

Neither Nerd nor Bro - mst
http://shadow.cat/blog/matt-s-trout/neither-nerd-nor-bro/

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borplk
Very honest and clearly written article, thanks mst.

I'm truly puzzled by how popular stereotypes are in the western culture. I
mean what does someone job/hobby have anything to do with their everything
else? Let's just stop here for a second and realise that whenever we refer to
a group of people with a job title, say, 'programmers' we are talking about
hundreds of thousands if not millions of people. And there is no way you could
fit that many people under the umbrella of your single statement.

In the culture I originate from they are absolutely non-existent. The word
'nerd' doesn't even exist in my first language and if you ask people in the
street to tell you about the attributes of 'programmers' they wont know what
to say. The closest word to nerd that we have is 'smart'. The same goes with
most other jobs.

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tzs
I'm curious. When I first heard the term "brogrammer", without a definition, I
did not assume the "bro" part meant drunk, misogynistic, immature frat boy
bros.

My first guess was it meant "bro" as used in "How I Met Your Mother", which
encompasses a diverse set of behaviors (consider that Ted, Barney, Marshall,
and Robin are all "bros"). Thus, a "brogrammer" could include immature
misogynists (Barney), erudite nerds (Ted), somewhat regular guys (Marshall)
and women (Robin).

Anyone else go that way, or did you all go right to the drunk immature frat
boy meaning?

~~~
mst
The original description I saw talked about partying and liking to "bro down
and crush code", i.e. trying to cast programming as a macho activity.

This, I suspect, fairly effectively skewed my expectations - but equally I've
never seen anybody focus on the actual "band of brothers" concept, so I don't
think that's important to the social type.

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sthatipamala
There is no such thing as a real-life brogrammer. NONE of the hundreds of
developers I've seen are wild, drunken frat boy caricatures. What we are
seeing is a generation of programmers who are much younger and varied than
ever before. We're seeing some changes because of that (e.g the startup hub in
the Bay Area has moved from MV/PA to SF)

The previous generation of developers had to go out of their way to be
interested in computers. You had to order some computer kit by mail and put it
together. This kind of selected for a certain personality that came to be
known as "nerdy".

My generation (currently in their 20s) has grown up with off-the-shelf PCs and
the Internet. We built our first websites in middle school thanks to
Geocities. We learned CSS and Javascript from MySpace themes. Programming
became accessible to a LOT of people.

Because of this democratization, there is a wider range of personalities among
programmers of my age. There are athletic guys, girls who love to go clubbing
and yes, guys who would fit in at a fraternity. I think the "brogrammer" label
is a mischaracterization of this younger demographic of programmers who all of
a sudden don't fit the stereotype that's existed for decades.

~~~
mst
A friend of mine sent email saying that he'd characterise it as "migration of
other types of smart people into fields historically dominated by nerds" which
I think I agree with, and matches what you're saying.

I just want to make sure that people recognise stereotypes for what they are,
and maybe to steer a few people who might otherwise consider one of the
stereotypes as something to aspire to towards that finding your own personal
path among the varied possibilities.

If anything, I think finding out in the long run that this article was
entirely unnecessary would be my favourite possible outcome, but I suspect
sadly that "mostly unnecessary eventually" is the best we're going to get.

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lmm
The author fails to apply his argument to itself.

Many programmers have many different interests, and don't conform to any
particular stereotype, and that's fine.

But, some programmers do fit particular stereotypes. Some of them do have the
"brogrammer" set of interests. Some of them want to share it, not to counter
nerd sterotyping and get even with them fratboys, but because they enjoy
watching sports, getting wasted, and the company of those with similar
interests. And that's also fine.

Assuming that anyone who likes these things must be "Shallow, emotionally
repressed, sexist and valuing testosterone poisoning induced displays of
bravado over trying to do things that are actually cool," that anyone who goes
out with the purpose of getting laid must be stupid, is just as "idiotic and
potentially damaging" as assuming anyone who programs must be "Not A Real
Man".

~~~
mst
I don't make that assumption; I have a number of programming friends who enjoy
watching sports and getting wasted - but they wouldn't call themselves a
brogrammer and neither would I.

"Shallow, emotionally repressed, sexist and valuing testosterone poisoning
induced displays of bravado" was mentioned as behaviours that the word bro
"seems to turn up around", not as a blanket accusation. Do you have any
suggestions on how I could have worded it more clearly?

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johnpolacek
Sounds like you are a Regular Joegrammer

~~~
mst
Mostly, I think I'm a human who likes to program.

Labels are like design pattern languages; useful to provide a high level
overview in a common terminology, but ultimately unable to express the details
that make a particular person or design unique and worthwhile.

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omaronly
When I first heard the term, I pictured young guys high-fiving each other
because they mastered RVM and Git...

