
“Learn to Code”: The Meme Attacking Media - minimaxir
https://www.theringer.com/tech/2019/1/29/18201695/learn-to-code-twitter-abuse-buzzfeed-journalists
======
chuckgreenman
I've got no desire to kick people when their down, and make no mistake, these
journalists are down. However, there is a tendency for people in media to look
down on people with blue collar jobs, and to minimize the difficult of being
an effective software engineer. It has resulted in a bunch of
$group_of_unemployed_people should just get with the times posts.

I'd feel bad for them if they didn't do it to other people first.

~~~
hprotagonist
> However, there is a tendency for people in media to look down on people with
> blue collar jobs,...

In what universe is journalism a blue-collar job?

~~~
Supermancho
Some people mistake blue collar to mean middle class, instead of tradesman (ie
white collar is where you don't have to worry about getting your shirt dirty).
Journalism is certainly white collar work, regardless of how it pays.

------
HashHishBang
Edit: Ok so if I'm going to be cynical I like to at least be right about
things. It has been pointed out that I am, in fact, wrong. So here is my best
attempt at breaking out the series of events.

Expensive, Pulitzer prize finalist journalists, a part of BuzzFeed News (BFN)
are cut.

BuzzFeed (BF) contributors rightfully lament the loss of their co-workers.

The internet, including me apparently, reads about this from a variety of
sources and _most of us_ reach the wrong conclusion about who is who.

Since people jumped to the wrong conclusion about who is who and what actually
happened people now spamming the more reputable side of BuzzFeed, who were
laid off, with "learn to code"

\-----

I'm of two minds on this one. On the one hand I'm pretty confident there were
at least a few legitimate journalists let go in the recent wave but boy oh boy
is is hard to have sympathy for the content farmers that got the cut.

> Last week, more than 1,000 jobs were eliminated at publishers including
> BuzzFeed and Verizon-owned Yahoo/AOL.

I'm trying to think of the last time I intentionally sought out and consumed
content from either of those two outlets. It's unfortunate that they were let
go but I'm consistently surprised that BuzzFeed hasn't imploded already. But
this isn't an article lamenting fellow journalists and their struggles. It's
about:

> The Meme Attacking Media

And that's where I call bullshit. Is this an attack? No idea, debate away. If
it's 4Chan screwing around...eh maybe, I guess? I'm more inclined to believe
this is people on this internet punching down at people who are now in bad
circumstances. Someone found a more effective way to punch and it took off.

The thing that I call issue with is that this is "the media". Following some
of the link chains we can see that:

> In 2018, Vox, Vanity Fair, Vice, GQ, Vogue, Teen Vogue, the New York Daily
> News, Good Media Group, Glamour, The Outline, Refinery29, and CNN
> experienced layoffs

Depending on politics and specific interests some will see outlets they care
about in that list, some won't. But it seems like people aren't talking about
the reporters laid off from Vanity Fair, The New York Daily News, or CNN. No
we're getting BuzzFeed spam that have managed to turn their own demise into
more bloody BuzzFeed spam. I'm not sure if I should be impressed or really
mad.

~~~
52-6F-62
I think you might be railing against the wrong beast...

[https://www.pulitzer.org/finalists/staff-buzzfeed-
news](https://www.pulitzer.org/finalists/staff-buzzfeed-news)

~~~
Rafuino
Agreed. Attacking Buzzfeed is easy as a "content farm" but the teams let go
were primarily in the national security / politics teams, not the teams
creating the stupid (but entertaining for many) top 10 listicles.

~~~
52-6F-62
Yep. In other words, the expensive journalistic staff.

~~~
Rafuino
Seeing you across this thread as someone who doesn't just dismiss journalism!
I'm looking forward to seeing what The Markup [1] comes out with on the data-
driven tech-focused journalism front. Saw their managing editor talk last week
and I'm tentatively hopeful...

[1] [https://themarkup.org/](https://themarkup.org/)

------
rhema
>"Learn to code" is not a viral phrase that’s being spammed to out-of-work
journalists; it’s a targeted attack disguised as a meme.

I emphatically sympathize with the journalist who have been recently let go.
However, I wish there were a better way to define the difference between a
meme and a targeted attack. Maybe Twitter should think about banning political
speech or be upfront and adapt club-penguin levels of moderation.

Consider the "Vax-Happened" meme. This is a funny meme that is a "targeted
attack" on a specific group. Really, most political speech is an attempt at a
targeted attack / meme. "Republicans only care about rich people", "Liberals
want to take all of your money in taxes". "Bernie bros are aren't living in
the real world".

In terms of internet culture, this is hardly the first meme in poor taste
designed to cause trouble. I think the point is setting the bar so low in
terms of offense that to be offended seems more ridiculous. It's like when my
6 year old hones his annoyance to be so quiet that I can't hear in the front
of the car, but the whispery weird noises cause his sister to squeal.

This new appropriation of "learn to code" is more personally insidious to me
than other radicalized phrases and gestures. I like coding and hope everyone
learns to code to some proficiency.

Oof.

~~~
basic1
>I emphatically sympathize with the journalist who have been recently let go.

I don't, hopefully they all get fired.

~~~
dang
Please don't post unsubstantive comments to HN, regardless of how you feel
about journalists.

------
Vanit
This oddly reminds me of gamergate whereby engaging on the facts seems to side
you with the abusers.

------
factsaresacred
> “Learn to code” is more than internet schadenfreude. It’s also the most
> recent rallying cry of an anti-media faction.

The same media that just days before were busy firing up an online mob to
harass a 16 year old child who had the audacity to wear a MAGA hat.

Why would anybody be 'anti-media' one wonders?

~~~
happytoexplain
Know that I really don't intend to upset anybody or attack people unjustly for
their ideologies when I say this: I think your point probably has legs, but
could be made much more convincingly with other examples - it's hard to use a
MAGA hat as an example of an innocent thing when it's so closely associated
with, and so frequently used to implicitly express, a vicious hatred of
liberals. I understand that to many people who wear it, that's not part of the
message, but there are many examples of people expressing themselves in ways
that are not so muddied by the hatred of broader groups, and you could
probably find one of those more clear-cut examples if you tried.

~~~
lliamander
I'm not sure it matters about whom a false story is printed. The point is that
it was false. It was rushed to print without getting the whole story.

Obviously, in the era of internet journalism it's important to get stories out
as fast as possible, but (it seems to me) the incentive for getting out
stories quickly that are likely to trigger outrage is pretty high.

This particular example is rather salient because it is recent,the evidence of
false reporting is fairly clear, and because the cost to the victims of this
journalistic malfeasance is fairly high.

------
malvosenior
It's not "targeted harassment", it's millions of people who have been looked
down upon, talked down to and generally attacked by these media properties
enjoying some schadenfreude while pointing out their hypocrisy (telling coal
miners to learn to code...).

~~~
Arzh
How is that not targeted harassment?

~~~
sc8erboy
How exactly is it ? Was it not targeted harassment when they were suggesting
that miners should "learn to code"? Why not though? We all know that was
derogatory. Does it become targeted harassment because it came from 4chan ? Or
are they entitled to protection from the same type of jokes they were making?

~~~
Arzh
When they were 'suggesting that miners should "learn to code"' was it in an
article they wrote or was it a coordinated campaign to find people who were
laid off of coal mining jobs and tweeting them "learn to code"?

~~~
sc8erboy
Well, i don't know many miners with a twitter handle so I have no ideea
whether it was a coordinated campaign or not. The fact that they worked for
the media did give them reach though, what I understood from your reply is
that as long as you put it in an article it's fine... just don't tweet @. That
being said... 4channers should create their own Buzzfeed, you don't need
journalism training for that; and just attack from there. I'm not saying i
don't feel bad for the people laid off, but it' just a tweet. In bad taste,
true, but it's not the first, and it will not be the last. this time though,
the so called buzzwhatever journalists are the target so that is apparently
worse. m2c

~~~
Arzh
I don't think putting in that kind of thing in an article is"fine" but if it
is in an article I would expect for you to show me where they are talking down
on the workers, not just the job. I don't like coal mining so my desire to
stop coal mining could be taken as "looking down" on coal mining but I DO NOT
look down on the people who work in coal mines. I also don't see setting up or
supporting the creation of programs that will teach these out of work coal
miners a new profession as looking down on them either. I'm just trying to
find why people are feeling like this because I can't find and hard evidence
that they actually do talk down to these people.

~~~
sc8erboy
Why "learn to code" though? Why not "learn to write quizes"? Why not "learn to
plant potatoes". What exactly qualifies miners are prospective coders ? (this
is where the actual joke began) "that kind of thing" \-- you are making it
sound way worse then it actually is. Most of them were targeted at the
editorial department and not persons. Would the campaign be less opressive if
people suggested that the laid off "learn to cook" ? That is exaclty the
point, nobody looks down on coal miners and nobody looks down on coal mining.
Coders on the other hand have been taken as a joke long before the twitter
thing happened. look no further than Mr. Trump

~~~
Arzh
What exactly is the reason a miner can't learn to be a code? The reason they
are teaching code is because it is looked as a skill with a lot of demand
which is the whole point of the programs that teach in-demand skills. I
honestly don't follow what "Coders on the other hand have been taken as a joke
long before the twitter thing happened. look no further than Mr. Trump" means,
can you rephrase it?

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deogeo
Setting aside conflating attacks with voicing opinions, there's also this:

[https://c1.legalinsurrection.com/wp-
content/uploads/2019/01/...](https://c1.legalinsurrection.com/wp-
content/uploads/2019/01/Learn-to-code-headlines-via-Twitter-620x421.png)

~~~
shortformblog
1\. Nobody got laid off at any of the publications that wrote the stories in
that image.

2\. The reporters wrote the stories based on actual events. None of these
pieces are "takes" recommending this. They are reported-out stories.

3\. They didn't start the initiatives that led to the stories. If you've got a
problem with it, go criticize the people that started these initiatives to
assist these communities.

4\. There are also initiatives to bring journalists into these areas to better
report on them. [https://thegroundtruthproject.org/call-applications-
appalach...](https://thegroundtruthproject.org/call-applications-appalachian-
reporting-project/)

~~~
deogeo
Those initiatives were also decried as attacks on miners by the laid off
journalists?

