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.
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?
I was similar; I figured "bro" was being used the way it's been used on 4chan forever in all kinds of circumstances: as, effectively, a weaker version of "friend".
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.
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.
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.
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".
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?
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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[ 2.8 ms ] story [ 35.9 ms ] threadLabels 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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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".
"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?
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.