Obscure Discovery Surprises

Commenters express surprise at only recently learning about an obscure person, site, or event via HN or other recent mentions, often asking how others first discovered it.

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3,202
Comments
20
Years Active
5
Top Authors
#7861
Topic ID

Activity Over Time

2007
11
2008
33
2009
64
2010
118
2011
137
2012
130
2013
159
2014
126
2015
135
2016
146
2017
161
2018
174
2019
216
2020
232
2021
295
2022
279
2023
313
2024
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2025
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2026
17

Keywords

KPBS HN SD twitter.com HackerNews wikia.com snapchat.com StumbleUpon TIL ycombinator.com heard link hadn didn know til hadn heard widely known hn wikipedia page wikipedia

Sample Comments

maximedupre Dec 7, 2021 View on HN

How did I just learn about this guy haha

panglott Oct 30, 2015 View on HN

Huh, I'm surprised it was notable enough to have a Wikipedia page. I would have Googled, but figured the answer was in some walled garden or cryptic forum posts.

strictnein Oct 29, 2018 View on HN

I had no idea it existed until this HN discussion, and I have a feeling a lot of other people are in the same boat.

Igelau Oct 13, 2021 View on HN

I'd never heard of it until https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28845971 was shared here yesterday. I guess I'm not alone in just finding out about it and that's why it's posted here.

tpmx Dec 20, 2020 View on HN

Was it widely known? That seems weird. Got a link?

soheil Aug 4, 2021 View on HN

This is what I came to hackernews to find, I heard him mention it in the video I think for the first time.

I have no idea (I just came across this link and thought I would share).If you find out, I'd like to know too.

rattray Oct 31, 2019 View on HN

Interesting, I hadn't known that. What's a good link to read about his story?

dcminter Jan 22, 2025 View on HN

I'd never heard of them until a few days ago, then this article mentioned them: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42737510

peter_l_downs Jul 1, 2015 View on HN

I submitted this because, although it might be hard to believe, I'm young enough that I hadn't heard of it, and only found it during a random link deep dive. It felt like some eldritch internet horror that the people on HN might know about and be able to explain!