"Hacker" as in "Hacker News" is from an even more distant past. The word just got appropriately decaffeinated, so as to be acceptable within our current iteration of group think.

I tried going to a 'hacker' meetup in my city. It was disappointing.

I was asking people if they were programmers, the median reaction was "a programmer? oh lord no, I'm a [marketing/UI/non-technical] person".

It seems the term was coopted and gutted by some in the startup scene.

(I'm aware there are legitimate hackers in the startup scene, this was just one particular event in one particular city.)

In my city there's 'growth hacking' meetups. It's too nakedly marketingistic to even consider seriously. I fear in the English language the word 'hack' is often being used as a synonym for 'shortcut'. The Lifehacker 'hacks' being prime examples.

This one was advertised as for developers/coders/engineers/designers, but I'm in a second-tier (for developers) Canadian city.

Many talented tech folks move to first-tier Canadian cities, or to first tier U.S. cities, which are zeroth tier by Canadian standards, if they aren't tied down.

> I'm a [marketing/UI/non-technical] person".

They are obviously confusing a hack with a hacker.

/me ducks

Even if it wasn't non-technical people, it seems the pop culture of "hacker" attracts all the worst stereotypes of geeks. The really sharp ones don't seem interested in self-identifying as "hacker".

Is the groupthink in this case laughing at the anachronistic usage of M$?

No. The groupthink is what causes the usage of M$ to be anachronistic now, and also what made it fashionable at some point in the past. Treating subjective opinions as objective facts and laughing at members of the out-group are symptoms of being engaged in groupthink.

Nothing wrong (or right) with any of that. I'm just observing.

Some of us are. Once, a long time ago, using the $ was "cool." And "so it goes" with all forms of online culture. (Has Kurt Vonnegut gone out of fashion yet? I used to coxswain crew boats past his summer home.)

I would be quite amused if young "Microsofties" suddenly decided to co-opt "Micro$haft" but with a Richard Roundtree vibe.

I was debating on saying Mi¢rosoft, but I decided against it at the last minute. Oh well.

Let's be clear: using the $ was NEVER cool by any stretch of the imagination, it was just a lot more common in the Internet of the '90s. The people who thought it was cool were always the same people who think it's funny to make up derogatory puns for the names of things they don't like, such as "Internet Exploder" or "Crapple". This is a category of humor that will be forever associated with bitter, angry, condescending-yet-clueless, neckbearded, fedora-wearing morbidly obese IT guys with phone holsters and Bluetooth earpieces that continued making "all your base" references well into the 2000s.

So let's offend them, because denostating products/companies (as childish as it is saying M$, CrApple et al) in your opinion is the same as denostating other human beings, why not just ignore the bad jokes?

> I'm sorry, are you from the past?

Isn't everyone?

Sure, and that's part of the joke. It's also an IT Crowd reference.