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Does it not only provide you with the content but also schedule the distribution like Buffer?

For better or for worse I feel there is definitely a market for some version of this.

Isn't this actually a marketing ploy to get people to read about the negative effects of social media?
ha they got me. Thanks for sharing.
This is not a real service. Try to buy one of their packages and it brings up a page that says:

You're not alone. 62% of people feel inadequate comparing their lives to others online.

Then links to some mental health article on social media.

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I’m apparently #blessed to have grown up in that middle era remembering before and after the internet where I think it’s less likely to have this type of insecurity.

I wish i had a crystal ball to see if were social media is going, for me, away is the only answer. For everyone else... I really can’t tell when it will peak.

That black mirror on the topic episode was so good!

I would legitimately buy this to subtly troll my friends and wait to see how long it took them to figure out that I was just posting stock photos over and over.
My life is far from perfect and I don't try paint a perfect version on Instagram.. but my photos could be in these packages.
Just went to Borneo jungles by long boat. If i used fb/insta I might post those pics knowing but also not caring if someone else compared themselves to me. The dopamine hit from likes is real, I think it’s best to avoid even if you do cool things.

Really, if you do cool things and are an actually cool person, you don’t need to broadcast it.

When I do cool things I often meet new people. I connect with them through Insta and enjoy seeing their photos of the cool thing. I get to see their perspective and things I might not have done/seen.

I would enjoy seeing someones experience of the Borneo jungles because I haven't been and from a quick google it looks like something I would enjoy.

You do have a point about the hit from likes and I have to admit that I have taken photos with the mindset "this will go on Instagram".. but maybe that is not so bad. Insta and the people who post on it are like a community and once you approach it right you can get a lot from it.

I do cool things, but I'm not a cool person. I sometimes broadcast the cool things I do.

I do admit, I try to dominate the hashtag that is tied to my son.

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Note that this is itself a fake site. It's put up by https://sanctus.io/ and clicking on any Buy button will redirect you to this Medium post: https://sanctus.io/social-media-mental-health-b1803b6b475f
The best satire is the one where you can’t immediately tell. This nailed that.
Even the logo is spot on. This is dark satire indeed, predicting the near future where someone out there actually will offer such a service, and millions will buy into it. This would be a perfect fit in the world of Black Mirror.
As both a speculative fiction author and an entrepreneur, new ideas sometimes have me on the fence for whether I should make them into businesses, or into dystopian novellas.
this would be hard to scale as you would probably need to generate new images for each client, but if you could auto-generate imagery per client that would help (still the subscription needs to be priced higher)
The "influencer" would just have to take a lot of pictures for each event. Maybe the same from different angles...

Could easily generate hundreds of photos from one "session".

FWIW services kinda like this already exist — there are marketplaces for "social influencers" to buy content.
Would be great to have a link in this thread for comparison?
Or China if they could improve your 'social credit' rating. I am a little disappointed though. From the title I thought the service would be for faking profiles in order to trick the data vacuuming companies. Filling their databases with fake useless garbage has been my desire for awhile.
The movie Idiocracy is an example.
movie? thought it’s a documentary
LOL, yep. I used to refer to it as a movie; but now I call it a documentary.
yup, time-shifted documentary.

but the value of t in the film is erroneous, and the actual value is unknown.

It even looks like the 'e' is winking. I really like this logo.
Thanks - we're very happy with the reaction and all this amazing discussion - it's exactly what we wanted!
The bottom of the FAQ did me in, but that's a perfect place: the people who are about to bounce anyway.
I cottoned on that it was (probably) fake, but I can imagine someone doing this for real.
did anyone actually think this wasn't fake?
I shared an office with the founder of Sanctus for a while (James) when he was working on a different startup. Sanctus is a brilliant idea that's doing good work. If it scales well it could make a real difference in a lot of people's lives. Nice guy too.
"MetaMask believes this domain to have malicious intent and has prevented you from interacting with it.

This is because the site tested positive on the Ethereum Phishing Detector."

Hm, I get this too because I have MetaMask. It uses this library: https://github.com/MetaMask/eth-phishing-detect

Running the detector on 'sanctus.io' gives a fuzzy match against the whitelisted domain 'auctus.org'. That's pretty odd, and clearly is a false positive. I guess it's better safe than sorry, but there should be an error message on that page that says something like "We think this site is pretending to be auctus.org, if you think this is a false positive than click here to continue".

Awesome idea for a satire site, and this appears to be well intended. However it did bring an interesting thought to mind: somebody could easily create a site like this for the express purpose of building retargeting audiences in a given niche. Post something likely to go viral in tech circles, for example, then throw retargeting pixels from FB, Google, etc on there. Notice that the URL posted to HN had a tracking parameter attached to it (“?HackerNews”). I didn’t bother to look at the code on the site, but I noticed that Adblock Plus blocked 4 elements on the page, so maybe they’re already doing this. Even just with the YouTube-based promo video embedded on the page, you can retarget people that watched the video.
I clicked through to the HN comments, going 'I bet someone will want to make this a business'. Sure enough :D

I think we might all be predictable.

So look. 3 hours after you wrote this (now, that is) you probably forgot your comment (whether a random HN project becomes a business or not). Here's my take for an answer - it doesn't matter :)

It probably touched base for everyone linking such mirrors with mental health points - fair play, I know I'll think about this tomorrow regardless of its far-fetched potential biz-prop. Cheers!

Which target though?
Getting that domain probably wasn't dirt cheap either. Kudos for the commitment.
Just wait, it's a fake door test and sanctus.io is actually going to pivot to this due to the overwhelming demand /s
Amazing! But this is already realer than the satire suggests. Amazing article on rental friends in Japan: https://www.theatlantic.com/family/archive/2017/11/paying-fo... And the curiously gender-specific invisible girlfriend: https://invisiblegirlfriend.com/
That article on rental friends makes me so mad. I'd rather know that my dad wasn't around than be completely lied to like that. Jeez.
There's apparently an Invisible Boyfriend site, too. It's linked at the bottom. I have to suspect it gets less traffic, though.
blink what the hell did I just read? He is pretending to be a father for eight years? And this is ongoing? o_O
Once again, Japan delivers on soul-crushing social dynamics.

Sometimes I fear that Japan is merely a reflection of what lies ahead for a whole lot of humanity once the global population/ urbanization density becomes high enough.

I worry for anyone that didn't immediately realise this is satire.
did anyone actually believe it wasn't a fake site?
I wonder how many people would take this at face value though.
I wished it was a real service. They should have scheduled uploads and some kind of travel package so it look like you are on a back packing trip or something. You could add this as sabbatical on your resume.
Just got back from a trip around Asia, man, it’s a lot of WORK posting photos with little blips about them. I refuse to use Facebook or Instagram, but Flickr was the same process and still took time away from the trip.

I seriously don’t understand how people with selfie compulsion snapping hundreds of photos a day make time to sort through them.

Now there’s a service: you take the photos; we’ll curate them, caption them, and post them on the right social channels at the right times for maximum reach. Like a consumer-level PR agency.
Whoa. That’s actually something! Hand selected at first then machine learning to find photos with good light and focus, repetition of face angles you like, then filtered for a human for final approval.
This is brilliant satire but I feel like a real service like this may already exist, or will exist soon. It's the next logical step.
I'd say it already exists in the form of the consulting media gig. It's just not automated yet.
I care very little about things like this, but if it were really $1 per month, it’d be very tempting to get this just for fun.

I think a real version would have to cost a lot more than that. But the service price can be reduced as it scales to more users.

I would actually love to use the non-satire version of this service.
I was actually disappointed it's not real. If services like this were widely used, eventually it would devalue the likes and social personas and everyone would just start ignoring it.
I like this satire, it's making a fun statement. I was mildly surprised though by the images they chose for "my unachievable body" for men. The women's examples were definitely absurd, but of the two dudes one was just a guy with unremarkable arms deadlifting, and another was just a dude with low bodyfat. Why didn't they go with like a mr Olympia or something? Maybe it's a statement on how much easier it is for men to be considered to have "a hot bod" than woman?
"Unremarkable arms"? "Just a dude with low body fat"?

Not sure what circles you're in, but I know exactly one person that looks even remotely as good as those two guys. For about 95% of the world population, these are unachievable bodies.

I also take issue with the idea that these are "unachievable", as if it's physically impossible for all but 5% of the genetically gifted, and there's no point in the rest of us trying because we weren't born that way.

The reality is that most could achieve these physiques if they wanted to, it's just that nobody wants to put in the effort of lifting at least 3x a week for at least 30 mins a day, strictly counting calories, (I would say taking anabolic steroids but those pics definitely look achievable naturally).

So I'd say it's not an issue of "can't", it's an issue of "won't". And that's totally fine to not prioritize that, but don't discourage those who might otherwise want to.

For anyone reading this who wants to try strength training, I can attest that it's worth it. Regardless of where you start, if you follow the process you will look better and be healthier than you began. Many see noticeable changes within as little as 3 months. Within the circles I know, people look better and get stronger every year, and building strength helps with so many other activities, so it'll give you a leg up when you're trying indoor climbing, or yoga, or paddleboarding, etc.

Concur that strength training is worth it, but it doesn't automatically give you anything like those appearances even if the amount you can lift goes up substantially.

Calorie counting that strictly seems to be psychologically gruelling for most people. (This will start an argument in comments, but I'll just point out that telling someone that something they find extremely difficult is something you find easy has never in the history of education enabled anyone to do anything)

The fact that it's not automatic doesn't mean that it is now unbelievable and unachievable. That's the point. Fitness is not magic or something only a precious few inherited from having good genes. Most people would naturally be fairly fit, were it not for the sedentary lives we live since childhood.
I don't find it easy either though, it was a huge pain and I could only pull it off for a tow years because I obsessed over it: I lived and breathed fitness until I could find a new weight to maintain. I spent my free time reading fitness forums, watching fitness channels for fun, etc.

With that same amount of time I could have put serious work into my other hobbies like electronics or made more career moves. I probably sacrificed that for fitness, but I don't regret it.

These days I've dropped the obsession to work on other things. I still go to the gym twice a week for maintenance, and my weight fluctuates more around my new goal weight, but I've gotten used to my metabolism.

All-in-all I'm very thankful to be healthier, and I hope others find a similar joy in strength training or physical exercise. It's a lot of work, but it's so worth it! No matter where you start, you can make progress.

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"Unachievable".... this is often the reaction I see to fitness.

It's understandable; I think. By labelling someone's body perfect or unachievable, we can pay a complement, whilst shielding the body from casual nitpicking or disregard. No one wants to say "I like X", then have to defend their opinion about how good someone looks. As a side-benefit, you also don't have to strive to achieve the same yourself, nor defend why you aren't striving because it's "perfect".

I don't think any of these bodies---male nor female are unachievable. Do I hang out only with models and professional athletes? Nope. Almost anyone who is a young moderately athletic adult has a similar body---identical? Nah, after all these are photographs of models, but it's close enough that it's not going to blow anyones mind to see it.

For anyone who has ever been an athlete---highschool or college--they would recall seeing people who looked like this (or looking like this yourself). It's not an impossible dream; just a path you didn't follow.

That's a far cry from "unachievable".

/rant

I think the female images are a lot closer to "unachievable" than the male images because of how much narrower the acceptable range in hip width, fat distribution, etc (genetic factors) is and it isn't something that can be fixed by adjusting your caloric input or working out more as it often can be for men.

For instance my high school and university swim teams were full of people who looked like the men in these images, but of the women almost none had similar bodies to these women (despite being extremely strong/fit/disciplined/etc).

At the end of the day though I'm not surprised that a website that mainly caters to a group of people who traditionally spend a lot of time sitting down (at work and at home) and often didn't grow up participating in team sports would consider images of fit people unrealistic.

It's absolutely unachievable once they factor in their willpower and discipline.
The caption is "unachievable." The first body is achievable for anybody not morbidly obese within less than a year of gym training. The second body doesn't even require you to go to the gym, just monitor your calories.

So both are probably unachievable to somebody that's already crossed maybe the 35%bf threshold, but step outside of America and that's not anywhere near the majority...

What kind of crowd do you hang with? The only remarkable thing about the first guy's arms is he's pretty vascular.

I'm guessing you're young... once you hit 30, your mind is probably going to change on this.
You're going to gatekeep fitness to me, after seemingly demonstrating less fitness confidence? I'm three years from 30, it's already hitting me. It doesn't really change the basic calculus of calories in, calories out.
Most people's metabolisms change as they age and most people generally have less time and energy as life commitments increase. Sure, if someone at 30+ had a lot of time and money and put all their effort in to fitness, I'm sure they could attain what you implied is achievable without too much effort. Why that body is unattainable for most is due to real life concerns like sitting at work for hours to earn a paycheck and raising a family.
That grip is too wide to be a deadlift. It’s probably snatch. Or just a badly posed photo.
Wow, they used a picture I took of my remote office for the 'Yeah My Job Lets Me Travel' section. I don't know if I feel good or bad about that...
Hah, what a coincidence. That's the same picture I took of my remote office!
This is the best joke on HN I've seen all day.
Hah, what a coincidence as well. This is the best joke on HN I've seen all day.
Did they have your permission? Because they explicitly say that the difference between them and catfishing is that they have permission...
I posted the picture on Unsplash, so yeah they are free to use it however they wish. I can see that a good amount of the pictures shown are taken from there. In a way sites like Unsplash make the problem they are describing worse. I have seen my travel pictures used on many different IG accounts, sometimes even as the profile pic.
I'm glad you get to travel. (no sarcasm!) I wanted to mention though that I am seeing irony in this.
I definitely get that. People post lifestyle pics to stock photo sites as the ultimate humblebrag; they get that little dopamine hit out of seeing others use their life on websites, posts, etc. I think that is a big reason why all the 'free for any use' websites get so many uploads. I find it much more rewarding than posting to social media.
If you are not a photographer, how is this rewarding?

I do not understand this epidemic. I can’t imagine caring the least bit about “likes” and it seems like I’m in the minority.

I don't care about likes either. You don't get many likes on a stock photo site even if you are a pro anyway. I got into uploading simply to use them as a photo host, but later it became an outlet for the basic effort I put into being more creative with photography (learning LR). The logic many use is that it is better to upload photos than just have them collect dust. Besides, it is fun to be browsing the web and see pictures you have taken. The reach of Unsplash and other sites is really impressive. My pics are meh quality at best and yet they still have ~60M views. Real photographers have way more than that with one approaching 1B views.
You might want to lead with "they used a picture I uploaded to a free use stock photography site" in your original comment.
The site is satire. they're not selling anything.
Satire is protected by fair use.
Don't you have to actually satirize the content being used, though? It would seem that using images to create a satire of something totally separate would require permission.
You're correct, thinking you're allowed to steal anything just because you're going to put it in a content satirizing something else is such a huge misunderstanding of the law.

E.g. you can use melody from a Justin Bieber song to make fun of him/the subject matter of the song, but if you make a video to make fun of Trump and you use Bieber's song as the background music, nope!

You're not likely to get taken to court though, are you? You would expect to receive a cease and desist letter or a DMCA takedown first, right?

If you weren't making any money off it, and it wasn't your intention to make money, and you had no monetisation avenues active, and you only made a handful of infringing media, during a brief period, what's the worst that could happen?

I'm assuming you're talking about US Copyright law.

Satire isn't protected by Fair Use. Parodies are.

Satire will make a more broad point--in this case, the damaging effects on mental health that social media plays. Any use of copyrighted works won't likely be protected.

Parody would be something smaller--like creating a website that looks similar to Instagram, using humor to criticize it.

Parody is only protected in the context of copying the thing it is parodying. Beyond that copyright applies.
...where do you work?
For my own startup. I quit my corporate life and took a year to tour New Zealand while slowly spinning up/planning everything. More or less stereotypical life-crisis stuff. Obligatory Medium post: https://medium.com/@TylerLastovich/pressing-shuffle-on-life-...
Oh. I could've written the same post, I am just before buying a ticket somewhere. Would love to get in touch, if that's possible.
Sure, feel free to message me at tyler(at)lastovich.me.
I found this quote quite amusing from your article:

> I moved from staying in AirBnB’s to hostels and learned so much from travelers living outside of our money-culture

I generally prefer to stay in hostels, and even lived in one in Wellington for a year. I find it strange to be descried as "living outside money-culture". I guess a lot of people in the working holiday/backpacker community are though; working to live, rather than living to work.

A year in a hostel is impressive! In NZ it blew my mind how many people lived very happy lives yet almost never mentioned money, career trajectories, and to a large extent–the internet. I found this really refreshing as I had never been exposed to that kind of thinking before, the polar opposite of startup culture in the US. I specifically remember staying with a group of fruit pickers that were some of the happiest people I have ever met, even though none of them had more than a thousand dollars in the bank.
great to know I can have my life crisis here in NZ :)
You don't look quite midlife and going travelling a year seems quite a sensible thing to do. Americans seem to regard a year off as more of a crisis than the rest of the world where it's kind of normal.
How did they got photos of my wife's body, and also two of my lovers! I'm pissed. /s
I'm starting to wonder if that is a picture of my heirloom foosball table or someone else's
I lol'ed at the:

Why has my girlfriend turned into a boyfriend?

There was a common issue that has since been fixed where boyfriend photos were accidentally posted instead of girlfriends. We have since corrected the issue and removed all posts made in error.

It's the only thing on the page that gives away it is satire wo/ clicking a link
This pretty much summarized 90% of IG accounts.

They just need a "Look at all the famous people I know" option :)

The "I'm an influencer" package
This is a great marketing idea! Congrats. I haven’t heard of Sanctus before
Let's fix that title, please :)
I use the Face app to enhance my face/dating profile pics especially the goatee which changes your skin tone and adds a furrier goatee. It’s not a huge tweak to how I look so those who I go on dates or hook up with haven’t said anything and our subsequent dates or hook ups continued.

Overall the Internet is and slowly becoming less of a trustworthy source for much of anything. Thus dating apps that force u to take a pic of yourself thru the app no outside pics is probably going to become a thing.

I don't see how an app that showed less attractive people could be more successful. Dating is inherently going to be "buyer beware" from now on, not that it hasn't that way for a long time.
Well with all things on the Internet and as time continues to school not only us techies but all INternet users that most of what you see is fake that's going to be a need for veracity. Those who are already good looking to hot might flock to a dating app that ensures the pics they see for prospects are indeed real.

Overall a system needs to be created to ensure veracity on the Internet or it's just going to become a joke.. unbelievable!

That system sounds terrifying itself.

Who runs such a system? What is their motive or mandate for doing so? Which governments will directly or indirectly control it? How will it deal with things that are unpopular yet true? How will it be gamed by malicious actors?

just a thought otherwise the Internet looks to becomes a joke and maybe that's not a bad thing!
> good looking

beautifulpeople.com

Not really. You just don't have enough integrity to roll with your actual look. I wouldn't be so quick to blame that on anything but yourself.

In fact, it's in your best interest to be as honest as you can upfront so a woman's first impression of you isn't "hmm, he looked better in his photos :/"

>You just don't have enough integrity to roll with your actual look.

Everyone I know touches up their dating pics somehow. Let's not even get into how your statement relates to makeup, I'm talking about actual modifications to the picture through filters or even straight-up photoshop.

So what? I'm not talking about women and make-up. But I'd say the same about a man wearing foundation to round out his blemishes.

The truth is you're really doctoring your images to satisfy your weak ego. And the sooner you acknowledge that, the healthier.

Trying to rope in other people with "but others do it" only demonstrates even weaker integrity. Though I guarantee you're overestimating the number of touch ups using something like Face App. Not really the same as some 80s VHS Instagram filter or whatever.

>The truth is you're really doctoring your images to satisfy your weak ego.

I don't think this is true if everyone is doing it. It's like an arms race, you have to do it just to reach a baseline, as opposed to doing it to stand out.

Something similar that occurs in online dating is that guys add 1-2 inches to their height. The vast majority of men do this. I'm somewhere between 5'10 and 5'11, and most people my height list themselves as 6'+, so I started doing it too, and there's been a noticeable difference in the number of matches I get.

If I put my actual height, women will assume I'm under 5'9, because every guy who is 5'8 is listing themselves as 5'10.

You can claim that I'm being "insecure", but I've never been dishonest about my actual height in person. I used to just round down and put 5'10 because I really didn't care, and I'd always get remarks about how I was taller than they expected. Funnily enough, lots of people who are the same height as me really do believe they are 6' because this exaggeration has become so common, and the average adult doesn't measure their height properly and just goes off what everyone else says.

just be honest. in the BS-filled online dating world, honesty is refreshing, imo
hn dropping black pills.
> Though I guarantee you're overestimating the number of touch ups

Is this really your experience? Because that would be surprising. I see the damn snapchat eye enlargement on pretty much every second female dating profile photo nowadays.

It gets better when you stop trying to match with 18-26 year olds.
no im using it to get laid and live life silly because its all about how you look until it isnt and then your old and no one is looking at you. MIght as well do what you can to enjoy the time you have here and sow your wild oats.
How do you protect yourself from HPV etc?
My guess: with what appears to be a dazzling personality.
If you're a woman you can get a vaccine. Other than that there's no way to reasonably avoid it besides abstinence. If you've had more than one sexual partner then chances are you already have it.
HPV vaccinations are now recommended for both genders for people under the age of 26 for the most part
Is it just me that doesn't have any of the images loading up?
I'm getting this, too. Maybe their image server can't handle the front-page-of-HN load.
For some reason uBlock Origin blocked all the images for me. I had to temporarily disable it.
Looks like a hug of death. Many resources aren't loading at all on that site anymore
Hmm,

Buying photos probably isn't a sustainable way to maintain a profile. On the other hand, the transformation of ordinary photos into "perfect instagram photos" seems plausibly doable by some form of generative neural nets (akin to the style transfer and fake celebrity apps). Obviously, such photos would need to be also human vetted but this could open up a lot of possibilities.

And sure, this site is fake but I don't think instagram insanity is going away just with site pointing to mental health considerations. You'd need to change society, how people relate to fame and so-forth.

Letting literally everyone fake perfection actually seems more plausible as a way to escape the insanity of everyone wanting to be celebrity compared to links to psychologists talking about problems. It would be great "raising awareness" could help problems but I think history shows awareness raising does nearly nothing especially compared to giving someone a tool operate differently. For example, there's at least claims that most plastic surgery patients really do feel happier long term - at least for simple changes.

> Letting literally everyone fake perfection

The reverse of Harrison Bergeron? Somehow more humane and workable.

http://www.tnellen.com/cybereng/harrison.html

One of my favourite short stories. Short, punchy, and it makes a poignant observation.
it sums up the objection to equality very well. is there a "socialists' response" to this?
Seems to be hugged to death, the photos are sporadically broken URLs.
Because the road to perfection begins with money.
This is brilliant. What's worrying is that this could quite possibly be a valid, profitable business idea. Maybe even using deep fakes to put your face on a moving jetski or something. It would probably impress a lot of people while the tech is still fairly esoteric.
Deep fakes to get genuine look positive reviews from previous dates. All you need is a few seconds of video and audio of their face.
All images broken for me on Chrome/Android mobile.
Great parody bringing attention to the fact people only share the best moments of their life
Sadly, I already thought of this at some point; it was probably when I was looking at my totally unimpressive Facebook wall.
Sport
I'm so unhappy that this isn't real. The amount of competitive trolling I could do with this...

Sigh

Real services like this do exist though.