That repo and the programming sock screenshot are both from 2017. They might have a common ancestor, or refer to the same subculture.
Notice that an anime girl holding a programming book is in itself a (mild) subversion of gender roles. The stereotypical programmer is male, and the stereotypical programmer is not cute.
> That repo and the programming sock screenshot are both from 2017.
(I'm kinda repeating myself in this thread a bit, sorry but...) I can guarantee you that the anime girls holding programming books has been a thing for at least a decade, so the 2017 creation of that repository doesn't really mean much. Not sure about the programming sock meme but I think it's a bit more recent. However I do think it generates from certain "battlestation threads" on /g/ where people used to post photos of themselves sitting at their PC with those knee-high socks on and the meme kinda spread from there. Way before that screenshot itself.
Thank you. I suspected a common ancestor, but I didn't know what it was.
Makes perfect sense that a meme combining anime and programming would come from 4chan's technology board.
I suppose what made the meme interesting enough to spread is the subversion of the traditional hacker aesthetic. Having a beard voluminous enough to carry The C Programming Language inside everywhere you went was a sign of great experience and wisdom. As a bonus, it also horrified "the suits", who were hackers' natural outgroup.
In the 21st century you just can't annoy the suits the same way because even large corporations don't demand people wear literal suits anymore. Baffling the HN crowd is what passes for iconoclasm these days.
Nah the screenshot started it. Someone posted a similar one to /g and the responses said that it was an esoteric secret that womens socks and underwear made you a better programmer.
> Notice that an anime girl holding a programming book is in itself a (mild) subversion of gender roles. The stereotypical programmer is male, and the stereotypical programmer is not cute.
I don't think that is going on here, you have to consider that the anime girl is holding the book towards the viewer, my guess is that the implication is supposed to be "Will you explain it to me".
> that the implication is supposed to be "Will you explain it to me".
This is not correct. It's hard to explain if you've never seen them in context but rather than "will you explain it to me" they are actually saying "won't you read this?" or "will you learn this language for me?" kinda note. They used to be commonly posted as OP image in programming threads on /g/ with lines like "have you read sicp today /g/?" or similar. There's also another very common variation of this meme for gamedev communities on 4chan with the girl from the anime New Game (see this[0] clip, I couldn't find the meme itself) with a similar vibe.
I have seen it, but I think that "won't you read this?" or "will you learn this language for me?" is just a front for "explain this to me", especially when considering the body language.
> is just a front for "explain this to me", especially when considering the body language.
? Why? There's nothing that indicates this, the history behind these images shows the clear opposite. This to me sounds more like your (unconscious?) biases are showing more than it actually being a thing. Trust me, it's not really how this meme works. If you actually look at most images in that repo the girls are either reading the book, explaining the book, or clearly pushing it (often aggressively) towards the viewer to make them read it.
EDIT: Are you familiar with Serial Experiments Lain? I think that was one of the first ones to pop up with these.
I browsed /g/ as a teen, watched lain and everything, but have since decided to consciously distance myself from this culture, to a certain degree because there is a sort of implicit "sexism" (in some broader sense) that I don't feel comfortable with anymore. The longer I stay away, the more obvious things like the way they draw faces and bodies, the often infantilizing postures combined with a kind of sexualization is. Keep in mind that drawn images can easily exaggerate human features that are not healthy or even anatomically possible, but that still serve symbolically as sexual indicators. This has become worse and worse over time, because fan service is good advertisement for publishing houses. Take a look at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_slice_of_life_anime and compare how the style has changed since the late 90's up until today. I think it is a lot more homogeneous and the appearance is more formulaic. Part of this might be that computer animation is more common place, but the other one is that a sense of beauty has been reduced to a mathematical problem of relating various proportions. It is also because I was part of this culture, that I know there is an explicit and intentional sexual aspect to all of this.
Reflecting upon my own impressions and how these changed, I am more conscious of these points and find it hard to ignore them. Assuming that I am not totally mistaken, which of course might be the case, knowing that others don't see these things pains me. More so when someone like the author of the link publically stands by it.
But you are right though that not every image is like this.
