

Ask HN: Do you or does anyone you know produce trash?  - tomasien

I see intentionally created trash (pandering art, throwaway ad bait websites, etc.) everyday that seems to make money, and I wonder: "Who does this stuff?"<p>To clarify my tone: I do not look down on this necessarily. Creating things that serve no purpose other than to help you or others make a living is a completely reasonable, although certainly not ideal, thing to do.<p>But creating this stuff can take real creativity and ability. In fact, some of the "trash" I'm referring to takes a lot of one or the other. So who's doing it?
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jeffool
While not exactly what you're talking about, I did some contract SEO work
recently that left me feeling like I'd done something even worse. A friend
there got me the interview and spoke well of me. We'd worked together in local
TV journalism, where I worked for years after he left. (I'm aware, many would
consider local TV news trash in its right right. ;) )

I'll always appreciate his looking out for me like he did, but I'm one of
those crazy people who thinks advertising in general is just... Grating. And
doing it for something I don't care about? I thought I could stomach it and go
forward, but I felt horrible. Now, I still did the work, and I don't think I
did a poorer job, I just felt really dissatisfied about it, and the work took
me far longer to do it than I should've.

I ended up ending the contract myself after a couple of months. I mean, there
were a couple of good jobs in the contract... It's just, I can see how someone
could do well in that field helping elevate bad or mediocre companies/people
get more attention that they deserve. And that's horrible to me. I want to do
some work I can believe in.

Like you said, it can take real creativity and ability, and I still have the
utmost respect for my friend who works at the marketing company. I personally
just felt so weird writing and doing that work behind the scenes for that
reason, after years of working in journalism and enjoying that I felt I was
contributing, even to some degree, to the public good.

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debacle
I created astroturfing marketing websites for a multinational company for two
years. It was soul-sucking, and I'm glad I'm done with it.

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dholowiski
I've created what you call "trash" in the past, although I suspect we have
different definitions of trash. Simply, it's a good way to make money.

~~~
tomasien
I didn't put any judgement in my post except to call it trash, which is what
it is. Trash collectors are certainly honorable, but they collect trash

