HackerNews tries to discourage the sort of pop culture references that are so prevalent across the Internet in the hopes of fostering real substantial communication and dialog. I don't speak on their behalf but as a member of their audience and this has been the culture of this site for a long while, which is why I downvoted your post, the post you replied to, and the other posts that reference this same Simpsons quote which I hope will illustrate that references like this are not very creative either.

I joined HN 10 days before you did (back in 2013)… Your account age of nine years gives you no more authority than mine (or an account age of nine days). You’ve been here as long as I have - there is one dang. You’ve exercised your downvoting ability. Fair enough.

On HN and elsewhere in my > 20 years in the broader technology community I’ve noticed substantially higher interest in “golden era” Simpsons, Futurama, etc. In my experience and understanding they are part of our culture.

I think it’s a bit of a stretch to call a reference to a single line in an episode that aired in 1995 “Pop Culture”.

I simply added context because a reference to a 27 year old episode from a series that seems to have been well respected in the technology space should not be completely lost on a younger generation of HN readers that don’t recognize it (likely because they hadn’t been born yet).

Telling someone that you downvoted their comment is extremely toxic. Either downvote without replying, or reply without mentioning downvoting.

As the subject of the parent, it’s not the downvote or comment regarding it that bothers me.

The lecture about what this community is or isn’t through some imagined position of authority through seniority bothers me. That is extremely toxic.

Bonus points they didn’t bother to check my profile to discover I “got here first” - which only goes to show how ridiculous this position is in the first place.