The Century of the Self (Full Adam Curtis Documentary)

Why HN readers recommended it

HN recommends it often and strongly as an eye-opening account of marketing psychology and the engineering of consumer society.

This is a summary from the source dataset, not an endorsement by Hacker News or the video creator.

Video & recommendation details

Creator / channel

David Lessig

Topic

propaganda and consumer culture

Format

documentary

Level

general

HN recommenders in dataset

13

HN mentions in dataset

20

Recommendation years in dataset

2016–2026

These counts and years describe the included Hacker News records; they are not YouTube views or the video’s publication date.

From the original HN conversations

Excerpts from the recorded comments. Follow each source for the full comment and surrounding discussion.

• Indeed we should be afraid of modern advertisers. They exploit the nature of human mind, to manipulate us into decisions that are often not in our best interest. Politicians then use advertisers to manipulate masses to ensure power for themselfs. In my country people in …

• I love building IKEA furniture. For me, there is a certain controlled fear that comes with opening the boxes. I know it'll go together, because.. well, its not difficult, but there's always that lingering fear that it won't. In regards to the egg in the …

• Having recently discovered Adam Curtis (from other HN posts), I'd highly recommend watching his documentaries. All of them. Absolutely riveting stuff. HyperNormalization: [LINK] Bitter Lake: [LINK] The Trap: [LINK] The Power of Nightmares: [LINK] The Mayfair Set: [LINK] The Century of the Self: [VIDEO]