Brogramming

One trend I’ve thought about a lot is the rise of tech bros. I see that term used a lot. And before it, people talked about brogramming. And here’s the thing: I was there when brogramming was created.

What I mean by that – I had never heard the term before, I’m pretty sure it was not used. Until this engineer at Facebook created a Brogramming page. He was walking past our team in the office and had a coworker pose in a ridiculous way – sunglasses on, shirt collar up, holding a can of Red Bull – then used that as the profile pic of the Brogramming page. That’s the photo I’m posting. When I mean I was there I mean that literally, that’s me standing in the background of the picture. This Facebook page was the only reference to Brogramming on the internet, for a while if you searched for Brogramming this was the picture that showed up. I’m blacking out the engineer because in truth he’s one of the least bro-ey engineers I’ve ever known, just a really sweet and sincere guy, does not deserve to be associated with Brogramming at all.

Which is the point – the whole Brogramming page was a joke, maybe primarily an inside Facebook one. That engineer is not a bro at all – that’s what’s funny. The page made all these posts about crushing beers and crushing code – sometimes simultaneously – with absurd photos of e.g. guys with laptops around a keg. All satire. In truth, these engineers were typical nerds, and generally nice people.

But you know, Facebook Pages are public, and people started following it, and a weird thing happened – people started treating it like it was real. A bunch of news articles came out commenting on brogramming culture. Then an even weirder thing happened – some people actually aspired to it. They actually wanted to be brogrammers, thought it was cool. So then brogramming became a real thing. I still remember that episode of Silicon Valley where Dinesh points out the brogrammers in disdain – blew my mind, because at that point brogramming culture was real and widespread.

But again, it all started as a colossal joke. I’m pretty sure the creator of the page was horrified, he took it down when it started picking up the wrong kind of steam. And everyone involved, not a bro. So what I can’t figure out is, did this page unwittingly tap into a subculture that was ready to exist and he sparked it? Or did this satire create something out of nothing? It’s mystifying to me. Had this Page never existed, some sort of tech bro culture would have still come around, right? Or maybe not?