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Comment by JohnMakin | Hacker News Reader

The "Hawk Tuah" girl is a perfect example to me. She had a funny moment, and I think 15-20 years ago it probably would have just been a funny meme for a few years and a "oh you're that girl from the meme" at parties for her entire 20's. Like that's exactly how that would have played out. Now she quit her job, has sponsorships, got a major podcast deal - over a single viral moment. It's nutty to me, personally, but people seem to see this as perfectly normal.

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I watched her podcast and some interviews, and it's clear that, while not the most educated person, she exudes charisma and has a relatable sense of humor. She seems like a natural entertainer.

As for education, she's from the south and her mom is an absent drug addict so I give her a pass (I have the same background and it is extraordinarily difficult)

I think she's a special case, and she'll prove that over time. I'm happy someone in her position got a chance to share her personality with the world. Wishing her the best.

I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with what she did or that she does not have talent. It’s more crazy to me that this is seen as a natural progression of someone’s online career.

I don't know, I feel it's hard to know what a natural progression in one's online career looks like, given the relative nascence of the medium. Film underwent similar phase transitions over time before settling on the star system, which we are now seeing begin to fail as well.

It's certainly not sustainable to give a podcast to every person who says something that goes viral on TikTok, so I wonder how things will look in another 30 years.

The part I don't like is an entire army of people now think doing exactly the same thing is a viable strategy to similar success. We should view this as a lottery win, not career development

That was pretty much the situation with reality TV twenty years ago. Everyone was aghast that some random person could appear on a show and instead of being cast aside for our amusement at the end, they were able to build a personal brand and get a career out of it. It’s predators all the way down.

Anything to distract from the dystopia we live in. Ironically what you describe sounds like that season 1 of black mirror episode

Interesting point. I'm not sure what her plan for her life was, but I could understand her making that decision if the rather explicit nature of her comments precluded it. Maybe she felt she had no choice but to own it.

15 years ago "Shit My Dad Says" got a TV show. People have spun momentary stardom into book deals and gigs forever. NYC, Hollywood, all the music cities past and present, and the last couple of SV booms were built on trying to generate it. "You're good at that, you should sell it" has been a constant refrain to creatives with any level of skill for decades. Some people went for it.

The scale changed, and that's meaningful, but some kinds of people have always been on the lookout for a path to fortune.

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