I can see why a lot of people seem to dislike this particular stereotype, but I'd like to remind them they are equally falling prey to stereotypical discrimination when they are looking to hire "geeks" or "nerds". My main OS is Ubuntu, I'm comfortable with half a dozen programming languages, my editor of choice is Vim, I built a Linux distribution for fun, I just wrote a K-means algorithm implementation in Javascript, for fun... Yet, I don't feel I'm either a geek or a nerd. I don't like video games, RPGs, I'm not awkward/shy, I don't particularly care about mangas, anime or whatever makes a geek a geek or a nerd a nerd. To be honest, I don't know why people would want to be associated with two terms that carry heavy negative connotation (according to my own experience and Wikipedia). Perhaps, I am misunderstanding the meaning of those words but does it really matter? Unless, I'm part of a tiny minority, what's the point of using words that are vastly misunderstood? While "geek" and "nerd" are arguably less harmful than "brogrammer", I just wish people would stop using such labels altogether.
I don't think people are saying that programmers should conform to the geek/nerd stereotype. I think the issue is that some programmers are actively trying to conform to the 'bro' stereotype. They seem to think this makes them 'cool' when the 'bro' stereotype is mainly used in a derogatory manner. You should really just be yourself and do good work.
It's a spectrum. I'm a complete stereotypical "geek" who aspires to enter academic research, and yet the #1 thing I want to do this week is go to a punk rock concert. The thing that kept me going through a period of depression this fall was attending Occupy Boston.
Nobody is just one thing. I don't understand why America as a whole has such a trouble with this concept, in school and then in the working world too (look at "professionalism" and "dedication" from the eyes of someone who has more than one personal facet than their job).
