Welcome to Austin, Texas, the home of South By Southwest, the backdrop to Dazed and Confused, the birthplace of the first-ever Whole Foods.
Except all I’ve heard about this far is that I’ve arrived at ground zero for “brogrammers.”
Brogrammers is the name given to extroverted, confident, party-savvy male programmers. And there are many of them in Austin right now.
A bro is a frat-like male who enjoys very simple pleasures, like Budweiser and pizza. And a programmer codes websites or computer software. Combine the two. This archetype is the antithesis of the computer nerd – a reaction to the perception that only geeks work on the internet.
(Sorry. I realize bro doesn’t need explanation for anyone who lived through the release of I Love You Man. But just to be comprehensive.)
Austin spawned the brogrammer movement. A weekly meet up began here in late 2011 for people who “love beer, code, and football” called Austin Brogrammers. It was moderately well-attended, considering the group was not all that well defined (women were also invited?).
But the brogrammer grew in notoriety outside Austin. Grew, as in it become a fairly annoying meme. There were YouTube videos, how-to’s, small marketing campaigns, all focused on brogramming.
It remained only a meme until last week, when the mostly straight-laced financial magazine Bloomberg BusinessWeek took the bait and wrote a story on the supposed rise of the brogrammers.
Now there are plane-loads full of them arriving in Austin. I’ve seen them with my own eyes. Football jerseys on, Red Bulls in hand. They are not made up. They are real.
So, where did this breed come from?
I almost want to believe it was a bit of clever social engineering on the part of Bloomberg, dropping that article directly before SXSWi.
But more likely this is more of the behavioral traits shaped by the internet.
Most of the internet, and by extension this festival, operates in tribes: connected by the language they code in, products they use, networks they update, and so on.
Brogrammers appear to be forming another tribe, sharing no traits in particular other than just being bros.