<story><title>Mark Zuckerberg&apos;s Hoodie</title><url>http://quietbabylon.com/2013/mark-zuckerbergs-hoodie/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>kevinalexbrown</author><text>What a thoughtful essay. &quot;But it uses a silly writing device to illustrate a point it could have just made plainly!&quot; Whoa there, critical-thinking-by-the-numbers guy, maybe the article is also about fashion.&lt;p&gt;As a child, I considered style choices a silly and inconsequential distraction from the beautiful truths of the universe: e^(ipi) + 1 doesn&apos;t care what I&apos;m wearing, so neither should I, therefore it doesn&apos;t matter, QED.&lt;p&gt;While today I still wish fashion would just go away so I could wear this conference t-shirt in peace, I contend it offers a reflection of who we are. Consider that while half the Senior Developers of the world can&apos;t program their way out of a FizzBuzz test, and half the world can&apos;t even read at all, &lt;i&gt;everyone&lt;/i&gt; can look at someone&apos;s dress and decide if it&apos;s fashionable for their demographic. &quot;No, it offers a reflection of what the establishment wants us to be!&quot; I&apos;ll leave it to the reader to reconcile those two views. &quot;But I just care about finishing Project Euler problems in APL so I just decide to wear sandals and this old shirt like all my friends!&quot; &lt;i&gt;Fashion mattering doesn&apos;t depend on you caring.&lt;/i&gt; Even you, APL-man, know Zuck couldn&apos;t wear his hoodie working for Quinn Emanuel unless he owned it (real question: how many people show up in suits at facebook?).&lt;p&gt;I was shopping for pretty scarves (!) with a product designer and suggested that ads are the clearest reflection of what a given demographic &lt;i&gt;is&lt;/i&gt;. He agreed so quickly I wondered if I were late to the party. So when the Scientology ad in the Atlantic showed up, I thought of my favorite TLP quotation: if you&apos;re reading it, it&apos;s for you. The obvious question was &quot;why is the Atlantic publishing this!?&quot; The more depressing question is &quot;why am I in Scientology&apos;s target demo?&quot;&lt;p&gt;Fashion is an advertisement about yourself. &quot;But the relationship is not always so obvious!&quot; Hence the hoodie the world&apos;s richest web geek refuses to remove. &quot;But I don&apos;t care what Zuckerberg wears!&quot; If you&apos;re reading it, it&apos;s for you.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>lelandbatey</author><text>I&apos;d very much like to re-emphasize this point:&lt;p&gt;&amp;#62; &lt;i&gt;Fashion mattering doesn&apos;t depend on you caring.&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;In general, there are actually quite a few things like this in the world. Just because it is out of the scope of your concern &lt;i&gt;does not&lt;/i&gt; mean it isn&apos;t of any concern.</text></comment>
<story><title>Mark Zuckerberg&apos;s Hoodie</title><url>http://quietbabylon.com/2013/mark-zuckerbergs-hoodie/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>kevinalexbrown</author><text>What a thoughtful essay. &quot;But it uses a silly writing device to illustrate a point it could have just made plainly!&quot; Whoa there, critical-thinking-by-the-numbers guy, maybe the article is also about fashion.&lt;p&gt;As a child, I considered style choices a silly and inconsequential distraction from the beautiful truths of the universe: e^(ipi) + 1 doesn&apos;t care what I&apos;m wearing, so neither should I, therefore it doesn&apos;t matter, QED.&lt;p&gt;While today I still wish fashion would just go away so I could wear this conference t-shirt in peace, I contend it offers a reflection of who we are. Consider that while half the Senior Developers of the world can&apos;t program their way out of a FizzBuzz test, and half the world can&apos;t even read at all, &lt;i&gt;everyone&lt;/i&gt; can look at someone&apos;s dress and decide if it&apos;s fashionable for their demographic. &quot;No, it offers a reflection of what the establishment wants us to be!&quot; I&apos;ll leave it to the reader to reconcile those two views. &quot;But I just care about finishing Project Euler problems in APL so I just decide to wear sandals and this old shirt like all my friends!&quot; &lt;i&gt;Fashion mattering doesn&apos;t depend on you caring.&lt;/i&gt; Even you, APL-man, know Zuck couldn&apos;t wear his hoodie working for Quinn Emanuel unless he owned it (real question: how many people show up in suits at facebook?).&lt;p&gt;I was shopping for pretty scarves (!) with a product designer and suggested that ads are the clearest reflection of what a given demographic &lt;i&gt;is&lt;/i&gt;. He agreed so quickly I wondered if I were late to the party. So when the Scientology ad in the Atlantic showed up, I thought of my favorite TLP quotation: if you&apos;re reading it, it&apos;s for you. The obvious question was &quot;why is the Atlantic publishing this!?&quot; The more depressing question is &quot;why am I in Scientology&apos;s target demo?&quot;&lt;p&gt;Fashion is an advertisement about yourself. &quot;But the relationship is not always so obvious!&quot; Hence the hoodie the world&apos;s richest web geek refuses to remove. &quot;But I don&apos;t care what Zuckerberg wears!&quot; If you&apos;re reading it, it&apos;s for you.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>argonaut</author><text>The problem is that, in addition to what I&apos;ve already said, the essay itself does not do a good job at making a point. Sure, it gesticulates at some points. Sure, you could assume the author is trying to say X, but I think that is one&apos;s own projection of the essay&apos;s vague intent. In fact, we have two comments here which potentially illustrate what I mean. You argue that the article is about fashion. Someone else argues that it&apos;s about social privilege. I argue that it&apos;s so vague that it&apos;s really about nothing.&lt;p&gt;I&apos;m not sure who you&apos;re calling a &quot;critical-thinking-by-the-numbers guy,&quot; but since I was one of those criticizing the article, I&apos;ll respond that it is wrong of you to assume that our criticism must be due to the fact that we/I don&apos;t understand that fashion in some ways represents who we are. Because I certainly recognize that fashion represents not only who we are, but who we want to be. But that does not absolve the article of having made no meaningfully substantiated conclusions apart from interesting points about the anonymizing use of hoodies.&lt;p&gt;If you asked me, the only reason Zuckerberg wears/wore hoodies is because he is/was a twenty-something. In his case it has nothing to do with anonymity/surveillance, etc. etc. They&apos;re just what was in fashion when he was in college. They&apos;re still in fashion. I wear them. They&apos;re comfortable. For youth, they&apos;re not uncool to wear. A suit would be uncool. Imagine all the grief you&apos;d get if you wore a suit to high school.&lt;p&gt;EDIT (reply to below): While your reply may or may not be accurate, I think the fact that this is yet another interpretation of what the author&apos;s point makes my argument even clearer, that the essay has no point at all.</text></comment>