About
“Learn to Code” is an expression used to troll journalists who were laid off from their jobs, encouraging them to learn software development as an alternate career path. The phrase was widely posted on Twitter following the announcement of layoffs at BuzzFeed and The Huffington Post in late January 2019.
Origin
On January 24th, 2019, Jalopnik editor-in-chief Patrick George tweeted tweeted he believed in a “special, dedicated section of Hell” for people with anime profile pictures who tweet “learn to code” to journalists who had been laid off (shown below). Within 24 hours, the tweet gained over 1,300 likes and 260 retweets. The tweet was posted shortly after the announcements that BuzzFeed laid of 15% of its staff and The Huffington Post had eliminated its Opinion and Healthcare editorial sections.
Spread
That day, Redditor TheyreGoodDogsBrent submitted a post asking “What’s the deal with Twitter users responding to layoffs of journalists with ‘Learn to Code’?” to /r/OutOfTheLoop, to which Redditor downvotethrowaway responded with a link to the @bypatrickgeorge tweet, along with a message that the people posting the phrase “believe those news organizations have been shitting on blue-collar workers for years.” Also on January 24th, a post titled “President Trump General – Learn to Code Edition” was submitted to 4chan‘s /pol/ board, where commenters used the phrase “learn to code” to mock the laid-off journalists.
That evening, freelance writer Talia Lavin tweeted screenshots of various 4chan posts celebrating the journalist layoffs, along with messages saying “learn to code” (shown below). Within 24 hours, the tweet received more than 2,100 likes and 850 retweets.
btw, if any other journos targeted by layoffs are getting masses of “learn to code” harassment, it was coordinated on 4chan (of course) pic.twitter.com/DtpinjWhID
— Talia Lavin (@chick_in_kiev) January 25, 2019
The following day, another thread about the “learn to code” comments was submitted to /pol/, which included a screenshot of @bypatrickgeorge’s tweet. Meanwhile, YouTuber Styxhexenhammer666 uploaded a video about the layoffs titled “Learn to Code! Kirsten Powers Ragequits Twitter, Buzzfeed Downsizes, Huffpost Opinion Closes” (shown below).