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Computing culture (other): videos Hacker News recommends
Other computing-culture topics: nostalgia, tech satire (Silicon Valley), conference oddities, miscellaneous retro and culture clips. Below: every video in this topic that at least three HN users linked with real commentary, in at least three different months (7 videos, 5 comedy videos, 3 music videos), best-scored first, with the comments on each video page.
- 5 HN recommenders 5 months 2012–2026M MC Frontalot · music videoHN shares it whenever Zork or text adventures come up, as a fun tribute for geeks.
- 2 HN recommenders 2 months 2018–2023G genuinelyfunnynazi · comedy videoRecommended as a savage, ahead-of-its-time parody of startup and tech culture.
- 2 HN recommenders 2 months 2019–2024K Kevin Galvayne · videoRecommended in Max Headroom threads as a surprisingly good, short original film.
- 2 HN recommenders 2 months 2013–2024T Tom.K · demoHN commenters link it as a fond example of elaborate hidden Easter eggs in old Microsoft Office.
- cited 5× 0 months 2015–2025B Brettski889 · comedy videoUsed purely as a joke reference when gull-wing doors or tech-money excess come up.
- cited 4× 0 months 2021–2025P Pickle Rick · comedy videoUsed as a joke whenever a tech executive acts like Belson, surrounded by yes-men or making grandiose claims.
- cited 3× 0 months 2022–2025T Tyler Frisbee · demoMostly used as a reference for Clippy as an annoying assistant, including as a precedent for forced AI features.
- cited 3× 0 months 2015–2023P Pentest101 · music videoHN mostly references it as Lisp-culture humor and a nod to Kanefsky's song.
- cited 3× 0 months 2014–2022V vinnymarquetti · videoLinked for nostalgia, as an instant audio time-travel to the early instant messaging era.
- cited 13× 0 months 2020–2026B Brian J. Hall · comedy videoHN mostly cites it as a joke or parody whenever startups or tech companies claim lofty missions.
- cited 6× 0 months 2017–2025D Dwight Schrute · videoHN commenters post it as a nostalgic joke or pun in Winamp threads, and sometimes for the classic startup audio.
- cited 4× 0 months 2019–2026F failednation · videoHN cites it as the classic demo failure, in threads about USB, plug and play, and Microsoft's shipping quality.
- cited 3× 0 months 2014–2024S santasboot · videoIt is linked as an audio and visual example of IBM's corporate rally songs in threads about IBM culture.
- cited 8× 0 months 2018–2023S scrubadub1 · comedy videoCited as the classic, unintentionally hilarious example of early voice recognition failing, and of how dictation used to feel.
- cited 3× 0 months 2022–2025R RetroDakota · videoCommenters cite it as a concrete example of distributing data over TV broadcasts in discussions of unusual data channels.
- cited 3× 0 months 2013–2024A AntiSoftwarePirates · music videoReferenced only as a nostalgic, cringeworthy joke in threads about floppies and piracy.
- cited 4× 0 months 2019–2023G Greg Nielsen · videoHN uses it as a nostalgic example of the promised any-media-on-demand future that never fully arrived.
Questions
What is the most recommended computing culture (other) video on Hacker News?
MC Frontalot - It Is Pitch Dark by MC Frontalot: HN shares it whenever Zork or text adventures come up, as a fun tribute for geeks.
How is this computing culture (other) list ranked?
By HackerTube's score: the number of distinct months in which an HN comment recommended the video, plus half a point for every month with a strong recommendation. One viral thread counts less than steady recommendations over years.
Where do the videos come from?
From every Hacker News comment between 2007 and 2026 that linked a YouTube video, labeled by an AI model as a recommendation, a citation, a joke or a criticism. The list is published by HackerTube under ODC-By 1.0; this edition adds indexable pages and the comment context.
Video list and Hacker News comment labels from HackerTube (prompted by @karpathy), released under ODC-By 1.0, built on the open-index/hacker-news archive. Hacker News data is provided by Y Combinator; comments remain the work of their authors. Video titles, channel names and thumbnails belong to their creators and are shown via YouTube. HackerTube Watch is an unofficial edition. Data export of 2026-10-31.