Seems like this has been a common thread in tech for a long time. In Douglas Couplamd's 1995 novel 'Microserfs' one of the main characters lamented how tech employers infantile their employees. Perhaps this is a lingering effect from the early days of home computer when there was a large explosion in very young programmers and things have just carried over through the years?
Child's play
51–60 of 63 posts
Re: Child's play
#52I do wonder why something so serious has turned into something so childish. But then the other day I got a haircut and while waiting to pay spied a shelf full of beard products in that cute, hipster art style, the whole display blending in perfectly with all the other hair products. It's difficult to watch something we have defined as the apex of manliness (beards) being treated with the same tone of voice as cosmeti…
But even those cases where the beard products are on wire shelves with minimalistic old school labels, that's still just a marketing trick where someone did analysis and thought that strategy would be better for their demographic. If you want to escape infantilisation, you need to in many ways escape consumerism and go back to the days of just whipping up your own beard oils.
Exactly. That popular, cute 'craft' style is winning out because it resonates with the target audience. (Same with that popular, functional aesthetic you describe.)
I guess I am against the softening of traditionally 'hard' things. Painful to watch our world (even software!) devolve into bright colors and cute mascots.
One could also interpret this phenomenon as young adults refusing to grow up -- hanging on to childish symbolism concomitant with the rest of millennials' (economically necessary) delayed development into adulthood.
And for the record I am (unwillingly) part of the millennial set and do not have a beard.
Re: Child's play
#53I feel like we've been infantalizing an entire generation. From where I stand it seems like marketing to millenials is oddly pedantic. Meme culture, "doggos", baby talk in tweets and texts, "adulting" and the strange pedantic tone you see in ads, all feel connected. I'm not sure if it's developer thing, or just a cultural thing. Granted, I'm well aware the above is almost a caricature of what an old guy would say. Ha…
Well a couple of decades ago IBM for example had very "infantile" rules "fired for being seen in a Mc Donalds" let alone the older IBM songbook tradition!
IBM was controlling, not infantilizing (at least with that example).
Infantilizing is companies thinking that they can win over employees with ping pong tables, free sodas, and not give them, you know, actual compensation.
Of course, as the dot com boom demonstrated, many in our industry fell for it.
Re: Child's play
#54I feel like we've been infantalizing an entire generation. From where I stand it seems like marketing to millenials is oddly pedantic. Meme culture, "doggos", baby talk in tweets and texts, "adulting" and the strange pedantic tone you see in ads, all feel connected. I'm not sure if it's developer thing, or just a cultural thing. Granted, I'm well aware the above is almost a caricature of what an old guy would say. Ha…
> Meme culture, "doggos", baby talk in tweets and texts, "adulting"
As a younger person ('92 - I guess I qualify for millenial depending on who you ask?) who was on the internet and a part of nonsensical and whimsical communities like YTMND during my formative years and beyond, the items you listed are lost on me to some extent; I know what they are/what they mean, but all of it is brand new to my eyes. All I can tell you is that in my age group, way before any of this stuff started leaking from the internet, a meme was just an image macro based upon a repeating/old joke. Anything new and trending was appropriately called a "fad" on YTMND; if it stuck, it became a "classic" or was worthy of the title "meme" because of its permanence through the community. There are lots of little things that I wish I could explain that have been altered by outside groups that they no longer resemble what they were to my cohort, or at the very best are caricatures of what they used to be, but that would be a fruitless endeavor.
I used to think that all of what you listed was something targeted at people half my current age. However, my coworker at my last job managed to prove me wrong by being a solid 4 years older than I was and using the above cultural dialects you've referenced above. I think it's a bit of a problem, though not necessarily an emergency in the making.
Side note: It's kind of ridiculous; aforementioned subscribers think they can relate to me, "outsiders" (adults over 30) think I would relate to the subscribers (was an annoyance at college), but I can't relate to them at all. I definitely consider them the outgroup who came in, brought their friends, trashed the place, and went to find the next new thing.
Re: Child's play
#55Earlier quoted context omitted.
In current culture, especially SV, not all women are female. It is necessary to specify female if one is actually referring to biological sex instead of cultural gender. Some find this an annoying distinction but it is the cultural norm in an increasingly growing number of places.
gender is not a theory. 'identifying' as another gender means wearing a stereotype.
Actually, gender is and was always a theory. Before it was applied to humans in the current sense, it was a grammatic theory. This idea of gender as another name for sex is simply ahistorical - seriously, just go to Google Books and search for "gender" before 1955. It's only about grammar. Then John Money came around and use the word exactly to draw a distinction between biological sex and the cultural/sociological construct.
Re: Child's play
#56> "I hate being called 'IT'" Oh man I hate this. An "IT" job to me just means an admin job where the subject of the admin tasks happens to be computers. It's worse when "IT workers" try to lump actual technically-skilled roles in with them, like it's just another task to be performed.
Um wow there's a lot wrong with this comment. But that aside, what if I told you programming was just modern accounting, glorified data entry? All programmers do is put code into repositories. Very very few people are actually inventing new systems and algorithms. If you're a "framework programmer" you know what I mean. Anyway point is it's a spectrum. Yes some "IT" labor is menial, but I also know IT people who know…
That's very true, although I am sure that IT experts wouldn't be particularly happy being called "programmers" if the tables were turned. Then again, I could be wrong... it has surprised me over and over how few programmers care about being referred to as IT. I personally prefer having my specialization be explicit as opposed to being generalized or misattributed.
Re: Child's play
#57Earlier quoted context omitted.
Well a couple of decades ago IBM for example had very "infantile" rules "fired for being seen in a Mc Donalds" let alone the older IBM songbook tradition!
IBM was controlling, not infantilizing (at least with that example). Infantilizing is companies thinking that they can win over employees with ping pong tables, free sodas, and not give them, you know, actual compensation. Of course, as the dot com boom demonstrated, many in our industry fell for it.
Well I think having a company songbook and starting the day with a song just like primary school is.
Re: Child's play
#58Earlier quoted context omitted.
IBM was controlling, not infantilizing (at least with that example). Infantilizing is companies thinking that they can win over employees with ping pong tables, free sodas, and not give them, you know, actual compensation. Of course, as the dot com boom demonstrated, many in our industry fell for it.
Well I think having a company songbook and starting the day with a song just like primary school is.
That's fair. I was specifically referring to the McDonald's bit (and what I know of their former dress code). I had meant to look up the songbook thing.
EDIT: Actually, looking at that songbook, I'd still say it leans more towards controlling than infantilizing. By having people participate in a common display like that you get them to act as a group (positive thing), but based on the lyrics they're almost like corporate versions of jingoistic/nationalistic songs. It's a brainwashing thing.
This is still very different than infantilizing. It does signal a lack of respect for their employees (to a degree). But it does not indicate treating them as children.
Re: Child's play
#59Most definitely my favorite example of this ever: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K5LiUrezV6k
I like this one. It's funnier.
"This reminds me of north korea"
Re: Child's play
#60If Captain America was instead dressed in a suit, would more people talk to him? In almost any context? I doubt it.
Sure. Most would rather speak to someone in a suit than in someone wearing their underpants on the outside and with full-on nationalistic emblems on their spandex uniform.
What version of Captain America has underpants on the outside? I'm not familiar with that version of the character's outfit...
On a more serious note, the point of the comment is that if the context allows you to be taken relatively seriously in a superhero outfit, it might not be a bad idea to attract people to a booth... Yes, those contexts might not be extremely common.