To be fair, the early hackers didn't really have an aura of cool, except to other hackers. Popular opinion painted them as basement dwellers (many of them were)

To be fair, the early hackers didn't really have an aura of cool, except to other hackers. Popular opinion painted them as basement dwellers (many of them were) and maladjusted youth (script kiddies - many of them were that, too). The fictionalized stuff didn't reflect reality. Just a little bit more extreme than the fictionalized stuff now (big payouts, glamourous parties, etc).