The Onion
3 HN mentions · mentioned in 3 months, 2018–2024
2:55 · 9.5M views · Feb 13, 2008
A roughly three-minute Onion News Network satire in which a host consoles a severely depressed zoologist who spent his whole life studying anteaters. It is a short comedy sketch about wasted effort and misplaced obsession.
Commenters bring it up as a joke when a thread touches on long-term commitment, obscure specialization, or someone devoting a lifetime to something niche.
3 comments from Hacker News
The key like you said is spending those 10k hours on the right thing. A mixed strategy makes sense, but I’d recommend starting with some breadth - experiment and then go for depth. How can you know where to spend your time if you don’t know what you don’t know. A hilarious take on this that comes to mind is one of my favourite Onion videos. this video SPOILER - for those who don’t want to watch it. It’s about an Anteater researcher who spent 25 years researching it. He breaks down in anguish at a talk show wondering just what he’s done with his life.
> Burnout is a very real thing in most creative industries, and if you work for a duration of years to decades on a single project you will experience periods of deep existential nausea and dread at the mere thought of even looking at the thing you just spent the last five years of your life on. It immediately reminded me of this great (and short) sketch by The Onion :) this video
> Because of Number 16, Main's project took far longer than she had expected. She continued to work into her late 80s, but she "began to look forward to the project's end" Reminded me of The Onion's "Expert Wasted Entire Life Studying Anteaters": this video