Anyone coming here, wondering what happened, there were two presentation which were clearly inappropriate. First one was an app called TitStare, which allows you to view, upload, and share softcore photos of.. use your imagination. The second, circle shake, was an app to measure how fast you can jerk your wrist, upload and share your scores, accompanied by a pretty wild presentation.
I think the first one must have been a joke, because titstare.com was only registered today:
>I think the first one must have been a joke, because titstare.com was only registered today:
How does when the domain was registered affect whether it was a joke? The hackathon took place last night through today. I think it is supposed to be a mobile app (if any code actually exists) anyway, so having a domain isn't super important.
Thanks for the details. I've never read an article I learned nothing from like that one. Sexism aside, these two presentations are too funny for me not to think they were done intentionally.
I watched the two presentations via the valleywag page others have cited. The problem I see with TechCrunch's apology is that they are mixing up terminology. I don't think either presentation was sexist and especially not misogynstic - what they were was sexual.
Modern society has a similar problem distinguishing between racist humor and racial humor. While there certainly can be overlap between -ist and -ual humor, my general rule for distinguishing the two is that -ist humor stereotypes to get laughs while -ual humor laughs at the stereotyping.
Lots of organizations think the line between the -ist and -ual is too fine and prefer to outright ban the acknowledgment of any issues at all. If we forbid discussion of race at all then you never have to think about whether a topic is racist or racial. Same with sex, if all mention of sex is forbidden then there is no chance of someone saying something sexist.
If an organization wants to take such a "throw the baby out with the bathwater" approach that's their prerogative, but they should be clear about it. Don't say "any type of sexism will not be allowed" say "any mention of sex will not be allowed."
Ted Dziuba has mentioned the tech industry being extremely sex negative, and him being almost afraid to criticize it because of the inevitable massive backlash he would face. And this is being reinforced by the increasing "don't even mention anything related to sex in a prrrrrofesional setting" approach being taken by a lot of popular organizations these days.
For example, just look at github's repository forking message. Before, it used to say the not-very-funny-but-would-still-bring-a-smile-to-your-face "Hardcore forking action". I'd bet good money this was changed to the unassuming dining table due to these same sex-negative, puritanical people who claimed it was somehow making them feel oppressed or uncomfortable.
Sex is a biological need of humans. A lot of the tech industry has forward, progressive views on things such as gay marriage. Why retain these puritan, intolerant, purse-lipped attitudes towards sex-positivity?
I'd like to stem a couple of obvious, but inevitable (for HN and some other tech communities) criticisms that are bound to appear:
1) Yes, this stuff is tasteless and offends the sensibilities of most decent adults. (Invariably, someone likes to point out that it offends everyone, and conclude therefore that it can't be misogynistic)
2) Yes, people differ in their tolerances for crudeness in their humor. First, I think most people can agree that none of this was actually even funny -- as in, these presentations did not successfully execute the elements of humor. Second, a hackathon is not the place to get up on stage and pretend to come on the audience. There's audacity -- which, when coupled with other necessary elements can make for a great presentation -- and there's poor taste.
3) Yes, some women will take particular offense to these presentations and they are justified.
Allowing a couple of dumbasses to get up and laugh about staring at breasts and dropping terrible puns -- even when their presentation is self-deprecating and they hint that they know how crass they are being -- sends the message that the organizers and the audience accept the premise of the presentation: that leering at women's bodies in a completely unaware manner, is acceptable. It's not -- please let there be nobody who contests that point.
(Aside: a woman in a low-cut shirt is not putting her breasts on display for public consumption. And leering is different than looking -- nobody is saying that you aren't allowed to notice the attractiveness of a woman.)
Getting up and pretending to inseminate the audience is just gross, and as an act, it is at the same level as the guy in my seventh grade class who drew a full-page phallus in my yearbook. His excuse is that he was thirteen, and assumed that everyone else was as obsessed with his genitals as he was. That people are laughing about this sends another message, and I can understand if women are more sensitive to that message than men -- who were themselves thirteen y/o males at one time.
I don't know if I've demonstrated why things like this create an environment where it's hard to say, seriously, that women should get into tech.
When you go to an event like this, or say a TED talk or some type of technology conference (VMworld, PyCon, etc), I assume a G/PG rating, unless told otherwise. Sure they were jokes, just told in the wrong setting. Some people like to push the boundaries, and if you give them a soap box, they will speak. This should be news to no one, but when you show PG-13, or R content to someone expecting a PG show, joke or otherwise, then eyebrows will raise.
As an example, lets say you went to see Louis CK [1], is anyone going to be outraged if he did a bit about either of these things, maybe, but that's what they signed up for, both were jokes right, what is the difference, people expect and want a PG-13/R rated show when they signed up to see Louis CK.
I think one of two things happened. The first is TechCrunch simply didn't screen the hacks being presented in any way before they went up on stage. The second is they did screen them, but whoever did the screening had no problem with the two problematic submissions.
It's pretty clear to me the latter was has occurred, for a number of reasons. Firstly, the language in the apology refers to a failure to "properly screen", rather than screen. Secondly, TechCrunch originally tweeted a link to one of the two hacks in question (subsequently deleted). And finally, it's a high profile event being broadcast live. You're screening the presentations if only to avoid potential legal and liability problems.
And it's because of this that I have a hard job taking TechCrunch seriously when they say "we've worked hard to counteract it in our coverage and in our own hiring". It only takes one or two incidents like this to totally undermine any credibility you might have.
Their promised fix, "every presentation is getting a thorough screening from this hackathon onward", destroys something that was neat about their hackathon: an essentially free minute on stage to do whatever wild/strange thing the entrants wanted.
Yes, such freedom means some embarrassments, promotional spam, offensiveness, and weak/unfunny jokes get on stage.
But no-prior-restraint errs on the side of project-inclusiveness and free speech, gets the most possible teams/ideas on stage, and avoids the endless rathole discussion of exactly what the "officially enforced content standards" should be.
Now, the extra overhead of screening (or debating corner-cases) could easily mean fewer teams on stage, simply because of the extra effort required inside an already chaotic and time-bottlenecked get-on-stage process.
Some teams will water down what would have been an interesting/memorable presentation, beyond what's strictly necessary, just knowing a content-screening filter must be passed. With screening in place, appearance-on-stage now implies a level of 'approval' from the organizers that didn't previously exist. That invites further controversies over the precisely-acceptable boundaries, and a bias toward more taboos and caution over time.
Ultimately, the people such content-policing is purported to protect may not get a net benefit out of the smaller, tamer forum that results.
On the other hand, maybe a team that was previously going to take some lazy, stereotypical sexist copout will now stretch themselves to do something novel, or even interesting instead.
I've always wondered why in the US everyone loses their shit over a tittie app, but in Europe you can have billboards containing nothing but naked breasts advertising a conference.
That's just how the world works. I don't understand some parts of the middle east where men are apparently going to "overcome with lust" if they see a woman's ankle or her hair...
I wonder if the biggest reason why things like this keep happening is because we're all on a state of "high alert" in the tech community. Hear me out.
Right now in the tech world we've got ourselves in a big damn tizzy over anything even slightly sexual in nature.
By contrast, almost every single other medium we encounter on a day to day basis (TV, movies, magazines) is HIGHLY sexualised and makes absolutely no apologies for it. I've seen TV ads on primetime more offensive than some of these presentations.
I wonder if we're just going to keep running in to this issue again and again in the tech world simply because our standards are so out of whack with what the average person deems appropriate?
First of all, not everything that's ok in an entertainment medium (TV, movies) is ok in a professional setting. I don't think presentations like these would have been appropriate at a conference of lawyers, doctors, artists, or biologists, either.
That said I think this also has to do with the extreme gender imbalance. Tech conferences are very male-dominated. I think the first photo here really gets this across, of the restroom line at another conference in SF:
Imagine that you're a woman and you're walking to the restroom, past a line of 40 or 50 men. And now, imagine they've all just seen a "joke" presentation about staring at women's breasts. You might feel like a bit of a target, don't you think? It could be pretty uncomfortable.
Whereas, if we had a gender-balanced industry, and if we had, say, 47 men in the men's restroom line and 43 women in the women's restroom line, a presentation like the ones we're discussing would still be offensive and inappropriate, and still really not ok, but it might at least feel less personally threatening.
You had to create a new HN identity to post that? Afraid of something?
Hacker culture is no longer a good-ol-boy's club for good reasons. I don't know about you, but I wouldn't feel very included in a culture that denigrated me like certain hacker events of late do to women.
Yes, people are actually outraged. Because it's outrageous. This isn't "political correctness", this is "how not to shit on the fellow members of our profession".
Telling people to Lighten Up[1] is not an adequate excuse for shitty behaviour.
Hacker culture is growing up on stuff like Heinlein articulating non-monogamy and other departures from the mainstream. This is just the plague of the professionally offended drawn in because software is big business now, and the crimethink-seeking drones employers must appoint just to avoid being sued into oblivion.
When I first saw the TitStare thing, I thought it was a Google Glass hack to let you stare at boobs without actually looking at them directly.
While still a really sexist thing, I thought such an app would be an interesting hack, and make quite a statement about the future of these wearable technologies... might be considered an art project if cast in the right light (and also probably renamed).
If something is actually good it rarely has to hide behind something like sexism. It's not like you read xkcd and think "I wish it had more dick jokes".
Making this to more than a kinda childish joke is more of a problem than the act itself. By elevating this to a "Look how troubled our industry is" kinda thing, its just gonna get more of an issue.
The only way this will change is if it doesn't become the naughty thing it is right now. And this seems to be quite a US-centric issue, stemming from the paradoxical opinion about women in US.
Anywhere else, this would just have been a funny joke, and everyone would have laughed and thought the people were silly and unproffesional.
Anyone who gets offended by this, has more severe issues than the guys who did this.
It's reassuring to see, based on the comments here, that a large majority of HN users see this issue with this type of behavior and are against it. There are still a few I noticed who haven't matured beyond their teen years yet, though.
So it's come to this? A society that prefers that male nerds spend their time indoors working on a computer screen from an early age is bound to end up with socially inept geeks. The real shame here is that these young (and old?) men don't realize there can be so much more to a relationship than staring.
If the parents of these young men won't do their duty (including the whole junior high blind date scenario), I'd suggest that the best course of action for teaching the resulting lepers is the smoyer social skills class. In short, you'll learn the basic syntax of male-female encounters, as well as the all-important order-of-operations as follows:
1) Looking a girl in the eyes (and don't look down)
2) Having a conversation
3) Having another conversation
4) Asking for a date (repeat as needed)
5) Staring (and maybe even touching) with permission
Our advanced course features additional materials to help when you need to meet the parents, get engaged, get married and live happily ever after. So there are scenarios where its permissible (and even flattering) to stare, but you geeks are doing it all wrong.
</humor>
Unfortunately, there's a grain of truth in a lot of what I wrote. Many of you are as dismayed as I am that this happened, but some of you laughed along without realizing you should be uncomfortable. You need help!
From my understanding that hackathon is basically just a way to get free tickets to Disrupt. Thus no one takes it seriously and you get things like this.
The problem with these particular presentations is that it distorts the whole event. There have been about 250 presentations so far today (and they're still going).
1) Yes, probably a lot of people was here to get the free ticket (including myself)
2) Most people (including myself) still took it very seriously (proof all the people who worked 20 hours straight and slept on floors for few minutes).
"no one" is your own opinion. Plenty of people take it seriously because the tech industry has a problem with this type of behavior, and these presentations don't help its image any.
Just crass. 15 minutes of fame and they got it. But are they capable of designing and commercialising a real idea? We can all take short cuts to get publicity (I'm thinking of an app called 'check my package' which photographs and then invites comments on mens' anatomy). Poor form from the organisers - in the world of grown up tech we expect better. Plenty of room for fun but not schoolboy stuff.
Sidenote: I find expressions of religious faith particularly offensive and harmful to children. We should ban any faith related apps from tech conferences.
[+] [-] WestCoastJustin|12 years ago|reply
I think the first one must have been a joke, because titstare.com was only registered today:
Video of the presentations @ http://valleywag.gawker.com/techcrunch-disrupt-kicks-off-wit...[+] [-] jaredsohn|12 years ago|reply
How does when the domain was registered affect whether it was a joke? The hackathon took place last night through today. I think it is supposed to be a mobile app (if any code actually exists) anyway, so having a domain isn't super important.
[+] [-] yogo|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mhurron|12 years ago|reply
I don't see the problem. Pornography is perfectly legal and big business.
[+] [-] hokkos|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] icambron|12 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] radiusq|12 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] rfnslyr|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Amadou|12 years ago|reply
Modern society has a similar problem distinguishing between racist humor and racial humor. While there certainly can be overlap between -ist and -ual humor, my general rule for distinguishing the two is that -ist humor stereotypes to get laughs while -ual humor laughs at the stereotyping.
Lots of organizations think the line between the -ist and -ual is too fine and prefer to outright ban the acknowledgment of any issues at all. If we forbid discussion of race at all then you never have to think about whether a topic is racist or racial. Same with sex, if all mention of sex is forbidden then there is no chance of someone saying something sexist.
If an organization wants to take such a "throw the baby out with the bathwater" approach that's their prerogative, but they should be clear about it. Don't say "any type of sexism will not be allowed" say "any mention of sex will not be allowed."
[+] [-] parennoob|12 years ago|reply
Ted Dziuba has mentioned the tech industry being extremely sex negative, and him being almost afraid to criticize it because of the inevitable massive backlash he would face. And this is being reinforced by the increasing "don't even mention anything related to sex in a prrrrrofesional setting" approach being taken by a lot of popular organizations these days.
For example, just look at github's repository forking message. Before, it used to say the not-very-funny-but-would-still-bring-a-smile-to-your-face "Hardcore forking action". I'd bet good money this was changed to the unassuming dining table due to these same sex-negative, puritanical people who claimed it was somehow making them feel oppressed or uncomfortable.
Sex is a biological need of humans. A lot of the tech industry has forward, progressive views on things such as gay marriage. Why retain these puritan, intolerant, purse-lipped attitudes towards sex-positivity?
[+] [-] jessedhillon|12 years ago|reply
1) Yes, this stuff is tasteless and offends the sensibilities of most decent adults. (Invariably, someone likes to point out that it offends everyone, and conclude therefore that it can't be misogynistic)
2) Yes, people differ in their tolerances for crudeness in their humor. First, I think most people can agree that none of this was actually even funny -- as in, these presentations did not successfully execute the elements of humor. Second, a hackathon is not the place to get up on stage and pretend to come on the audience. There's audacity -- which, when coupled with other necessary elements can make for a great presentation -- and there's poor taste.
3) Yes, some women will take particular offense to these presentations and they are justified.
Allowing a couple of dumbasses to get up and laugh about staring at breasts and dropping terrible puns -- even when their presentation is self-deprecating and they hint that they know how crass they are being -- sends the message that the organizers and the audience accept the premise of the presentation: that leering at women's bodies in a completely unaware manner, is acceptable. It's not -- please let there be nobody who contests that point.
(Aside: a woman in a low-cut shirt is not putting her breasts on display for public consumption. And leering is different than looking -- nobody is saying that you aren't allowed to notice the attractiveness of a woman.)
Getting up and pretending to inseminate the audience is just gross, and as an act, it is at the same level as the guy in my seventh grade class who drew a full-page phallus in my yearbook. His excuse is that he was thirteen, and assumed that everyone else was as obsessed with his genitals as he was. That people are laughing about this sends another message, and I can understand if women are more sensitive to that message than men -- who were themselves thirteen y/o males at one time.
I don't know if I've demonstrated why things like this create an environment where it's hard to say, seriously, that women should get into tech.
[+] [-] ScottBurson|12 years ago|reply
The sexism is in knowing that it will make most women somewhat uncomfortable, and some women very uncomfortable, and not caring.
[+] [-] WestCoastJustin|12 years ago|reply
When you go to an event like this, or say a TED talk or some type of technology conference (VMworld, PyCon, etc), I assume a G/PG rating, unless told otherwise. Sure they were jokes, just told in the wrong setting. Some people like to push the boundaries, and if you give them a soap box, they will speak. This should be news to no one, but when you show PG-13, or R content to someone expecting a PG show, joke or otherwise, then eyebrows will raise.
As an example, lets say you went to see Louis CK [1], is anyone going to be outraged if he did a bit about either of these things, maybe, but that's what they signed up for, both were jokes right, what is the difference, people expect and want a PG-13/R rated show when they signed up to see Louis CK.
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_CK
[+] [-] objclxt|12 years ago|reply
It's pretty clear to me the latter was has occurred, for a number of reasons. Firstly, the language in the apology refers to a failure to "properly screen", rather than screen. Secondly, TechCrunch originally tweeted a link to one of the two hacks in question (subsequently deleted). And finally, it's a high profile event being broadcast live. You're screening the presentations if only to avoid potential legal and liability problems.
And it's because of this that I have a hard job taking TechCrunch seriously when they say "we've worked hard to counteract it in our coverage and in our own hiring". It only takes one or two incidents like this to totally undermine any credibility you might have.
[+] [-] gojomo|12 years ago|reply
Yes, such freedom means some embarrassments, promotional spam, offensiveness, and weak/unfunny jokes get on stage.
But no-prior-restraint errs on the side of project-inclusiveness and free speech, gets the most possible teams/ideas on stage, and avoids the endless rathole discussion of exactly what the "officially enforced content standards" should be.
Now, the extra overhead of screening (or debating corner-cases) could easily mean fewer teams on stage, simply because of the extra effort required inside an already chaotic and time-bottlenecked get-on-stage process.
Some teams will water down what would have been an interesting/memorable presentation, beyond what's strictly necessary, just knowing a content-screening filter must be passed. With screening in place, appearance-on-stage now implies a level of 'approval' from the organizers that didn't previously exist. That invites further controversies over the precisely-acceptable boundaries, and a bias toward more taboos and caution over time.
Ultimately, the people such content-policing is purported to protect may not get a net benefit out of the smaller, tamer forum that results.
[+] [-] roguecoder|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Swizec|12 years ago|reply
Source: http://metro.co.uk/2009/09/11/giant-boobs-advert-turns-heads...
Related question: would everyone lose their shit if the app was called GuyStare and was aimed at women to look at hot guys?
[+] [-] angersock|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cpayne|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mcantelon|12 years ago|reply
The art world has a different culture than the business world.
[+] [-] Oletros|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] epsylon|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] zainny|12 years ago|reply
Right now in the tech world we've got ourselves in a big damn tizzy over anything even slightly sexual in nature.
By contrast, almost every single other medium we encounter on a day to day basis (TV, movies, magazines) is HIGHLY sexualised and makes absolutely no apologies for it. I've seen TV ads on primetime more offensive than some of these presentations.
I wonder if we're just going to keep running in to this issue again and again in the tech world simply because our standards are so out of whack with what the average person deems appropriate?
[+] [-] graue|12 years ago|reply
That said I think this also has to do with the extreme gender imbalance. Tech conferences are very male-dominated. I think the first photo here really gets this across, of the restroom line at another conference in SF:
http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/06/ridicu...
Imagine that you're a woman and you're walking to the restroom, past a line of 40 or 50 men. And now, imagine they've all just seen a "joke" presentation about staring at women's breasts. You might feel like a bit of a target, don't you think? It could be pretty uncomfortable.
Whereas, if we had a gender-balanced industry, and if we had, say, 47 men in the men's restroom line and 43 women in the women's restroom line, a presentation like the ones we're discussing would still be offensive and inappropriate, and still really not ok, but it might at least feel less personally threatening.
[+] [-] farmerjack|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] USNetizen|12 years ago|reply
Hacker culture is no longer a good-ol-boy's club for good reasons. I don't know about you, but I wouldn't feel very included in a culture that denigrated me like certain hacker events of late do to women.
[+] [-] polemic|12 years ago|reply
Telling people to Lighten Up[1] is not an adequate excuse for shitty behaviour.
1. http://therealkatie.net/blog/2012/mar/21/lighten-up/
[+] [-] chrischen|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] prodigal_erik|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|12 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] andrewljohnson|12 years ago|reply
While still a really sexist thing, I thought such an app would be an interesting hack, and make quite a statement about the future of these wearable technologies... might be considered an art project if cast in the right light (and also probably renamed).
But a boob-photo sharing app? Sexist and boring.
[+] [-] subsystem|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dbecker|12 years ago|reply
The presentation may have been inappropriate for this venue, but it's shallow-minded to pretend sexual and sexist are the same thing.
[+] [-] Systemic33|12 years ago|reply
The only way this will change is if it doesn't become the naughty thing it is right now. And this seems to be quite a US-centric issue, stemming from the paradoxical opinion about women in US.
Anywhere else, this would just have been a funny joke, and everyone would have laughed and thought the people were silly and unproffesional.
Anyone who gets offended by this, has more severe issues than the guys who did this.
[+] [-] USNetizen|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] yosho|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] USNetizen|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jaredsohn|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jdstraughan|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] smoyer|12 years ago|reply
If the parents of these young men won't do their duty (including the whole junior high blind date scenario), I'd suggest that the best course of action for teaching the resulting lepers is the smoyer social skills class. In short, you'll learn the basic syntax of male-female encounters, as well as the all-important order-of-operations as follows:
1) Looking a girl in the eyes (and don't look down)
2) Having a conversation
3) Having another conversation
4) Asking for a date (repeat as needed)
5) Staring (and maybe even touching) with permission
Our advanced course features additional materials to help when you need to meet the parents, get engaged, get married and live happily ever after. So there are scenarios where its permissible (and even flattering) to stare, but you geeks are doing it all wrong.
</humor>
Unfortunately, there's a grain of truth in a lot of what I wrote. Many of you are as dismayed as I am that this happened, but some of you laughed along without realizing you should be uncomfortable. You need help!
[+] [-] mesozoic|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jaredsohn|12 years ago|reply
You can watch here: http://techcrunch.com/events/disrupt-sf-hackathon-2013/live-...
[+] [-] davidedicillo|12 years ago|reply
2) Most people (including myself) still took it very seriously (proof all the people who worked 20 hours straight and slept on floors for few minutes).
[+] [-] USNetizen|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] metaphorm|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] oneeyedpigeon|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|12 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] crankywoman|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] maxcan|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sashk|12 years ago|reply