GitHub if it was made by everyone but GitHub
For the past two weeks my X timeline has been a steady drip of one meme: “GitHub if it was made by ___”. Apple. Microsoft. Google. Craigslist. Claude. Geocities. Each one is a screenshot of github.com fed through an AI image model with a one-line prompt, and each one nails some tiny truth about the brand it’s parodying.
I had to try one myself.
The Windows XP one
I uploaded a screenshot of GitHub and asked the model for a Windows XP redesign. It came back as Microsoft GitHub (Beta 1), served from microsoft.com/github/default.asp inside Internet Explorer 6, Bliss wallpaper bleeding around the window. The sidebar lists GitHub Home, Repositories, Issues, Teams, Settings, Help. My repositories are WIN_XP_KERNEL and MS_OFFICE_XP_SRC, last updated October 2001. Latest News: integration with Visual Studio.NET. A toast in the corner reminds me that Windows Update is monitoring my project integrity.
It was correct in a way that felt almost cruel. That’s the trick of this meme. The models don’t reskin GitHub. They commit.
The Apple one is the best one
The Apple variant is the one that keeps surfacing on my timeline. It’s always the same composition: massive frosted-glass nav, one (1) button labeled “Open Repository”, a Sign in with Apple sheet, San Francisco everywhere, and no settings. The Issues tab is gone. Pull requests are now called Requests. The README is rendered in a three-column magazine layout you can’t scroll on iPad.
It works because Apple’s design language is so specific that even an AI hallucination of it lands. You look at it and know two things at once: it’s beautiful, and you’d lose your mind trying to ship code with it.
I actually like GitHub’s design
The good ones don’t just reskin GitHub. They make you wonder why GitHub doesn’t already look like that.
Here’s the thing the meme accidentally proves. GitHub looks the way it does because it has to do a hundred things at once. Code, diffs, issues, actions, projects, packages, security, settings. That it’s all legible at all is a quiet design achievement.
Every redesign in the meme works because it removes 95% of what GitHub actually does. The Craigslist version is gorgeous because the only feature is “find a couch.”
Would I want any of them shipped?
No. But I’d frame the Geocities one.
That’s it. Keep them coming.