My understanding of the history of fashion is that back in the 1950s America it was expected that you wore a suit/dress at work unless you had a different uniform. There were a bunch of very boring people who thought that we should be wearing office job garb all the time, because they wore suits so much it was their default style, and since suits and dresses are both conservative and good-looking they were trying to nudge culture into accepting their worldview.
But with our computers, we are living in some boring-ass timeline where the suits-4-life squares won. We are all stuck using The Office Job OS at home, unless you work in a creative field that got really stuck in with MacOS ages ago. I don't want to wear a suit at home. I want something I think is comfy and pretty, which is why I use Zorin OS.
I did not choose to get into Linux because I think it's better for my workflow or because I am weirded out by all the trackers in win11 or because I care that Microsoft is an evil megacorp. I chose to start using Linux because the last version of windows that i was happy to boot up was Windows 7, and I refuse to use something on my own time that feels gross and looks icky. My preference for something that i can just set up and not have to tinker with makes Zorin a perfect fit for me, and I tend to throw a little fit when i have to do something in Windows specifically. I don't understand why so many people are comfortable using the Office Job OS when they could be using something that suits them.
Preemptive edit because I've seen my post be misread twice already: I'm not trying to say that Microsoft isnt an evil megacorp that stuffs their os with spyware and bloat. I think that was the dealbreaker for most of us here. I just happen to have the sort of personality that Apple targets, and I have been struggling to articulate what specifically made me chose installing Zorin OS on a PC using a TV as a monitor instead of just getting a MacBook like my mom. Also its like 1 in the morning where I live and I need to get to sleep lol
In the early 90s at the dawn of my programing/sysadmin career. I showed up to my first week of work at "Initech" in dress pants, shirt, and tie. The senior gray beard UNIX sysadmin wore wholey jeans and ratty t-shirts. I don't recall whether he sat me down and told me, or I figured it out on my own that to be taken seriously in a technical field you must dress down. Brilliant people look disheveled (see Albert Einstein, Steve Wozniak, et al). I ditched the stupid tie & began dressing more comfortably.
Anthropologists call this antagonistic aculturation. Us IT geeks intentionally set our selves apart from the business drones & we had to exercise our privilege of dressing comfortabley while working ungodly hours to solve impossible problems.
Now I'm the gray beard and I've mentoed the brighter of the pimple faced youths I've hired in the ancient customs of our tribe. Looking back, It seems that IT's greatest influence on business has not been the increased efficiency of the paperless office, but the casual attire that most office workers now enjoy.
You're welcome, world.
I ended up briefing some very senior leadership...in a hoody.
I brief that specific group on a regular basis and it's usually fairly laid back but this particular meeting a new, very high profile person was attending to get up to speed. Apparently everyone knew but me because they were suited up and all of the ladies were wearing makeup and had their hair all nice. And there I was, the lead brief, in my hoody and jeans and scruffy beard.
After the meeting I realized that it probably worked in my favor. Some sort of psychological "this guy must be really good because he dgaf about dressing to impress".
Plus I think their is exactly as you said a stereotype that the better you are at your IT stuff the less put together you have to be.