This is nothing new, back in ~2004 when I was at university for CS there were plenty of students who were desperate to shed the "nerdy" image and would compensate taking up macho hobbies like bodybuilding , playing metal music, martial arts or motorcycling or by drinking large amounts and getting high every weekend.
The whole brogrammer meme reminds me a lot of DHH. Whenever you see him speak he is always dressed and groomed well and fashionably , likes to swear a lot and has a keen interest in fast cars.
It also reminds me of the sorts of people who are into PUA manuals.
Is there really a problem with nerds being groomed well and fashionably dressed? The people they describe are off-putting because of their attitude, not because their appearance clashes with the archetypal image of a nerd.
What's common with all those behaviors he described is that the way they are usually carried, and the predictable "maleness" with which they are chosen, create an air of trying way too hard -- this is something I defintely experience when meeting many programmers. The irony is that the most defining characteristic of authentic masculinity, for most women I know, is the sense that a man believes in hemself and does what feels right for him. Taking up a bunch of stereotypically male activities for the sake of appearing more male is exactly the opposite of that. It's as if the new practitioner looked around and saw what "successful" guys are doing -- dressing well and riding motorcycles -- and decided to copy the outward appearances without understanding why those patterns exist.
Fake it till you make it. That is pretty much the advice given to people in unfamiliar social situations. It doesn't work in technical areas (where it is rightfully laughed at as cargo cult coding) but it does work in social situations.
Yes, it's basically trying cargo cult "coolness" , of course that isn't a 100% bad thing if it helps encourage people to get out and try something new.
If you take up a hobby just to appear cool then there's every chance you won't stick with it very long.
I'm sure there are many people who have taken up certain hobbies just to impress people and then found them legitimately enjoyable and fulfilling and they would continue to do them even if they became the most uncool thing.
Also since nerds have a tendency to hyper-focus on things in depth they will likely bring their nerd skills to something non nerdy and outdo the non nerds at it.
So why would two factors common to both femininity and masculinity be something that women focus on to represent true masculinity. It doesn't make any sense.
This is nothing more than the propagation of an unidea that people tolerate because it doesn't make any value judgements about either gender, or something.
That's sort of my point.
The original nerdy stereotype is somebody with big teeth , a comb-over and a checked shirt tucked into corduroy pants, possibly also a neck beard.
The next generation of nerds distanced themselves from this somewhat by wearing heavy metal T shirts, having long hair and tattoos.
This became uncool too, so now we have the "brogrammer" with designer polo shirts and dark glasses.
It's interesting because nerds are regarded as "uncool" but I find it is quite often they are culturally ahead of the curve.
The difference is that heavy metal was never "cool", metalheads were always misfits just like nerds. OK, maybe with the exception of hair metal, but we don't talk about that.
We already have that: People who don't declare good variable names, people who don't follow DRY, creating spaghetti code. That's like the punk of programming.
Funny enough, almost every programmer I've ever met that I would identify as "punk" was seriously into coding craftsmanship. Nothing punk about their code.
It also reminds me of the sorts of people who are into PUA manuals.
Care to elaborate? You say it like it's obvious to everyone that being into those manuals is a heinous crime, or at least prima facie evidence of humongous douchebagdom in a person.
Is it possible that they weren't trying to shed anything, nor were their interests "compensating"? CS had become one of the most lucrative careers, naturally drawing in a lot of people outside of the traditional (e.g. I entered this field because I loved doing this as a kid, and have loved it since. Many of my peers did their very first line of code in university).
I'm not justifying the "brogrammer" nonsense, but just arguing that it's a field that does more closely represent all parts of demographics, shedding its traditional nerdly people-like-me basis.
The whole brogrammer meme reminds me a lot of DHH. Whenever you see him speak he is always dressed and groomed well and fashionably , likes to swear a lot and has a keen interest in fast cars.
It also reminds me of the sorts of people who are into PUA manuals.