Comment by formulaT | Hacker News Reader

Comment by formulaT | Hacker News Reader

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I don't believe that the difference is serious vs non-serious events. It's pretty clear that no company or group would dare to create a light hearted hackathon featuring sexual content, if it hadn't been proposed first by a progressive cause (in this case mocking startup culture for being a White cishet male bubble). And Microsoft apologized for that song[0]. Note that this event is sponsored by real tech companies.

Here is the content I thought would be considered offensive it it didn't come from a progressive source (repeated from [1]):

Here are some examples from the previous New York hackathon [2]:

Sexual content:

Golden Bitcoin Pasties, Focus Tools, Collaborative Fuck Bike, E.T. Strapon, Sado-Masochistic Macrame Planter, Tinder For Babies, "ok glass, vomit"

Making fun of mental health/development issues:

Stupid Font

Body shaming and objectification:

Intellectual Babes Calendar

And here are some prize categories in the current hackathon that are similarly offensive:

Peter Thiel, Scatological APIs, Targetting The "Hikikomori" Space

[0] http://www.zdnet.com/article/microsoft-apologizes-for-cringe...

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9521510

[2] http://www.stupidhackathon.com/

Saying the Stupid Font makes fun of mental health/development issues seems like a stretch. Being stupid is a broad term. Sometimes I do stupid things (as all humans do), and in that moment I am stupid. It's not exactly a medical term.

The Intellectual Babes Calendar is objectifying men, but I think by parodying and creating awareness for objectifying females it is still a net positive for society. That may change at some point, but that's why we view things in context.

You are obviously right that there is a lot of sexual content, and that that Hackathon was an industry event. But as long as everybody is aware of that when visiting the Hackathon, I fail to see any harm in that. This isn't even sex-deprived male cisgender nerds, most of the sexual content is created by females of various ethnicities.

Saying that sexual content is inappropriate during all work/industry related events seems overly broad to me. After all, our industry is diverse and even includes respected companies like pornhub. There are bound to be people in this industry who are very comfortable with sexual content, and it's not my place to judge them for expressing that in an appropriate context.

This isn't even sex-deprived male cisgender nerds, most of the sexual content is created by females of various ethnicities.

That's precisely my point. I don't think that it's ok that we have one set of standards for sex-deprived male cisgender nerds, and another for women of various ethnicities.

Saying that sexual content is inappropriate during all work/industry related events seems overly broad to me. After all, our industry is diverse and even includes respected companies like pornhub. There are bound to be people in this industry who are very comfortable with sexual content, and it's not my place to judge them for expressing that in an appropriate context.

That just highlights more hypocrisy. If you are against objectification, how can you consider the porn industry respectable?

You seem to be really digging for some kind of SJW secret hackathon cabal or something, when the explanation is a lot simpler: crass and offensive jokes are funny but usually lack the staying power required to see them all the way through a hackathon.

If your argument is "Well, nobody but SJWs would possibly throw one of these and they do it just so they can taunt the rest of us" then I think you need to spend more time off in the real world.

You forgot Egg Timer on the New York hackaton's page, which features a drawing of not one but four female ovaries, complete with blatant objectification: http://pamelaliou.com/blog/?p=367

When white women in the tech industry themselves are reprogrammed to be non-welcoming to diversities, you know there's a problem.

Four ovaries isn't really that many; at least they weren't reprogrammed to draw like seven

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