Programming Socks

About

Programming Socks is a term given to specific types of knee socks and thigh highs which became notable for often being worn by transgender and non-binary people, as well as crossdressers, who do computer programming for a hobby or profession. Most commonly, the socks are horizontally striped in pastel colors or colors associated with the LGBTQ+ community. The trope led to the rise in popularity of similar jokes such as cross-dressing during programming to improve one's coding skills.

Origin

While it is unknown when the specific type of kneesocks first began to be associated with computer programming, it is believed the trope started on 4chan, with the earliest archived post dating back to the [s4s] board on December 26th, 2016,^[5] featuring a screenshot of a product with the name altered to "Pink striped programming socks" (shown below). The initial product in question are the ZANZEA Womens Thigh High Socks Over the Knee Stocking Striped Tights,^[1] horizontally striped thigh high socks which later were frequently associated with the term.

Spread

On February 10th, 2017, FunnyJunk user aznzeus^[4] made a post featuring the screenshot; in the comments, various FunnyJunk users began confirming the trope. The joke got more popular in May of 2018, following a tweet by @rawrafox^[2] which received over 4,100 retweets and 10,900 likes (shown below, left). The popularity of the trope, alongside the Amazon page of the ZANZEA thigh high socks being the initial example, even lead to the search algorithm of Amazon to suggest those socks and related products to appear when searching for "programming socks" (shown below, right).^[3]

Additionally, social media users compared the trope to a manga called Mezu-nized Festival. On October 1st, 2015, a Redditor asked what the name of a Doujin was, which turned out to be an edited page from the manga made to look like it was about programming^[6] (shown below, left). On March 19th, 2019, iFunny user Huskylicense made a joke about the socks and the manga (shown below, right).

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References