This is not a recent phenomenon. Even in the 80s it had a negative connotation, fueled mostly, I think, by Sherry Turkle's The Second Self (I wonder how many yo

This is not a recent phenomenon. Even in the 80s it had a negative connotation, fueled mostly, I think, by Sherry Turkle's The Second Self (I wonder how many young hackers are aware of that infamous book) where the hacker culture was shown to be macho, masochistic, and closed, see Sex/Machine (http://books.google.com/books?id=vo5b6XA2F30C&lpg=PA369&ots=S2zogNFfzj&dq=male%20hacker%20culture%20control%20book&pg=PA368#v=onepage&q=male%20hacker%20culture%20control%20book&f=false http://books.google.com/books?id=vo5b6XA2F30C&lpg=PA369&...) for a summary.