Can we please stop using the phrase "circle jerk" to demean people we disagree with? Just because there may be "a bunch of idiots on here" doesn't make it Reddit.
I don't 'disagree' with him, one 'disagrees' with opinions, and I don't waste my time on that - opinions are like assholes, everyone's got one and most of them stink. There was a factual claim being made, that somehow people who read some specific pages on the internet (the HN pages) are smarter than others, a claim arising from snobbery and self-aggrandizement; one of a false duality, too, like your 'doesn't make it Reddit'.
Yes, it is. "Circle jerk" is a term used to denigrate someone who gives (in your view) unnecessarily effusive praise by comparing it to an adolescent sexual behavior. If you feel the praise is unwarranted, you're welcome to express that feeling -- and if you have evidence to support this, you're welcome to present it -- without the insult.
It's not an 'in my view', it's objectively wrong to outright assume that somehow people who read some site are better than others. There is no reasonable way to interpret the original comment in any other way.
Furthermore, it's not an ad hominem because an ad hominem is an argument that is being made by discrediting that argument not on its merits but on an unrelated other characteristic of whoever made it. I'm not doing that in any way - the use of 'circle jerk' in this context is perfectly warranted as a way to express disapproval of the poster's myopic thinking methods (or rather, myopic world view based on lack of thinking).
