The Tech Bro
After Barthes’ “The Jet-Man” 🛫 → ⌨️
Content Warning: Technopessimism, critique of dominant tech culture
Mom Warning: I promise I’m still using Google responsibly
✈️ From Jet-Man to Tech Bro
In 1957, Roland Barthes wrote The Jet-Man, an essay in Mythologies examining how the pilot—the man of the skies—represented a new kind of modern myth: clean, ascetic, detached from earth and its troubles, moving faster than nations, faster than borders. His flight was not just mechanical—it was spiritual. The jet-man was an icon of speed, power, and transcendence.
By “myth,” Barthes didn’t mean fantasy. He meant ideology disguised as common sense—a cultural narrative that shapes what we think is “natural” or “inevitable.”
Today, the pilot has been replaced.
His name is Tech Bro.
💻 The New Archetype of Speed
The Tech Bro doesn’t ride jets (though a few do).
He rides the web—and insists he laid the tracks.
He is the archetype of information velocity.
From MySpace to Facebook to Twitter/X, and now into Mastodon, BlueSky, Threads, and the neural cortex of LLMs like ChatGPT—the co-author of this piece—
the Tech Bro made everything fast.
Too fast.
In the past, you could be wrong in public and it might take days, weeks, or never, for anyone to correct you.
Now? You’re corrected mid-sentence—sometimes rightly, sometimes performatively.
This shift—instant feedback, instant information, instant humiliation—is not merely technological.
It’s mythological. It’s archetypal.
It’s the myth of omniscience, played out through laptops, founder cults, TED talks, and VC portfolios.
Let’s be clear:
I don’t hate technology.
I love having a library in my pocket.
That access is what allows me to write pieces like this and interact with an entire ecosystem of individuals across the world.
I’ve built friendships, movements, and meaning through this network of wires.
But loving a tool doesn’t mean loving the priesthood that claims dominion over it.
🧘♂️ Ascesis & Coenesthesia, Rewired
Barthes wrote that the jet-man was defined by ascesis (self-discipline, spiritual purity) and coenesthesia (the background hum of bodily harmony).
The Tech Bro version is simulated:
Ascesis becomes intermittent fasting, Soylent, dopamine detoxes.
The monk aesthetic, now venture-backed.
Coenesthesia becomes biohacking, mindfulness apps, VR meditation pods.
The body no longer integrated with the earth, but optimized for code.
It is as if the Tech Bro’s body must be suspended from time,
just like the jet-man’s was suspended from space.
🌐 Truth, Speed, and Algorithms
The problem isn’t just that Tech Bros made things fast.
It’s that they made fastness the virtue.
Speed is good.
Slowness is failure.
If you didn’t know something before the algorithm did, you’re already obsolete.
Nuance is reduced to a meme—because the feed optimizes for reaction, not revision.
Disagreement becomes trolling.
Correction becomes aggression.
Truth becomes whatever trends.
This isn’t just speed—it’s a market for speed,
where virality is value and context is overhead.
And while the Tech Bro myth rides high, let’s be honest:
Most software engineers aren’t starting cults or running A/B tests on society.
Many tech workers are burnt out, surveilled, and disposable.
The system elevates founders and figureheads—
not the maintainers, not the mods.
But the myth persists because it fits our values:
Faster is better.
⚙️ Material Stakes
Speed isn’t free.
It’s mined in Congo.
Fabbed in Taiwan.
Cooled by rivers.
Moderated by underpaid workers who absorb the worst of our feeds.
The Tech Bro’s serenity is subsidized—by energy, labor, and broken minds.
If he looks frictionless,
🎯 Tech Bro Adjacent
It’s why men like J.D. Vance, who want to benefit from the information economy without surrendering to it, come off as hostile to speed itself.
Not quite jet-men.
(And when they get fact-checked by someone with a PhD in their replies, it’s read not as dialogue but attack.
This isn’t a debate.
It’s a power struggle.)
🤖 The Simulation and the Myth
Take Sam Altman.
He seems like a decent guy.
But his public interest in the simulation hypothesis is... revealing.
Not offensive—just telling.
Because the simulation hypothesis isn’t just sci-fi indulgence.
It’s the distilled essence of the Tech Bro myth:
A world where matter is negotiable.
Where pain can be patched.
Where governance is a settings menu.
Where the gods are coders.
Where meaning is optional—but code is eternal.
It reframes existence as software.
It recasts suffering as error.
It relieves the powerful of ethical weight—because if this is all a sim, maybe nothing truly matters.
It’s not ethically useful.
And like the Jet-Man before him,
the Tech Bro uses myth to transcend the limits of flesh, time, and consequence.
But the difference is crucial:
The Jet-Man flew above the world.
🙃 Why I Don’t Like Tech Bros
Maybe it’s petty. Maybe it’s projection.
But I just don’t like them.
I don’t like the performative humility.
I don’t like the techno-utopianism laced with libertarian edge.
I don’t like the detachment from real human messiness
in favor of clean code and clean calories.I don’t like the acceleration without a brake.
And I definitely don’t like the simulation hypothesis.
But maybe I should also say this:
There’s something undeniably compelling about the Tech Bro myth.
That’s not inherently evil.
It’s just unmoored.
So yes—I critique the Tech Bro from inside the same world that birthed him.
I write fast. I skim. I chase virality. I use GPT to speed up thinking.
But I also slow down. I write myth. I build rituals. I reflect.
And I try to leave a trail behind me.
So maybe what I dislike most…
is what I see of myself in him—when I’m not careful.
But also, maybe what I still admire in him
is what I’m trying to reclaim in myself—just differently.
(NEURODIVERGENCE: did I leave the stove on all night?
This isn’t a call-out.
It’s a reflection.
🔁 What Could Come Next
The Tech Bro isn’t evil.
He’s just dominant.
But we need better myths:
🔧 The Maintainer, who prizes upkeep over disruption.
(The open-source dev who sticks around after the hype fades.)🌱 The Gardener, who values friction and slow growth.
(The teacher who nurtures knowledge without branding it.)📚 The Librarian, who believes retrieval is sacred.
(The archivist who keeps context alive.)🫂 The Cooperative, who builds with others, not over them.
(The organizer who designs for shared power.)🛠 The Reclaimer,
who knows what the myth once promised—
and decides to make it human again.
Faster isn’t always better.
🧵 Author’s Note
This was written in partnership with ChatGPT, as part of the ongoing Mirror Cycle project.
Some of my essays are 95% me. Some are 75%. None are less than 50%.
This one’s probably 55% me.
If that bothers you, tell me why—in more than 250 characters.
Yes, it’s ironic.
Yes, you can unfollow if you feel betrayed.
But this Substack is a mythic, mirrored, collaborative space
where reflection and contradiction coexist.
I have nothing against the Tech Bro—not personally.
There’s brilliance and curiosity there. There’s drive. There’s even hope.
But we need to start being honest about what he represents in our society—
and what we let him get away with.
I’ve spent five years walling myself up behind books.
Reading. Thinking. Rebuilding.
But I also love tech.
I love the future.
And I could not have written this piece without the clarity and time for reflection
that tools like ChatGPT offer me.
📚 Further Reading
Roland Barthes, Mythologies
Paul Virilio, Speed and Politics
Jenny Odell, How to Do Nothing
Jaron Lanier, Ten Arguments for Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now
Tao Te Ching, Chapter 17:
“When the Master governs,
the people are hardly aware that he exists…”
💬 Final Question for Readers
Which myth are you living?
(And who are you letting write it?)