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Design Elitism(daneden.me)

9 years ago from Matt Achariam, Intent Renderer

  • Jeff EscalanteJeff Escalante, 9 years ago (edited 9 years ago )

    So let me get this straight. He is saying that you shouldn't be an "design elitist", then at the end signs off by saying that Yo is a piece of crap and that at least he and Dropbox are solving real problems and will just be scoffing at all the fakers when the "bubble bursts"?

    I feel like a lot of pains were gone through in order to make this read like an elegant and high-minded piece, from the tone to the vocabulary to fonts and design of the page. But when you cut to the core of what it's actually saying, it's essentially "I'm slaving away at a company doing work I believe is important but for some reason am still butthurt that a silly app built in 8 hours got a bunch of funding." If you are really happy doing the work your doing, and really believe it's important, you would not be mad about the Yo app. In fact, you wouldn't care, and/or would think it was funny. The only reason you'd write something like this is if you feel like you "got on the wrong train" and are trying to justify to yourself that you didn't.

    So in a perhaps overly psycho-analytic conclusion , I'm of the opinion that rather than the high-minded rant about doing "important work" that he wanted this to come off as, this is actually a extraordinarily indirect way for Dan to admit that he is not quite satisfied with the work he is doing. I guess only time will tell whether I'm right or not.

    58 points
    • Daniel EdenDaniel Eden, 9 years ago

      Fair comment. It is, as I noted toward the end, a bit of a petty thinking-out-loud post. But I am deeply satisfied with my work and the problems I’m solving.

      Yo isn’t an isolated case—but it’s certainly the freshest and most provocative—of tech-bubble money madness, prescriptive to many startup stories. My observation is simply that many designers are working hard at solving incomprehensible problems that affect the lives of generations of people, but that media coverage glamorises get-rich-quick gimmicky startup culture, thanks to the magnitude of its investments.

      In short, I do think it’s funny, but that doesn’t make it any less irritating. I merely wanted to put into words the situation as I see it, as I quite often do on my blog.

      9 points
    • Eduardo NunesEduardo Nunes, 9 years ago

      Isn't it unfair to attribute someone calling out bullshit on something he sees as negatively impacting his own craft to the fact that he's butthurt or unhappy with his own life, though?

      If you're a fair and responsible news anchor, and you believe newsmen have a moral obligation to their viewers, are you not entitled to be enraged by someone doing otherwise? Or does the fact that there are people willing to throw money at whatever transvestite News Corporation decides to break this moral code make it all ok?

      3 points
    • Luke JonesLuke Jones, 9 years ago

      You cannot understand how many times I want to upvote this.

      Dan is an excellent writer, but what he’s written is steeped in irony.

      4 points
    • Floyd WilliamsonFloyd Williamson, 9 years ago (edited 9 years ago )

      Talk about being overly psychoanalytic...

      0 points
      • Jeff EscalanteJeff Escalante, 9 years ago

        hahah fair callout, i knew the last paragraph was going pretty far with the speculative analysis (and I did note this actually in the comment) but as Drake once said, "yolo", so I just went for it.

        0 points