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Comment by RandallBrown | Hacker News Reader

The brogrammer meme is JUST A JOKE! It's the very opposite of a stereotypical programmer. It's simply taking a stereotype, flipping it around, and poking fun at it.

Instead of being disgusted by jokes about nudie calendars, do something about it. Go give your own presentation. Recruit more women at your company. Turn the boys club into an everyone club.

I'm not saying that everything people are doing is okay, I'm just saying that I think there are more productive ways of dealing with it than being offended.

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It started as just a joke, but I've personally seen more than one CS undergrad living out the brogrammer stereotype because they thought it was cool and was part of "startup culture". No joking involved.

That's what scares me most about the joke. Its becoming a thing because people are too naive to realize that it isn't actually the new wave of best practices from the valley.

It started as just a joke, but I've personally seen more than one CS undergrad living out the brogrammer stereotype because they thought it was cool and was part of "startup culture". No joking involved.

Various movies marketed to teens have elicited similar "life imitates art" trends. Now it's hoax memes. When I was that age, it was the movie "Animal House."

I tire of this facet of postmodern culture whereby one can avoid being held to account for one's character flaws and unpopular attitudes by hiding forever behind a veil of ambiguous "irony".

Make a claim in a possibly-ironic tone; see how your audience takes it; if they seem to agree with your overt sentiment, become unambiguously sincere; if they seem to disagree, become unambiguously ironic. Either way, you can adapt your apparent opinions to fit in to your current social group without any risk of reprimand for expressing a dissenting voice.

I sometimes wonder if the perpetually-ironic actually have any thoughts or opinions of their own underneath their layers of dry snark.

I also find this quality quite disgusting however, I am commenting because I found your diction refreshing.

Thank you. I've had the idea I expressed in that post gestating in my mind for some time now, so I guess the vague notions were already more-or-less crystallised into crisp phraseology before I even started typing.

To be honest, I was worried I'd get uncharitably compared to Will Self. But then, I always get that feeling when tempted to use the word "postmodern", so I thought I might as well go with the flow and let the pretension fly. ;)

Sometimes jokes can go too far. Jokes are only funny in the appropriate context to the appropriate audience.

More so, there is only so far you can go with irony. If you're a hipster and you drink PBR ironically at the end of the day you're still drinking PBR. The same thing goes if you are projecting the image of a misogynistic workplace.

This [1] was a joke.

This [2] was for real.

  [1] http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=Qi_AAqi0RZM#%21

  [2] http://www.readwriteweb.com/enterprise/2012/03/how-casual-sexism-put-sqoot-in.php

I saw that Twilio brogramming thing live. While it was intended as a joke, and riotously funny at the time, clearly some attendees (or maybe just Youtubers watching) thought it was something to emulate.

#2 was not intended to be for real. It was intended as a joke poking fun at the brogrammer thing, but it backfired because too many people thought they were serious. That's what happens when you step over the line while attempting humor.

#2 was 100% real. Yes, it was a joke, but it's only the kind of joke you make if you have absolutely no intention whatsoever of inviting female hackers to your event. The humor didn't cross the line, the being explicitly uninviting to women crossed the line.

You are presuming to have intimate knowledge as to their thought process when they attempted the joke. By inserting your own psyche into their actions, you falsely assume to know that they were malicious in intent. Not everyone thinks the same way you do, or reacts the same way you do. On the other hand, I know Avand personally, and spoke to him shortly after the whole thing blew up.

Hanlon's razor is apt in this situation.

I think the article conflated brogramming and misogyny in Silicon Valley. The former isn't necessarily bad as could be seen in the hilarious Twilio presentation.

Misogyny is not funny, and it wasn't a part of the Twilio joke - at what I recall of it - as most of it focused on what makes for an annoying programmer. Some misogynists have appropriated the brogramming meme, but it is not an excuse for misogyny. Misogyny is not funny, regardless what the pretense of it is.

"It's just a joke" is straight out of the misogyny flow chart. People are doing "more productive things than being offended" by writing this article and discussing the topic maturely in the comments in places like Hacker News.

Trying to tell people pulling this crap is wrong isn't doing something?

Not really. How often does telling someone they're wrong change their mind?

I think we've seen n+1 examples of that, some right here on HN. The airbnb saga was a shaming so vociferous that it made them change parts of their business plan. Ditto on just about any torch that reddit or consumerism (hell even /b/ or Anonymous) takes up. Sure, there's more than just shaming when Anonymous does the various things they do, but I think that publicly pointing out wrongdoings is like shining a light on it. The cockroaches will scatter and the mess will be cleaned.

How else are you supposed to change if you don't know what you're doing is wrong?

There's a big difference between saying "it is wrong to do X" and saying "YOU are wrong because YOU'RE doing X." This article is doing the first one, isn't it?

According to this guy you should just plow through and and just start recruiting females. It's that easy!

How many of these people have donated money to women in computing groups on college campuses? How many have mentored high school girls? How many have taught elementary school girls how to program? Did they send recruiters to and women in computing conferences?

We are not ready for these sorts of jokes yet.

Once a community overcomes its sexism and does start treating people equally then we can start joking about it. However at the moment these jokes give strength to sexists and discourage women. As such, we should not make these jokes yet.

Or to rephrase it "Too Soon"

Sexism isn't the main reason that women aren't in computing. Sure, it's a reason, but it's not even close to the biggest one.

Oh? What's the biggest/bigger reasons?

Women have better options than sitting in front of computer screens in badly lit environments all day.

The brogrammer meme is JUST A JOKE!

It's not funny, and it never was. Also, this sounds so much like someone who is truly bigoted trying to save face and cover up for their sociopathic tendencies.

I'm glad that many people (including men!) are calling out and ostracizing "brogrammers". The whole brogramming phenomenon is childish at its core and is not welcome in an industry already beleaguered by sexism. If you are a brogrammer please either grow up or leave the IT field to the adults.

It is a joke because the behaviors portrayed are fictional performances.

> The brogrammer meme is JUST A JOKE!

No, it's an inside joke. There's a big difference there.

There's a certain irony and distance about it, though. My read of the brogrammer meme is laughing at the concept that frat boys and meathead "bros" can write code.

It's often manifested as smart guys concealing their brains in a fog of conscious, ironic boneheadedness.

The problem is when it crosses the line and becomes a fad to follow, or actually alienating to women in the profession.

> laughing at the concept that frat boys and meathead "bros" can write code.

More of a reality than a concept.

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