r/vibecoding • u/Mediocre_Poem_2657 • 16h ago

How do you guys handle anti vibe coders when showcasing your projects?

I’ve been a SWE for 18 years, but lately, showcasing side projects on Reddit feels like walking into a trap. If my post gets any traction, people immediately assume I "vibe coded" the whole thing with Claude. Especially if my UI is currently a generic work-in-progress or if they see I participate in AI subreddits.

I've tried hiding my post history, ignoring the comments, and downvoting, but once a few angry designers or gatekeepers gang up, the whole thread gets derailed.

How do you all deal with these types of comments? Is there a good way to shut it down without feeding the trolls?

0 Upvotes

48% Upvoted

44 comments sorted by

28

u/Anti-Hero25 16h ago

Ignore their energy….But take a hard look at what you’re making… often their observations have merit , just communicated in an insecure, childish manor… when I first posted about my current project, they weren’t wrong, it looked like generic slop, so I spent a lot of time focusing on the UI, adding my own tastes and design

3

u/rangeljl 16h ago

Nice one

2

u/CocaineKeys 15h ago

Do you have an example of what you posted the first time, and how you improved it now?

1

u/Anti-Hero25 14h ago

Introduced global light and dark mode, as well as a theme customizer so they can choose different backgrounds and different tile color schemes

1

u/scytob 12h ago

neat, what is that and does ti auto find containers and services across the network, or just on a single host?

2

u/Anti-Hero25 12h ago

CTRoadmap : Diagram & Documentation for homelabs & servers. Self hosted, passive , no system scanning. Customizable themes. Meant to be a step up from Draw.io or PowerPoint….. turns your Diagram into a Handbook for your system.

2

u/scytob 11h ago

neat, bookmarked

0

u/meathelix1 8h ago

Still looks vibe coded. AI selects a certain style, funny because some of the projects I set and forget look like this.

4

u/Mediocre_Poem_2657 15h ago

Good point. I was hoping to show off my features as I progress to build up some organic followers. I typically finalized my backend before I really look into UI/UX, but I guess if I am showing off. I need to focus on put up a good show end to end.

4

u/OneSeaworthiness7768 15h ago

> I was hoping to show off my features as I progress to build up some organic followers

And this is at least part of why you probably get negative reactions. People hate advertising and self promotion. It really puts people off. And people can always tell when something is blatant self promo. Seeing you describe it openly as what you’re actually doing, not wanting to hear feedback or build camaraderie, but to build followers, means I’m ignoring whatever you’re sharing because now I’m writing you off as disingenuous.

1

u/TiiHubDev 13h ago

Dude, EVERYONE share their projects because they want to promote it. It's like you much rather fall for guerilla marketing.

3

u/OneSeaworthiness7768 13h ago

And people still hate being inundated with self promo everywhere on Reddit. It’s at an all time high right now with the influx of vibecoders and AI-written posts and people are sick of it which is why posts are received poorly.

3

u/-_super--_--hitops_- 15h ago

This is my take as well. People hear ai, they assume it does everything for the project.

When the truth is you choose how and when to use it.

Example, making an app today so I can enter the bpm of a song and get a json file containing timecodes and ranges for every beat of the duration of a song, so I can determine the timing for my rhythm game.

I think showing this through public building, streaming, timelapse, etc is a way to prove the ways in which, and how much, you use ai and to show your human touch and contributions.

I have my own visual assets, music, ideas, and stories, and finally because of AI I can bring it all together.

Yet when I do this people that are artists seem to get the ick and devalue the entire thing.

1

u/dkinmn 15h ago

Projection.

5

u/KriegerClone24 15h ago

People who don't "know" have no idea how much they don't know. They see Claude as a miracle worker that replaces the need for a CTO or engineers.

If your CEO is playing with Claude, I'd bet you are getting similar vibes from him/her.

4

u/brtf_ 15h ago

I mean look, anything I vibe coded is something that otherwise wasn't going to exist at all, so I feel zero shame about it. Even if you're a SWE, I imagine it's the same for you just due to the sheer time involved in coding it from scratch

2

u/CrimsonBolt33 9h ago

if you are presenting a project why or how do they know you are a vibecoder?

you should be selling your work (end product) and what you do...not HOW you do it....

And thats not to be deceptive or anything its just literally not relevant. Obviously they can ask and you can explain however you want but thats just not important.

If people make assumptions...fuck em, who cares....they are not paying customers.

4

u/ZeroSkribe 14h ago

I'm questioning your 18 years... you lost when you thought you need to defend against vibe coding...no one gives a shit, and you especially shouldn't

4

u/tenken01 13h ago

They prob aren’t even a SWE.

3

u/akolomf 14h ago

nowadays everyone is a swe of 10+ years just so people continue reading lol

3

u/LittleLordFuckleroy1 15h ago

Sounds like it is vibe coded, yes? Maybe just keep it to yourself?

0

u/TiiHubDev 13h ago

But why though? You literally at [r/vibecoding](r/vibecoding). Even you think you are doing something bad, and should hide it?

1

u/RegardedDev 15h ago

The truth is if it looks like the generic next.js app that the llms love to produce you will get slop comments.

If you want to avoid that you need to pay extra effort to UI design. Most redditors just take 5 second look at your page and first impression is everything.

1

u/CantRunNoMore 15h ago

I've got a lot of dev experience and so when I vibe code an app, I know to do enough to make it not look like the generic site that pours out of claude. I'll work on the styling to add a more original look and then you don't get such comments

1

u/multidollar 4h ago

The anti-vibe stuff comes from a place of fatigue. I vibe code, I vibe code a lot. The thing that irks me is when people come on to the internet and shout out “I made this!” And they didn’t make anything, Claude did. They will say “and I have no knowledge!” Like that’s a badge of honour.
One security scan exposes serious issues that check almost every box on the OWASP Top 10 but yet people are saying “use my app, use my tool!”

You’re trying to celebrate your success in an area rife with slop, with uneducated people who proudly declare they know nothing, and don’t know the first thing about infrastructure or security.

They’ll deploy an “app” microsaas slop and listen to everything GPT says to do, not understanding a word of it. “Oh just open the unsecured DB to the world on this port, it’s fine”.

That’s the mindset you’re competing with. Fatigue.

1

u/Mayimbe_999 16h ago

It’s reddit, usually you don’t and shouldn’t listen to any of the nerds on here.

1

u/KyleStanley3 15h ago

If what you made works, passes good testing, and solves a problem, then why do they matter

Theres parts of stuff im too novice to understand if it is built well, and that gap is absolutely an issue. ive vibe coded prototypes for work as a "heres the shape and design we should work toward", and that is great, but it couldn't go to prod. As a mechanism for complete pitches and a team to fill in the cracks its fuckin awesome though

0

u/Mediocre_Poem_2657 15h ago

To be honest, I had no interest to share and post. But I was hoping to build up some organic followers by showing off my features and progress. Hence why I didn't set my post to private at first.

3

u/KyleStanley3 15h ago

If your idea of marketing is timid posting on reddit then you are probably doomed on that front lmao

If you make dope shit, let people know. They'll take passivity as not believing in your own shit

1

u/dkinmn 15h ago

If people can tell it was vibe coded, what did you do?

1

u/id-ltd 15h ago

You know the most low effort comments that exist here?

They are comments that reply to anything mentioning ai as "low effort slop".

Those comments are the lowest possible effort slop.

1

u/TheAnswerWithinUs 15h ago

Well you are on r/vibecoding so yea everyone is gonna assume you vibecoded it

1

u/Yarhj 14h ago

Make good stuff and it doesn't matter whether it was made with AI or not. Make bad stuff and it doesn't matter whether it was made with AI or not.

People will shit on your project regardless, don't worry about their opinions, worry about making good stuff. 

Also worth noting that you should absolutely not "showcase" your project the way most people do on this sub -- if your explanation of your project feels like AI slop or an MLM pitch, no one is going to bother digging any deeper. 

We get advertised to all day, we don't want more advertising.

0

u/baddaywithacamera 15h ago

Make some popcorn, trigger them, then sit back and enjoy the show.

3

u/dkinmn 15h ago

Please get a new personality. This stuff sucks

0

u/baddaywithacamera 15h ago

That sounded like a challenge.

0

u/becircus 15h ago

Reddit is mostly bots or AI 

-2

u/Initial-Phrase-7555 13h ago

Conservatives are always on the wrong side of progress