My roommate recently confided his deepest, darkest secret to me: whenever I’m not in the room, he watches “the Hub” and masturbates. This certainly came as a surprise to me, as he’d previously told me he spent this free time applying to quantitative finance internships and listening to the BBC World Service podcast. I’m still confused about one thing, though: What’s so sexy about GitHub?

Free software and extensive version history for programming projects is certainly great in and of itself, but I personally fail to see the sex appeal. Merging a pull request is satisfying and all, but I’ve just never gotten turned on by it.

Maybe this reaction is unique to computer science students. They probably go through deep personal crises upon realizing that their ability to rattle off algorithm after algorithm named for crusty old European dudes won’t get them any closer to getting laid. They likely resolve their inner turmoil by developing passionate parasocial relationships with their works.

“This has happened with technical folks since time immemorial,” a CS major explained. “In fact, some of the ciphers in Da Vinci’s notebooks were just erotica he wrote about his flying machines. Steve Wozniak tried to get married to the Apple II in the ‘80s, which actually inspired the character of Plankton on Spongebob Squarepants. It was weird.” Weird indeed. I’ve helped counter my roommate’s addiction by making sure doesn’t go on GitHub, not even via vscode, despite his insistence that he “really fucking needs it” for his job. I, however, cannot be fooled. He’ll thank me for this one day, regardless how many angry emails from bosses he receives.