That’s actually kind of genius. It’s even made of lead!

A lot of people in this thread knee-jerk hating on the nails don’t realise that it’s just culturally-entrenched misogyny. More people need a “Don’t be an asshat because not everybody is like you” guard rail.

There are people that do it tastefully and people that are creative and interesting. If they can’t be interesting and descriptive to some extent then they’re probably not people I want to engage with.

And honestly, the titles were so bland they were almost snarky, and I never felt they were justified for the creators I watch. They were so laconic they were often barely informative anyway, because the flavour was gone. I think that’s because the people who have a good sense for editorialising aren’t going around writing aggressively literal titles all the time. The dearrow ecosystem is subject to algorithmic selection too, and it selects for boring.

The problem I have with dearrow is that it’s editorialising and arbitrary. It’s not like removing ads which can be clearly identified and the user can make personal decisions, like no sponsors but self-promo is fine, or whatever.

No, there is one alternative title and one alternative thumbnail, and that’s it, and often I have serious disagreements with the choices the community makes. There’s a bias towards intervention, so if a title is fine according to me but someone else doesn’t like it, then it gets changed. I found most of my votes were to restore the original title and thumb. Eventually I got tired of it and just uninstalled, and presumably so did other people with the same feeling, so the community continues to skew towards changing every video they encounter.

Also, the thumbnails and titles that creators choose tells me a lot about them, and I get rid of clickbait by not engaging with creators that do clickbait. Also, sometimes it’s not clickbait, just people being creative. It seems like the whole thing is just an exercise in being the fun police by people that don’t understand the creative process.

And electronics hobbyists!

Because the shaming tone is just infuriating. Yes, new people have problems with the system, shaming them by telling them their problems are “baffling” is tone-deaf.

Worse, if you have to shame people into using your system, it sends the message that Linux has serious problems that people need to be shamed into accepting. Shaming people into changing their behaviour basically never works by the way, outside of maybe a very insular village setting.

A better title might be, “Solutions to newcomers’s most common problems with Linux”, but the way it’s always phrased is, “Hey all the problems are going away and you’re frankly a teensy tiny brained baby if you’re not using Linux!” Like, maybe fuck off. Maybe show people that the community is capable of advertising itself with literally anything besides toxicity.

I have been on-board with the mission of Linux and hearing this “Hey the switch is actually easy!” gaslighting bullshit for 15 years now. I still haven’t managed to get rid of Windows 100%, and I honestly don’t want to ask for help from literally any Linux fanboy because they have proven themselves to be amongst the most rabidly condescending shits I’ve ever spoken to.