The prevelance of computers are inherently linked with the corporate desire to minimize cost and maximize productivity and profit. The origin of computers comes from military use; first seen in WW2 to calculate angles for artillery use and crack codes as with Enigma. Later, financial and educational institutions saw an ability to reduce labor cost by using computers to automate some record keeping. Why would they be interested in reducing cost? Capitalism, of course! And who were the ones programming these machines? Mostly, wealthy white men. You see, because computers were still giant, expensive machines, they required a college education to learn to use them. At this point, this was the 50s/60s, and non-white people had very little wealth due to, yknow, all that discrimination stuff. Plus, wealthy people especially back then were also very misogynistic (“i hate my wife” jokes, anyone?) And these wealthy whites were sometimes passionate for the industry, and as computers miniturized, they brought these minicomputers home, where they could use them for much more casual use. Enter the 70s, and these computer users start to make video games. Companies for this new fad start to show up. Fast forward a decade and people start making these new home computers play recorded audio and videos too, and before long, the baby dances. But not everyone had the money for home computers in the 90s, so not everyone is aware of the baby - which is where the discrimination part plays in. Most of the people who experienced the dancing baby in its prime were wealthy, majority white families, so the experience was unfortunately not universal. Or fortunately, idk lmao
Of course I’m stretching super hard, but politics are everywhere when you look into it.
The prevelance of computers are inherently linked with the corporate desire to minimize cost and maximize productivity and profit. The origin of computers comes from military use; first seen in WW2 to calculate angles for artillery use and crack codes as with Enigma. Later, financial and educational institutions saw an ability to reduce labor cost by using computers to automate some record keeping. Why would they be interested in reducing cost? Capitalism, of course! And who were the ones programming these machines? Mostly, wealthy white men. You see, because computers were still giant, expensive machines, they required a college education to learn to use them. At this point, this was the 50s/60s, and non-white people had very little wealth due to, yknow, all that discrimination stuff. Plus, wealthy people especially back then were also very misogynistic (“i hate my wife” jokes, anyone?) And these wealthy whites were sometimes passionate for the industry, and as computers miniturized, they brought these minicomputers home, where they could use them for much more casual use. Enter the 70s, and these computer users start to make video games. Companies for this new fad start to show up. Fast forward a decade and people start making these new home computers play recorded audio and videos too, and before long, the baby dances. But not everyone had the money for home computers in the 90s, so not everyone is aware of the baby - which is where the discrimination part plays in. Most of the people who experienced the dancing baby in its prime were wealthy, majority white families, so the experience was unfortunately not universal. Or fortunately, idk lmao
Of course I’m stretching super hard, but politics are everywhere when you look into it.