Please contemplate the following article titles, taken from a recent sampling of computer-industry websites:
- Pirate Bay Shutting Down; Are Torrents Dead?
- Does Chrome OS Spell the End of Desktops?
- Is Zune the iPod Killer?
- Apple is snuffing out smokers and their computers when it comes to repairs
- E-Mail Isn’t Dead, But It Is Broken
- Why Can’t Smartphones Kill Netbooks?
- Can the Apple Tablet Kill the Kindle?
- The Coming War Over the Web
- Apple’s iPhone Evil an Andoid Killer
Heavens, the violence of the language in these titles: dead, killer, snuff out, kill, war, kill, kill, kill.
What’s with the preponderance of death, war, killing, and the like? What is it about computer writers that leads them to such hyperbole, not to mention morbid fascination? (Not to mention verbal poverty, but that’s an issue for another article.)
I’m just guessing here, but it does not escape my notice that the bulk of computer-industry writers are guys. By that I don’t mean that they are males. I mean that they are guys. Geeks or not, they are guys with all the implications that word can muster. They talk in battle and football idioms, and know perfectly well that a significant portion of their readership likes to talk that way, too. So it’s all kill, kill, kill as they belch over their beers during Monday night football.
The audiophile game is another guy-centric area, but in the audiophile world the guys tend to be older (that stuff costs money!) and thus the overall journalistic tone is somewhat more civilized. However, discussion forums are another matter: the least-considerate, rudest, locker-room-ish forums I have ever encountered, even including unmoderated Usenet forums, are those on Stereophile magazine.
There’s no point in wondering if the language would change were more women to enter the computer journalism world, because they aren’t going to do that. Computers are, by and large, guy things, just like pre-amps and DACs.
But maybe more gay men — i.e., male but not guys? Or would the overall guy-culture force the gay men into submission, reticence, or out altogether? I can’t keep from wondering what gay life within a large computer company might be like—including Apple, or why there is such a minimal gay presence in the computer world at all. Ditto audiophiles: they always talk about the “wife factor”, meaning what can said guy purchase without inciting spousal wrath. What about the “partner factor”? Aren’t there any gay audiophiles? At least not “out” to the guy-culture of the larger audiophile world?
Ah, well. Time to go kill off another class session, I guess.