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luketheobscure | 1 year ago

Is there a term for this style of writing? It's like a longform linkedin post. I don't mean this as a criticism, it just seems like written language is evolving to better capture our diminishing attention spans.

discuss

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moritonal|1 year ago

I've had a hunch it's about the shrinking width of pages. The text-width is about 11-13 words (at a max-width of 728) and the author seems to have written around this.

Because it's so thin, anything longer than 12 words becomes a paragraph which "slows" the reader, so there are a lot of punchy short sentences. This style would look silly if it was written on a wider left-aligned blog.

jancsika|1 year ago

That's funny you mention text-width, I've noticed that with "punchy" articles like these.

Alternatively, when I see the old-school blogs that fill the entire page-width, I get the instant feeling I'm about to read something opinionated and quixotic.

Sure enough, the last HN article with that style hit it-- let's rescue the web by sending around WASM-blobs to be rendered to a common Wayland-like compositing surface. Thanks again, default CSS!

gukov|1 year ago

It gives me serious TED talk vibes. I guess it could be called that. Or maybe it's the twitter thread style?

A lot of catchy one liner hook sentences ("they're literally removing concession stands from NFL stadiums!") that sort of add up to make the author's point.

I'm pretty sure fact checking line by line will make the whole thing less impressive.

rustcleaner|1 year ago

I am a fan of Carroll Quigley's style of writing (Georgetown University professor and ole Slick-Willie's mentor). I find having DeepSeek restate articles in his style to be much more enjoyably ingestible.

crmd|1 year ago

Wow, I just followed your suggestion and the output text was exactly the style of writing I enjoy and try to employ myself. Gonna check Quigley out. Thank you!

dghlsakjg|1 year ago

I think it can best be described as tweet storm/thread style writing.

Everything has to be distilled down to ~200 char chunks that can be understood on their own as well as within the wider context.

rsync|1 year ago

I have been working on a new written form I refer to as an "Iceberg Article":

https://john.kozubik.com/pub/IcebergArticle/tip.html

... which is intended to present detailed, long-form treatments of a subject yet, at the same time, provide something interesting and actionable in a brief moment.

morkalork|1 year ago

National Geographic articles are the very embodiment of this style.

thrance|1 year ago

Pseudo-insightful quips anthology?

kordlessagain|1 year ago

Yeah, it's got that "visionary thought leader" vibe dialed up to 11. There's some interesting analysis in there, but it leans hard into the grandiosity—like he's the only one seeing the big picture while the rest of the world sleepwalks into a $100 trillion shift.

robmerki|1 year ago

Hype cycle slop reminiscent of Business Insider, etc. Reminds of me engagement bait threads on Twitter which always include the “thread” emoji and the downward pointing finger emoji.

zzgo|1 year ago

Broetry.

belter|1 year ago

TLDR: Dont eat so much, you wont be so fat.

belter|1 year ago

TLDR: A slight appetite curtailment might add a dash of elegance