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Comment by zppln | Hacker News Reader

It's funny how cyber security appears to marinate itself in an aesthetic we used ironically 15-20 years ago. These people are trying really hard to become the stock photo hooded hacker. To me it's as ridiculous today as it ever was and doesn't exactly inspire confidence in the industry.

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> aesthetic we used ironically 15-20 years ago

We didn't use it ironically 25 to 30 years ago. If you ever connected to a BBS, or used Windows 1.x, it was exactly like that.

I played Quake online, and I can assure you that everybody was using leet speak non-ironically at the time.

What makes you think the people today don’t enjoy the irony just as much as you did all those years ago?

I just get the impression that it's lost on a lot of people new to the industry. The industry use this aesthetic (for lack of a better word) to market itself and attract talent (as evident by TFA). There's almost a subcultural element to it. I've seen perfectly dull boomer engineers go away on security conferences and come back with stickers on their laptops and looking like Lisbeth Salander.

Well… I wear a hoodie most days.

What fashion has started from hackers? They have bad posture, and they don't go out. I wish I had a hacker boyfriend - they stay at home up in the bedroom.

John Waters

You know, I was told to watch the movie Hackers if I need an idea for a challenging exploit... and that works most of the time.

Are you from the east coast?

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