Good insights, and not just software developers, really. We don’t like ads, sensationalism, or anything reeking of bullshit. If we have to talk to someone to find out the price, the product may as well not exist.
Good insights, and not just software developers, really. We don’t like ads, sensationalism, or anything reeking of bullshit. If we have to talk to someone to find out the price, the product may as well not exist.
Has anyone been to any kind of convention for nerdy things. Nerds are so captured by the marketing and products being sold that they let it take over their personality and they can’t stop buying junk.
Posers. All of them.
Nerds enjoy a hobby, like tabletop games.
Posers buy Funkos and toys that they never open.
Nerds have fun. Posers try to look like they do.
Yeah, this is self-aggrandizement from a group of people who consistently believe they’re smarter than everybody else, when in reality they just lack self-awareness. Nerds will smugly post in this thread using their overpriced mechanical keyboard as a wall of Funko pops and Star Wars slop looms behind them. I worked in marketing for a long time and I know damn well I’m not immune to it.
I believe that thinking you’re immune to something makes you even more vulnerable, because it creates a cognitive blind spot. If you think you can’t make mistakes, you don’t stop to wonder if you are making one.
I got a curved, split, tented ortholinear monstrosity with a built in trackball and I’m finally done. I get that it’s stupid and a waste of money but my hands feel so good typing all day on it
I did too. I didn’t get it to look cool, I got it because I have carpal tunnel and I don’t want to have surgery.
I like the clicky, it allows me to type longer, and I can fidgit with the firmware and do what I want with it.
If I got it because it looks techy then I’d just be a poser
They’re not nerds. They’re posers.
Pretty much, yeah.
The article points out how a bunch of specific techniques don’t work on programmers. That’s because they’re aimed at project managers, not programmers. And yeah, they work. Hardly any programmers willingly chose Jira for their ticketing system, but project managers love that shit, and it’s everywhere.
All it really means is that it takes a different set of marketing techniques to reach programmers. They generally don’t bother, because programmers don’t typically control the budget directly.
You just described Geeks. Geek and Nerd group labels can sometimes apply to the same people, but they are not synonymous, and a person can be one without the other.
https://laist.com/shows/take-two/whats-the-difference-between-a-geek-and-a-nerd
I knew somebody would try to play that card. People who insist on that distinction are the least self-aware of all.
You’re resorting to personal attacks without knowing who I am, what I do, what I do or don’t have on the wall behind me. You apply a blanket label on all people who you class a certain way, and when I disagree with your label and its implications, and recommend nuance, you class me further.
It sounds like you think very highly of yourself, or lowly of everyone else, or both.
What makes your opinions here worthwhile?
You are not immune to marketing (or to propaganda in general). The more you become at ease with that fact, the better equipped you will be to deal with the deluge of shit that is coming for all of us.
As I said in another reply, I worked in marketing for a long time, so I have first-hand experience that most others here don’t. Many have a rather narrow definition of what they’re willing to label “advertising” and don’t realize how much is actually happening all around them. I’m applying a blanket label because the blanket is covering all of us, even those who fervently deny it and insist that it’s simply warm and cozy wherever they are.
I disagree, I don’t fall into the category you stated. My walls are lined with 80s memorabilia and 3d printed things I have created. I reject anything advertised to me and will only purchase tech that I have sought out that meets my needs.
If this irony, good job because I think most people will fall for it.
I don’t think it is. I know a few people like this, and im heading in that direction myself. The only kinds of “ads” that work on me are when a number of equally nerdy people I know find a new thing, and they’ve demonstrated that it has helped them with something or they are genuinely enjoying using it. Like 3D printing. Its semi-pointless most of the time but it is a genuinely fun hobby, which when combined with 3D modeling and post-processing skills becomes an actual craft. I didn’t get into it until a good number of people around me did.
80s memorabilia and 3D printers are not exempt form marketing. They are products just like anything else.
I don’t have a single funko pop or Star Wars toy or whatever. I have a Keychron keyboard that cost me $70, while it is more costly than the average membrane I like mechanical ones. I never buy new if I can (usually this is a time constraint, I.e I broke my phone and I need to replace it quick one because my job relies it). I Adblock everywhere I possibly can to not see the ads but I genuinely believe I’m immune to advertising.
You are not - you just don’t see it as such. Even if you didn’t use the internet at all (which we can see is not the case) you would still fall victim to its network effects.
Then they ain’t nerds, sorry.
Yeah, I think scottsman are the ones that are actually immune to marketing.
What say you to this example of a Scotsman that is infected with marketing?
Ah damn, my arguement must have completely come apart, because that’s absolutely a scottsman, and he is falling for the marketing. I don’t think there’s any comeback for that.
Nerds in arrested development over a franchize is not the same as seeing any ad and then that makes them want to buy a product.
Right? I’ve seen the walls of Funko Pops… nerds definitely are not immune to marketing.
do people actually buy those? I honestly thought they were some kind of money laundering thing. I’ve never once saw one sell.
Maybe it’s a whale thing, most people don’t give a shit but the people who do have to buy all of them to sate their neurosis
Working in tech, I’ve seen a lot of them in people’s cubicles.
They aren’t fucking nerds then. Nerds don’t buy Funko Pops.
I can name 3 or 4 people who own walls of Funko pops and I can tell you they wouldn’t know an IDE from MS Word. None of them went to college either.
They’re posers.
If you say so… but some of the Funko collectors I know are definitely die-hard nerds. Having bad taste doesn’t exclude you from nerddom.
Yeah but I don’t think that’s marketing, if you’re going to a con for something, you’re likely very passionate about it and passionate people love to scoop up everything they can that relates to their beloved hobby or franchise.
Also, nerds tend to have a good amount of disposable income on that stuff
Is that marketing or is it just finding stuff they want to own?
It’s marketing making them think they want to own that stuff.
How do you think you “found” it? A whole supply chain of people, from branding to packaging to advertising, made it so that you can “find” things on websites that are themselves outright advertisements or at least funded by them.
It’s a mistake to attribute purchases to marketing just because a marketer breathed the same air at some point. First-degree advertising influence and umpteenth-degree influence are very very different.
I mean, I probably wouldn’t buy a car from a company I’d never heard of, but that’s mainly because there are none. If I happened to buy a car from <insert company here> after researching what was available, I wouldn’t attribute that to <insert company here>'s marketing department. At least, not unless they bribed the independent reviewers, ratings boards, etc.
Same deal with most of my tech purchases, except that in that space there often are brands I’ve never heard of. And I’m (usually) savvy enough to tell when they’re legit and when they’re not. (I know more than I ever wanted to know about SSD controllers and I’m kind of angry about it.)
You’re right that nobody is truly “immune” to marketing, but as a matter of degrees, there’s a big difference across groups. There are people out there who look at ads and register them as useful information. There are people who intentionally click on ad banners on Instagram, rather than treating them like digital leprosy. There are people who click on the first Amazon referral listicle they find on Google and then treat it like independent journalism. There are people who use GoDaddy, when the only possible reason anyone would is because that racecar driver is hot. These are not behaviors you should expect among the kind of nerds this article is talking about.
Perhaps, but I’d argue people who click on ads knowing full well it’s an ad are more enlightened than the
nerd- sorry, “geek” - who thinks they operate on a higher plane of existence, not knowing that Youtube review was bought and paid for or that Reddit post was made by an LLM.You’re really dating yourself with this reference, and I am by understanding it. Incidentally, who do you think bought all that gamer girl bathwater?
This is a bit different because it isn’t really an emotional decision - they are are fungible, functionality being equal. But would you choose, say, a computer case without caring about the way it looks or makes you feel?
It’s marketing.
Marketing. It is very effective.