As long as I have been telling stories as the API Evangelist I have been told by technologists that stories don’t matter. They love to comment and respond on social media that my words do not matter. My full time stalker posts on every single LinkedIn post of mine that I need to show evidence of the code I’ve produced. And while documenting his harassment recently I found a screenshot of a social media post from another friend of mine saying that I have never once committed code to the API specifications I champion and support, and just ride on the coattails of others. All of this leaves me thinking once again just how much technologists worship the machine, and how committing code is the one true way they believe you can properly contribute and signal your allegiance to the machine.
I know why I tell stories. I have experienced the power of my storytelling. This story isn’t about that. I know I am a shitty coder, yet I write a lot of code, and commit hundreds of times each day. This story really isn’t about that either. I am comfortable with my lack of obsequiousness towards the machine. I am comfortabl with my place here amongst the gears and the hum of the machine as it grinds up the world around us each day. This post is about those around me who can’t or won’t hear the rest of the world that exists outside the hum of the machine, and spend their days worshipping and defending the machine. This story is about how scared they are as humans. This story is about how terrified they are of human contact and care. This is a story about caring for these humans, despite them not caring for the rest of us and doubling down on the machine, coding and committing, and being obedient to the machine each and every day.
There is a certain nutrient deficiency of your average tech worker, programmer, engineer, and developer that leads to a code and commit belief system. It often begins with the nutrient deficiency and isolation of white male privilege, but is further fueled by a lack of reading and lack of care and attention from other human beings. After living most of your life in this nutrient deficient state, unaware of the world out there, and never having actually experienced anything great, you become so very enthralled and obsessed with the inner workings of the machine which rewards you with reviews and acceptance of your code commits, stars, likes, and forks on your code, that this because the only feedback loop you know and love. GitHub becomes your cybernetic feedback loop, your Skinner’s behavioral bassinet swinging you back and forth, pod in the Matrix, keeping you from ever growing or developing, but powering the machine. It is a state that leaves you angrily lashing out anytime someone shows care, tells a story, or exposes you to any human greatness or exceptionalism—-none of this matters within the machine.
Programmers, developers, coders, or whatever else we call ourselves have been convinced that we are wizards of a special class. We’ve been selected and groomed because of our privilege, as well as social and cultural ignorance. We’ve been kept isolated and often paid well. We were given computer languages instead of language classes in school. We were given exceptions to literature, history, arts, and other humanities because of our exceptional ability to line up the ones and zeros into neat little rows. We were told that reading programming books and blog posts were indeed reading. We were told that our work powers the world, and indeed it does. However, we were kept isolated from the business decisions that dictate how our work powers that world, and we were always reminded how our work was in the service of good, and that we were on a mission to always change the world. All of this has left us convinced that our lockstep code and commit servitude of the machine is all that matters. Along with this, we were equipped with a toolbox for lashing out at talks of unions and solidarity with other workers, and a promise that if we keep coding and committing that the stock options we were given would make us wealthy, and that stories do not matter–the only thing that matters is our code.
I refuse to abandon these boys who have been indoctrinated to live within the machine. I will keep telling stories to irritate, frustrate, and enrage them, not because I want to antagonize them, but because I want to help them maybe one day find their way outside of the machine. I want to help them see that their nutrient deficiency code and commit existence is why they are so scared, insecure, and are riddled with anxiety. I want to show them that stories do matter. I want to show them that their stories matter. I want to show them that stories are all that matters, and that the machine will never love them. I want to be there when they collapse from exhaustion and a lack of nutrients and care, and help walk them outside of the gears and circuits that surround them into our human world. I want to show them that humans are good despite all of our messiness. I want to help them see how they can deprogram, degrowth, and decompose their mind with stories. I want to show them how they work through that anger with words. I want to help them see that the answers they seek are in the stories of the black and brown people around us. I want to help them trust that women have the care and attentiveness that is needed to heal the way they are feeling. Stories matter my friend, and code and commit is just grinding you down.
