What if We Gave Code a Personality?

We tend to think sometimes that a code is complex and logical, and we have to take a class to learn how to code. How is it more for engineers, or those who study “coding.” But Kevin Brock creates a crazy idea, that coding can be rhetorical, well, it is. In his writing, “Toward the Rhetorical Study of Code,” he argues that code does far more than instructions. If code were a person, it would absoletely be an aquarius according to Kevin Brock. It has opinions, vibes, preferences boundaries and a very specific way of convincing you how to behave. Let’s give code a voice, and listen what she has to say.

Not just Instructions not persuasion

To make things even wilder, code would start off with a sassy tone, and flip her hair and say, ” I don’t only talk to machines, but I talk to you.” Writing code isn’t just for the IT kids, it’s a rhetorical decision making. The programmer chooses what you can click, and how you move, what options you are allowed to see and aren’t allowed to see, and what outcomes are possible. After watching social dillemma, we noticed that it’s what they do. That persuasion, the influence is rhetoric and code knows it.

Controls you, and your behavior

Code wants to keep you trapped on your phone, every scroll, like, swipe, tap isn’t neautral. It’s part of the void.

Brock argues that code structions action – it shapes how users interact with digital spaces. Notice how a lot of us, have let go of powerpoint and are on Canva now. Meanwhile, Apple and Spotify today just released “wrapped,” so that you can listen to your favorite artists 5 more times than the 1,800 minutes you’ve already heard. Your instagram feed, has everything you like? huh, well isn’t that intersting

It’s what she does, and how she knows how to do it. The logic behind the scenes is really about how you “should” behave, and we all know that code loves power.

Her Personality, is DIVA

Code is sick of everyone thinking she’s boring, and just mathematical

You’re wrong. There’s a style to code, prefernce, a genre, a community expectation and rhetorical norm. Brock says coding is a “genre,” which for some reason gave me PTSD from Wales discourse – however it’s so beautiful how they intertwine. He means that programmers write within patterns, and expectations just like writers write poems, or essays.

So if code could speak to use she would say, “JAVA and Python are two different aesthetics sweetie, and don’t get it twist.” Each language has their own vibe, worldview, and how it’s perceived. It’s not just written but authored.

The Magician of things

Code has confidence, because she can do the things that others can’t. Writers for example can describe worlds, while code executes them. Brock calls this the dual nature of code, code is text for humans and action for machines. Allowing code to be both language AND performance. A plan AND reality. No other genre does that, and code stands on business.

Because Code knows this she’s looking at you scroll for 8 hours on your phone, seeing you take no accountabiltiy and blame her.

While she’s side eyeing you, saying, “Don’t blame me, you LOVE it here.” She’s a little toxic, not going to lie to you. That’s what brock reminds us, that procedures argue. They enforce these, rules allowing us to define what behavior is allowed and what’s not and thats her purpose.

I’m hard to understand but maybe, I’m just not neutral

Brocks main point is that we need rheotircal framworks to read code, to understand her motives, effects, and persuasive structures. He’s not saying we all have to become software engineers. But to learn how to analyze code the same way we read a poem, or book. Code is intentional, rhetorical, meaning making, communicative. To Understand the digital world, we need to understand code’s voice. Here’s the secret formula plankton stole from Mr. Krabs