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It's kind of hard to take them seriously, when the usage of 'bro' has become so unserious. And then they use their name in situations where 'bro' would be used

by jimminy 12y ago

It's kind of hard to take them seriously, when the usage of 'bro' has become so unserious. And then they use their name in situations where 'bro' would be used for humor, e.g. BroCon '14, The More You Bro (on their Youtube account). It's just a mess. The tech looks interesting though, but it's really hard to take them seriously because of the name they chose. Edit: Why is this getting downvoted? I pointed out my reaction to the title. I had never heard of it before so had no connection to their writings from 15 years ago. P.S. I didn't flag it.

dang 12y ago
Their email archive goes back to 1998. Presumably the name wasn't a troll 15 years ago?
- jimminy 12y ago
  Fair enough. I'm guessing it was people reacting to the title.
- Tokala 12y ago
  It is a reference to ``1984" and Big Brother. Their naming choice was mentioned in the original paper about it from 1999: http://www.icir.org/vern/papers/bro-CN99.html http://www.icir.org/vern/papers/bro-CN99.html
comrh 12y ago
From their white paper: > "Our monitoring system is called Bro (an Orwellian reminder that monitoring comes hand in hand with the potential for privacy violations)" So Big Brother = Bro
- paul 12y ago
  How ironic that the thought police choose to flag a 1984 inspired tool :)
  - kirubakaran 12y ago
    Quite fitting, really.
  - Alex3917 12y ago
    It doesn't even make sense because the modern usage is almost exclusively a pejorative term that is only used for some subset of white men. If you look through urban dictionary or YouTube, you'd be have to scroll a pretty long time to see any other usage. Saying that women are discriminated against because they can't be called bros is like saying white people are discrimated against because they can't be called racial slurs for African Americans.
korzun 12y ago
Kind of hard to take your seriously when it's hard for you to take mature software that has been in circulation for over a decade 'seriously' because of 'bro' in it's name. Time to move on, it's no longer a 'cool' thing to circlejerk over.
Fasebook 12y ago
Don't ever try to offer something of serious value on HN. This is a marketer's troll board.

by jimminy 12y ago

dang 12y ago

Their email archive goes back to 1998. Presumably the name wasn't a troll 15 years ago?

jimminy 12y ago
Fair enough. I'm guessing it was people reacting to the title.
Tokala 12y ago
It is a reference to ``1984" and Big Brother. Their naming choice was mentioned in the original paper about it from 1999: http://www.icir.org/vern/papers/bro-CN99.html http://www.icir.org/vern/papers/bro-CN99.html

comrh 12y ago

From their white paper: > "Our monitoring system is called Bro (an Orwellian reminder that monitoring comes hand in hand with the potential for privacy violations)" So Big Brother = Bro

paul 12y ago
How ironic that the thought police choose to flag a 1984 inspired tool :)
- kirubakaran 12y ago
  Quite fitting, really.
- Alex3917 12y ago
  It doesn't even make sense because the modern usage is almost exclusively a pejorative term that is only used for some subset of white men. If you look through urban dictionary or YouTube, you'd be have to scroll a pretty long time to see any other usage. Saying that women are discriminated against because they can't be called bros is like saying white people are discrimated against because they can't be called racial slurs for African Americans.

korzun 12y ago

Kind of hard to take your seriously when it's hard for you to take mature software that has been in circulation for over a decade 'seriously' because of 'bro' in it's name. Time to move on, it's no longer a 'cool' thing to circlejerk over.

Fasebook 12y ago

Don't ever try to offer something of serious value on HN. This is a marketer's troll board.