unbroken thread

ybot:

jennaddenda:

ybot:

laughingsquid:

[a link i removed because eh]

I just saw an opinion piece somewhere talking about how we need to make tech nerdery “uncool” again, and looking at this poster, I gotta say… there is really something to that. This thing is insulting and gross and a huge waste of time and effort, and the longer I look at this stupid poster the more I dislike it and the event it is advertising. Fuck This Thing.

Ok, I’ll bite. Why? What about this poster is insulting and gross? Other than the obvious punk-band-throwback style?

I started writing up a response, but instead I just found the article I was talking about. Hopefully it’ll help shed some light on why I feel the way I do.

http://www.betabeat.com/2012/01/29/we-need-to-make-tech-uncool-again/

I am dissatisfied with reading the article and would prefer to know why you feel this article is important enough aim the cannon at a Hackathon poster, but I will marinate on this a bit. My initial reaction is the article was “this is alarmist bullpucky.” I fully expected the reason to be that these Hackathons encourage talented hackers to donate their time (which might otherwise be spent making money or developing their own projects) to contests, similar to some design contests I’ve seen designers get cagey about. And that the proliferation of Hackathons is now de classé and mainstream (which it is) but calls to mind the “I participated in Hackathons before they were cool” indie mindset. But there are a lot of different kinds of hackathons which range from the above to creating websites for non-profits in 48 hours, to developing SMS platforms for emergency aid workers. 

It’s true that the celebrity and status issue is always going to be an issue in our culture. And that this celebrihacker mentality can be seen across the industry from Angel firms, attorneys, advisors, and mentors who want only to work with “gazelles” (Hi, Bizstarts). The image of the teenage genius entrepreneur has friends of mine in their 30’s thinking that they’ll never come up with the genius runaway success product now that they’ve got a few gray hairs. Runaway successes are rare and aiming for “the stars” is a sure-fire way to kill the entrepreneurial spirit in its infancy. And can be emotionally devastating to a team that’s had a taste of success as in the case of the tragic story of the Diaspora team, a project that is finding new life with the Occupy movement right now. (See also: Learning How to Fail)

Tech will be cool until it is not and then something else will be cool. We’ve seen it before in other industries (hello, Advertising) and we’ll see it again when we run out of oil and suddenly Alternative Energy will rule the day.