[HN Gopher] Finding Shawn Mendes (2019)
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Finding Shawn Mendes (2019)
Author : jzwinck
Score : 328 points
Date : 2025-06-09 07:16 UTC (15 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (ericneyman.wordpress.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (ericneyman.wordpress.com)
| saaaaaam wrote:
| I'm really not sure what I just read. I mean, I know what I read
| in terms of the words - but I don't understand what its purpose
| is. But I don't necessarily think it matters...
|
| It was thoroughly diverting, held my attention and made me wish
| that more people wrote pieces like this where the only real
| purpose is the conceit, and the subsequent journey the author
| takes you on.
| tough wrote:
| I also read it fully, which i don't usually do.
|
| I'm just left guessing if there's some cryptpic yet important
| geo-political statement hidden in a funny post about some
| celebrity i had never heard of until now
| 4ggr0 wrote:
| to me it reads as a well done parody on conspiracy theories.
| tough wrote:
| right! that's it, its like this nonsense numbers conspiracy
| theories that seem ramblings of some mentally ill person,
| but written in a more coherent, interestnig way that any of
| these (they usually are harder/cryptic to read due to its
| nonsense) so it ends up being an easier read as a parody
| than an actual conspiracy theory
| sylens wrote:
| It's a satire on how deeply some fandoms read into lyrics or
| "hidden messages" from artists and works of art in general
| dooglius wrote:
| Not everything needs to have a purpose. The most likely
| explanation to me is just that inspiration happened to strike
| the author as he heard the song.
| whycome wrote:
| That sounds like a purpose.
| stavros wrote:
| I think this is one of those things that either has intrinsic
| purpose for you, or it doesn't. As for me, I thoroughly enjoyed
| reading about this analysis of Shawn Mendes' cryptic lyric.
| pryelluw wrote:
| It's the brain ticking itself.
| amiga386 wrote:
| It's taking vapid pop lyrics literally for humourous effect.
|
| You could call it bathos.
| dechov wrote:
| I'd consider it a satisfying little exercise in deductive
| reasoning / OSINT - if reasoning is worthwhile and exercises
| are worthwhile, then this must be as well
| jjj123 wrote:
| My favorite in this genre is by the Gawker legend Caity Weaver.
|
| My 14-hour search for the end of TGI Friday's endless
| appetizers: https://www.gawkerarchives.com/my-14-hour-search-
| for-the-end...
| p1nkpineapple wrote:
| that was an absolute joy of a read, thanks for sharing!
| morley wrote:
| By the way, if you liked this post, this taking-silly-things-
| way-to-seriously is the comedic wheelhouse of Nathan Fielder.
| rwmj wrote:
| Sort of on-topic: The Kuril islands are a big deal in Hokkaido. I
| attended a protest there (by accident) a few years ago with many
| Japanese demonstrating for a return of the islands to Japan. It
| was kind of odd as an outsider because the protest clearly has no
| effect, and there's no chance of it ever happening outside of
| Russia losing a war.
| fshafique wrote:
| And thus was born a new game, one that combined knowledge of
| history, politics, and pop trivia.
| Brajeshwar wrote:
| Oh Man. A few years back, my daughter played so much of Lost in
| Japan repeatedly. I thought the singer was another girl, because
| of the others in the playlist such as Kate Perry, and Justin
| Beiber.
| tempodox wrote:
| FYI, Justin _Bieber_ is not a girl.
| falcor84 wrote:
| I see you italicized _Bieber_ , this is surely not a
| coincidence, because nothing is ever a coincidence.
| tempodox wrote:
| Because GP misspelled the name as "Beiber".
| 4ggr0 wrote:
| That's exactly the kind of thing they'd want you to
| believe!!
| yzydserd wrote:
| Who? The Beliebers or the non-Beliebers?
| tempodox wrote:
| I think it would be the Beleibers.
| low_tech_love wrote:
| Amazon Prime disagrees with you.
|
| https://www.primevideo.com/detail/Justin-Beiber-The-Next-
| Cha...
| xuanwo wrote:
| We have to invite Shawn Mendes to read this post.
| IAmBroom wrote:
| Shades of "Shia Laboeuf"
| nati0n wrote:
| This... this is impressive dedication to a gag blog post. Enjoyed
| the read.
| _luiza_ wrote:
| lovely
| erratic_chargi wrote:
| Man this is so dumb I love it Unfortunately the song is stuck in
| my head again...
| dkga wrote:
| Precisely the type of thing I immensely enjoy reading on a
| holiday!
| CommenterPerson wrote:
| I'm patting myself on the back. After reading the first couple
| paragraphs, I went Eh? and came here to the comments. Thanks
| everyone for saving me the time.
| stavros wrote:
| Saving you the time of reading a fantastic article? I think
| not.
| willvarfar wrote:
| So I just had a fun 5 minutes trying to talk gemini around to
| believing that Shawn has a position on the Kuril Islands dispute
| by submitting all the evidence in the article, but the llm is
| pretty impressively consistent and insistent that the song is
| figurative etc. Miss the days when it was so easy to get an LLM
| to argue for anything by persistence.
| mmillin wrote:
| Reading this felt very similar to watching "Pitch Perfect 237"
| (Anna Kendrick 9/11 conspiracy)
| https://youtube.com/watch?v=MiC9X_MoE1M
| shalmanese wrote:
| A significant amount of context is missing if you're not aware
| of Room 237: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Room_237
|
| A documentary about the various conspiracy theories developed
| around The Shining. The music in the YT video is from the
| documentary.
| layer8 wrote:
| It's sad that LLMs seem unable to produce that kind of brilliant
| deductive reasoning.
| speed_spread wrote:
| I disagree. It'll be sad the day they can do so. This kind of
| brilliant but absurd joke is still a refuge from the AI slop
| onslaught.
| wy35 wrote:
| This is hilarious, I need to find more blog posts like this.
| saretup wrote:
| https://youtu.be/1NBfZcNU4O0
| Scarblac wrote:
| But just how seriously should we take Shawn Mendes' stand on the
| Kuril islands? How big of a hit was _Lost in Japan_?
| eps wrote:
| Excellent deduction, but somewhat rushed at the end. Almost
| sloppy. If Mendez is flying to meet up with a friend at a hotel,
| it's clearly necassary to check if there are any hotels on that
| island to begin with.
|
| We can, of course, _assume_ that if there 's an airport, there's
| a hotel, but being a Russian territory even the most benign
| assumption may prove false, so it's still prudent to check.
|
| The good news is that there is not one, but two hotels on Iturup,
| both with impressive ratings (even if across a dozen reviews
| each). With this in place, I trust, we can put the final dot to
| the story of finding Shawn Mendez and his views on the annexation
| of the Kurils.
| benatkin wrote:
| I think patio11 would do this part well.
| https://www.bitsaboutmoney.com/archive/two-americas-one-bank...
| rts_cts wrote:
| If Where in the World is Carman Sandiego on the Apple ][ taught
| me anything, it's that there is always a hotel and it is the
| best place to check on arrival.
| xixixao wrote:
| The article suspiciously leaves out whether there's a hotel on
| Iturup Island, on which the whole argument hinges.
|
| Quick Google Maps reveales there indeed is one.
|
| What a relief!
| codazoda wrote:
| This is also an exercise in deductive reasoning, which I recently
| read, somewhere here on Hacker News, is a good skill to exercise.
| rsynnott wrote:
| This misses one obvious possibility; that it just happened before
| Okinawa was returned to Japan.
|
| (Granted, that was a while ago, and he looks young-ish, but I
| don't really know anything about Shawn Mendes, so am entirely
| open to the possibility that he's in his 70s and doing that blood
| boy thing from Silicon Valley.)
| sota_pop wrote:
| What a journey. Bravo, I am surely convinced beyond a reasonable
| doubt.
| rahimnathwani wrote:
| This reminded me of "Where is Ja?"
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mo-ddYhXAZc
| QuesnayJr wrote:
| I think of the line "I want some answers that Ja Rule might not
| have right now" pretty often.
| cwnyth wrote:
| There is a mistake in blogger's logic. Mendes never says that he
| is flying to Japan. He only states that he is a couple hundred of
| miles away from Japan. He could be flying from South Korea to
| Taipei.
| kin wrote:
| According to Genius, some fans believe the lyrics to reference
| when he toured in the Philippines and flew to Japan after.
| https://genius.com/14147648
|
| The timing of the song being released in 2018 lines up.
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(page generated 2025-06-09 23:01 UTC)