'Techie' term draws derision from tech workers

Tech workers at Ritual Roasters in the San Francisco's Mission district.

Tech workers at Ritual Roasters in the San Francisco's Mission district. Photo: Mike Kepka Photo: Mike Kepka Image 1 of / 13 Caption Close 'Techie' term draws derision from tech workers 1 / 13 Back to Gallery

(12-05) 09:47 PST San Francisco -- In the song "Google Google Apps Apps," local drag performers Persia and Daddie$ Pla$tik chant: "Techies, take the Mission! Techies, gentrify me! Gentrify me, gentrify me, gentrify my love."

The fringe band's battle cry against "techies" echoes the frustrations many longtime San Franciscans seem to be having about the effects of a new wave of tech immigrants: high housing costs, minimal parking spots, the potential for the city to become a one-industry town. And the term "techie," often used as shorthand for these boomtown tech industry immigrants, is starting to carry negative connotations. For many tech industry workers, who account for about 8 percent of San Francisco's workers, "techie" is starting to sound pejorative.

At the local micro-roasteries - Sightglass, Fourbarrel and Blue Bottle Coffee - not one of the many young people camped out with espressos and laptops wanted to be called a techie.

Dan Gailey, a 30-year-old tech entrepreneur who was recently working at Four Barrel, said he didn't identify as a "techie" - and thinks it's actually a pretty rude term.

"If you use the word 'techie,' we know you're not in tech," said the Mission District resident. "A lot of negative terms like that - yuppie, hipster - are outsider terms. We don't call each other techies - at all, ever."

The preferred terms, he said, are "hackers," "makers" or "coders."

A linguist weighs in

And linguists say there may be a good reason behind tech workers not liking the term "techie."

San Francisco State linguistics lecturer Jenny Lederer said the word "techie" may have started to pick up a set of inferences, which can make a benign, neutral word sound negative - so "techie," like how it's used in the song, may now conjure up ideas of gentrification and entitlement more than, for example, the terms "software engineer" or "tech worker" do.

Adding further insult, Lederer said: "The 'ie' suffix can sound belittling, like 'groupie' or 'yuppie.' The 'er' suffix in English is agentive, as in 'hacker,' thus sounds stronger."

She was not surprised that the terms "nerd" and "hacker" have become more popular.

"What we see with 'nerd' is amelioration, a word with a formerly negative connotation becoming more positive."

Next to a long line waiting to order at Sightglass, Drew Lyttle was at a table drawing.

"I do work at a startup, but I don't identify as a techie, no," said the 32-year-old Lyttle, who works as an illustrator for a gaming startup. "In this city, 'techie' is like 'hipster' - even if you are one, you don't want to identify."

"People talk about 'techies' with such disdain, like 'Oh, it's this thing that's swamping the city,' so of course the word's gotten negative."

He was sketching cartoon creatures for a new computer game - "I got called a yuppie the other day. And people in the Financial District would probably look at me and say, 'Oh God, another techie.' "

Another pejorative

He felt as though he would always be called one mildly pejorative term or another and seemed somewhat resigned to it.

"My entire 20s, people have been calling me something - 'hipster,' 'techie,' 'yuppie.' Whatever you want to call me. But at a certain point, we all want to be individuals."

In the media, the term is typically used interchangeably with "tech worker," but "techie," a more casual formulation, often shows up in critical statements.

Former Mayor Willie Brown wrote in his "Willie's World" column in this paper on Nov. 24: "Every day in every way, from rising rents to rising prices at restaurants to its private buses, the tech world is becoming an object of scorn. It's only a matter of time before the techies' youthful lustre fades, and they're seen as just another extension of Wall Street."

When Mayor Ed Lee defended the population to the New York Times last month, he said: "At the end of the day, tech workers are not robots: They feel, they think, they have values."

Brown's take is slightly more skeptical than Lee's, who makes a point of visiting a different tech company every week, and their language - techie vs. tech worker - reflects this difference in opinion.

It's a linguistic distinction many people in tech wish others recognized.

At the minimalist Sightglass Coffee in SoMa, a dozen people sat upstairs at long tables. Some were coding while wearing headphones. A group of engineers from Santiago, Chile, were testing their new app.

David Lesseps, a 42-year-old acupuncturist, laughed a little when he heard the term "techie."

"There's a negative connotation that it could often be self-focused - that image of techies staring at their phones on the private bus. But that's partly just the nature of technology: It's isolating; it's self-absorbed."

Nearby, Enrique Landa, the 35-year-old real state investor and co-founder of online fashion retailer Cordarounds, said the term "techie" was used too broadly.

"We're just a business that happens to be online, and we get all these negative connotations because we're tech and we're techies."

New immigrant group

He felt the word "techie" fit into a long history of words used by natives to describe immigrant groups.

"Whenever you get a mass migration of a new wave of people, you get a negative connotation from the people who were there before - like Mexicans in the Mission. The new wave always gets a bad rap."

Comparing tech immigrants to the Mexican immigrants may be hard - Twitter's IPO just made an estimated 1,600 new millionaires - but, for Landa, the term "techie" connotes "unwanted newcomer" in much the same way as racial slurs.

Gailey tried to think of a situation in which he would say "techie."

"Maybe, maybe if I were talking to my mom about something I'd say he's in tech - but I still wouldn't say 'techie.' Absolutely not."