[HN Gopher] Betty Davis has died
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       Betty Davis has died
        
       Author : neonate
       Score  : 118 points
       Date   : 2022-02-10 19:43 UTC (3 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.rollingstone.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.rollingstone.com)
        
       | irrational wrote:
       | I read this as Betty White and was so confused. I guess I don't
       | know of very many people named Betty.
        
         | singlow wrote:
         | More confusingly, I first thought of Bette Davis who died in
         | 1989.
        
           | mc32 wrote:
           | Yeah, given the original and the cover of the song Bette
           | Davis Eyes, it's not hard to confuse who's who.
        
         | conductr wrote:
         | Me too and I was confused why the news just made it here,
         | thought this must be a great Rolling Stones article to be
         | trending on HN 5-6 weeks after she passed. Then, oh, nope,
         | that's not Betty white...
        
         | ghaff wrote:
         | It's (at least mostly) a diminutive for Elizabeth (or Elisabeth
         | more recently) but Elizabeth has declined a lot in the past few
         | decades. I'd also (very anecdotally) observe that diminutives
         | like Liz have probably become more popular than Betty.
        
       | jayzalowitz wrote:
        
         | dang wrote:
         | Please don't post unsubstantive comments here.
        
       | neonate wrote:
       | Someone has put up the 2017 documentary about her:
       | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M4HYfDDd_lA
        
       | nabla9 wrote:
       | When you listen Prince, you can always hear the influence of
       | Betty Davis.
        
       | worik wrote:
       | Sad. Love her music. So under rated and so maligned
       | 
       | She was too far ahead of her time. The Rock'n'Roll world was not
       | ready for such an independent, sexual, and black woman in the
       | 1970s
        
         | oregano wrote:
         | How so maligned? Because of her marriage to and influence on
         | Miles Davis (similar to Yoko Ono and John Lennon)?
         | 
         | Agree she was under rated.
        
           | worik wrote:
           | Are you kidding me? Are you comparing Betty's relationship
           | with Miles to Yoko Ono and John Lennon?
           | 
           | She was maligned in that the record company would not put her
           | records into shops. Not in the 1970s
        
             | neonate wrote:
             | Probably the GP was just asking _if_ she was maligned for
             | similar reasons as Yoko. (The answer is no.)
        
         | yucky wrote:
         | Chaka Khan, Mavis Staples, Bernadette Cooper etc would
         | disagree.
        
           | zeruch wrote:
           | Betty predates Chaka and Bernadette (and Chaka admits to
           | influence from Betty), and Mavis was considerably prudish
           | compared to the stage antics of Betty.
           | 
           | Betty's gravity on Miles alone would be enough to guarantee
           | her iconic status, but her overall body of work is
           | significant for its overall influence.
        
       | whocares34y45y wrote:
        
         | dang wrote:
         | You may be under a misimpression of what's on topic here.
         | Nothing has changed. HN has always been for posts that gratify
         | intellectual curiosity, on literally any topic. Betty Davis is
         | interesting because of her music, her story, and her historical
         | significance.
         | 
         | Of course, no post gratifies everyone's curiosity--the front
         | page is an amalgam of a lot of people's different tastes. If
         | this topic isn't to yours, there are plenty of others to look
         | at. If you'd please do that instead and refrain from posting
         | unsubstantive comments, we'd appreciate it.
         | 
         | https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
        
           | teddyh wrote:
           | Since you link to the HN guidelines, I'll take the liberty to
           | quote them:
           | 
           |  _If they 'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-topic._
        
             | tasty_freeze wrote:
             | teddyh, do realize the person you are responding to is the
             | moderator of HN?
        
               | teddyh wrote:
               | As it happens, no. I almost never look at usernames, as
               | the design of HN promotes, by making user names hard to
               | read. And even if I had, is moderatorial infallibility a
               | dogma? Put another way, does any conversation improve by
               | "do you know who I am?"? What is the purpose of your
               | comment? To make me retract my comment because I didn't
               | know who I was disagreeing with?
        
             | dang wrote:
             | Note that word probably
             | (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4922426). Betty Davis
             | is hardly the epitome of a TV news story.
        
               | teddyh wrote:
               | Perhaps not. But my quote illustrates an exception to
               | your statement that " _HN has always been for posts that
               | gratify intellectual curiosity, on literally any topic._
               | ". There has to be _some_ limitation on what is
               | considered interesting, or else HN will simply always
               | contain the top news headlines. I think that HN too often
               | does not follow the quoted guideline, and instead appears
               | to simply follow the rule that "people on HN are
               | interested in this, therefore it belongs here", and I
               | think that this reasoning, unchecked, will lead HN to be
               | a simple general news commentary site, and not a site
               | limited to specific topics. If this happens, I fear that
               | HN will attract people who will want to comment on those
               | general news issues, and then it'll be all over.
        
             | Apocryphon wrote:
             | That guideline probably should be revised, all manner of
             | tech news is covered on television these days.
        
               | dang wrote:
               | https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false
               | &qu...
        
       | dinero_rojo wrote:
       | Very sad to see her go.
       | 
       | Mike Judge's (of King of the Hill and Idiocracy fame) Tales From
       | the Tour Bus episode on her was excellent.
        
         | listenallyall wrote:
        
           | lotophage wrote:
        
       | Mountain_Skies wrote:
       | Worth noting for those who don't click through to read the
       | article that this is funk artist Betty Davis, not actress Bette
       | Davis.
        
         | tyingq wrote:
        
       | neonate wrote:
       | If you haven't heard her incredible music before:
       | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MpuDoR_L0M0
       | 
       | Edit: that link works for me but if not, maybe this one will
       | work: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5IhCCtcEEFU
        
         | yesenadam wrote:
         | "video unavailable"
         | 
         | Here's a URL of that song that works: _They Say I 'm Different_
         | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EKWPynScqgw
         | 
         |  _Nasty Gal_ album https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r5HthdWlMfw
         | 
         |  _If I 'm In Luck I Might Get Picked Up_
         | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b2B0FBdzGis
         | 
         | 26 seconds live video of her & band doing that song live
         | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dvRo1AUeAfM
         | 
         | Her 4th album, _Is it Love or Desire?_ , recorded 1976,
         | released 2009. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WfV9ZO_CFyA
         | 
         | The 2017 documentary about her (54 mins)
         | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M4HYfDDd_lA
        
       ___________________________________________________________________
       (page generated 2022-02-10 23:00 UTC)