chickens
| will start to disappear and something else will take their place.
| AlecSchueler wrote:
| Trends have been happening since long before social media. I
| don't see the problem with "everybody" getting involved in
| knitting and making chickens anyway, what's the harm here?
| api wrote:
| Social media is just accelerating trend adoption, peaking,
| and obsolescence to the point that it can sometimes happen in
| days, or even shorter.
|
| _" Summer in the Sprawl, the mall crowds swaying like
| windblown grass, a field of flesh shot through with sudden
| eddies of need and gratification."_ - William Gibson,
| Neuromancer
|
| He continues to be the most prophetic science fiction writer,
| nailing the zeitgeist of the early 21st century in the 1980s.
| koolba wrote:
| The harm is homogenization of culture stymies concurrent
| evolution of new ideas. Whether that's more important than
| the sheer speed of good ideas traveling the world is an open
| question.
|
| But there's definitely less creative work produced without
| the direct or indirect influence of outside forces. As an
| artist you simply can't unsee things. So we may end up at
| some local maxima of creativity.
| hex4def6 wrote:
| I think the "homogenization" is the keyword here. It's not
| that trends are bad, it's just that, in the 'old days' a
| trend might start as a community-wide phenomena that over
| time might spread into neighboring communities, finally
| becoming part of the local / regional zeitgeist.
|
| These trends would spread slowly enough that other trends in
| other communities would have time and room to grow and
| develop. The result is you get a bunch of localized cultures,
| all unique in some way.
|
| The best analogy I can think of is a plant mono-crop. Instead
| of different species of plant gradually finding their niche,
| we plant 50,000 acres with corn or soy.
|
| I have to say, even over the last 20+ years or so, it really
| does feel like you can go anywhere in the world and get a
| very similar experience. You can go to the local 7-11, buy a
| coca-cola, hit up your local costco, listen to people arguing
| about American politics. It just feels like different
| countries have gradually been losing their unique culture,
| and we just have this global homogenized version with slight
| regional differences.
| spencerflem wrote:
| People have been saying the exact opposite- that we used to
| all have the same 20 TV shows but now with internet
| microgenres we don't have enough shared culture anymore.
|
| If you think of the ravelry community as valid as an in
| person community this will be nicer I think.
| hex4def6 wrote:
| Hmm, interesting counterpoint.
|
| I think both things can be simultaneously true. There are
| a million sub-cultures that can now exist, that are no
| longer tied to a geographic location. This is both good
| and bad. Good, insofar as if you're in the middle of Ohio
| in a 2000 person town, and really-really into model
| trains or whatever, you can find an online community that
| shares this. But I also think it's bad insofar as we've
| lost some sense of culture or commonality with our
| (geographic) neighbors.
|
| But to the homogenization point; I still think within a
| specific sub-culture (sewing circles), you can have
| global homogenization. The sewing circle might new be
| global, on facebook and tiktok, instead of 10,000 insular
| hamlets. Is this bad/good? I'm not sure. There's nothing
| from stopping you creating a local facebook group. And in
| theory, good ideas can spread rather than be confined to
| a specific geographic group. But I can't help feeling
| that some independent thought and ways of thinking are
| lost through this globalization.
| ipaddr wrote:
| Independent thought still exists and is expressed but the
| network effects of influencers and copycats outranks
| independent thought on a platform like tiktok that group
| ideas and people together. Independent thought only has a
| place under an existing topic or brand.
| spencerflem wrote:
| Its fun to do things your friends are doing, even e-friends. It
| gives you something to talk about. Not every trend needs to
| last forever.
|
| I'm a pretty cynical guy, especially with regards to social
| media, but this seems like totally harmless fun.
| mplewis wrote:
| think you're reading a bit too much into this one
| Retric wrote:
| This predates online communities.
|
| My grandmother bought a bunch of knitted chickens in the
| 60's-80's, as did a family dinner I used to go to etc. It's a
| relatively simple shape to get right, there's many options, and
| they end up looking fairly cute.
| stevetron wrote:
| They could knit some eggs, and watch them hatch and grow up to be
| knitted chickens.
|
| They could knit some pink flamingos.
| silisili wrote:
| Interesting. Seems chickens in general are just 'in'. I assumed
| it was because of egg prices, but perhaps there's more to it?
|
| My wife is part of some backyard chicken community, and said it's
| absolutely exploded with new members. Luckily I didn't need any
| chicks this year, but everyone I know who did was shocked that
| every single hatchery was out of stock for females. Even TSC
| didn't have any around until a week or two ago. Never seen
| anything like it.
| nadis wrote:
| +1 to this comment! Until this post was not aware of knit
| chickens being trendy but have noticed chicken content picking
| up steam, at least on my feed (e.g. drinking with chickens on
| Instagram etc).
| munificent wrote:
| I've gotten into knitting over the past couple of years. (By the
| way, if you are a software type, I would _highly_ recommend
| knitting. It 's an excellent hobby. I can explain more why if
| people are interested.)
|
| I'm well aware of the Emotional Support Chicken, though I haven't
| made one myself.
|
| I think what we're witnessing here is simply another example of
| power laws[1] in effect. Say you have a set of objects that vary
| in desirability. Then you have a forum where people can talk
| about which objects they like. People will end up talking about
| the objects they like more, which will make them more visible to
| other people, who then end up also talking about them more.
| Meanwhile, slightly less desirable objects get talked about
| slightly less, which means fewer people discover them and talk
| about them.
|
| Turn the crank on that iterative process many times and what was
| originally a linear distribution in object popularity will
| quickly become a huge spike on the few things at the top with a
| long tail of forgotten stuff.
|
| In this case, Ravely is the center of the knitting world and has
| _incredible_ impact on the fiber arts community. I 'd guess that
| it's literally where _most_ knitters across the world go to find
| patterns.
|
| Emotional Support Chicken is currently the 3rd most popular
| knitting pattern on the site. It got there, I think by being cute
| and hitting the mental health zeitgeist at just the right time
| during COVID and then having the power law math work its magic.
|
| Another pattern that hit the zeitgeist at just the right time and
| rocketed to popularity is the Non Cooperation Brick, released
| just after Trump was inaugurated.
|
| For those who are curious, the top pattern is YSolda Teague's
| Musselburge hat. It's extremely common but also sort of generic
| looking so you probably don't realize how often people make and
| wear it. It's a good, simple start project, and Teague is a
| knitting celebrity.
|
| Number two is PetiteKnit's Sophie scarf which is, honestly, not a
| very good article of clothing, but it _is_ a very good tutorial
| project on how to knit. I suspect there are thousands of unworn
| Sophie scarves sitting in closets, having already completed their
| purpose of turning its owner into a knitter.
|
| If one were to want to absorb knitting culture and be able to
| come across as "in the know" as quickly as possible, skimming the
| top patterns page on Ravelry is an excellent shortcut to get
| there.
|
| [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_law
| carols10cents wrote:
| Why _wouldn 't_ you knit a chicken???
| enos_feedler wrote:
| Im going to start calling every unoriginal bastard a chicken
| knitter!
| jagged-chisel wrote:
| I hope this is catching.
| johnea wrote:
| "Everybody"? Knitting chickens?
|
| I'm sorry, this is just kooky. I find it _really_ hard to believe
| that any significant portion of the US population is... knitting
| chickens?
|
| I don't have anything against people's hobbies, whatever they
| are. And this being a physical 3D space thing, instead of "I
| wrote an app that let's you pretend you're knitting chickens",
| means I like it even more.
|
| But no where near "everybody" is knitting chickens.
|
| This is just wrong, and a highlight of the way articles reach
| traction on HN.
|
| In this, I also find it hard to believe that the submitter's
| 80,000 karma points had nothing to do with that.
|
| I have very low karma, and the few times I've submitted articles
| (each of which I felt were very in line with interest on HN) I've
| never seen one reach the hntop list.
|
| Maybe I was triggered by this because of my dislike for headlines
| that assume group membership with assertions like "we" and "our",
| and... "everybody".
|
| But come on.
|
| My grandmother loved "tatting" doilies, Maybe my next submission
| will be on that, instead of the tech news that I thought for sure
| would gain some readership...
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2025-05-29 23:00 UTC)