My take on the issue is that she tried wearing two hats, the hat of feminist activist and the hat of company spokesman, and found that the two are quite incompatible.
Aria will be fine, she has quite an audience, as her blog shows, and she will be continue to be invited. I am just not sure that I like her methods.
Personally, and I think this might be the case with most people here, I'm most worried by the public shaming of the two individuals. Them being kicked out of PyCon isn't as much a concern to me.
I think the culture that she's implicitly promoting is ultimately a suspicious and hostile one where there is no principle of charity but instead there's the inverse (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principle_of_charity). And not by the fact that she reported it to PyCon organizers, but by the fact that she then escalated it to the public. In this instance, I think she should have kept their identities anonymous in her tweets and blog post.
There are instances where I can imagine revealing their identities would be the right thing to do, but this doesn't come close to it by my judgement (for all that's worth).
I’m sure she knows that her appearance has a massive overlap with male fantasies and that affects her followers.
But what does that have to do with the work she does? And why is that her problem?
Given the snubs she’s received, I’d argue that her appearance actually costs her. If she looked more like the western ideal of a female lesbian hacker she’d get more work and sponsorships.
Thanks for the very nuanced take. I think part of the reaction is on the tension between these years of efforts to embrace and establish this style as hers, have it associated with her name; versus a project emerging from nowhere to take that name and art style and run away with it.
On a factual/legal level these are nothing burger events, and we'll probably forget about it if two months from now she has a big boost to her career. But I'm kinda skeptical much good will come out of this for her. In our worlds it would close to raising an open source project for a decade, have it succeed and shine in the world with some support money coming in, to then get it cloned by AWS and you're left wondering what you'll do next. This is part of the game, but it sure sucks.
>Whatever she says on her own personal twitter feed is wholly unrelated to what happens at a professional event.
Except: A) She posted the picture in question on that twitter feed and B) She identifies herself as affiliated with her (former) employer at the top of that feed/in her profile. To me, those make her "personal" feed not so personal and wholly germane to this conversation.
On the whole I am unimpressed. The idea is funny, but she doesn't have anything to back her initial wow value.
If she really wants to get the job she should incorporate twitter into her site in a unique way and show rather than tell them that she is indeed capable of creative community-building.
Agreed. And was she not at the event in an official capacity?
If someone's job is to be a public figure or spokesperson for a given company then everything they do publicly online is relevant (I'm a huge advocate of using pseudonyms and anonymous communication online over personally identifiable communication.)
The issue here is that she got some notoriety exploiting the gender issue, and now she's burned out because of the gender issue and she doesn't want that.
Typical case of wanting to have the cake and eating it too.
Well, I imagine she's actually making money with her original content - and then they're saying she can't, because it happens to refer to their "unique braand".
A company she'd had a bad experience with in the past tried to, in a tacky manner, engage her again by dismissing their competitor. She clearly cites why she does't use them anymore (because the company publicly tweeted she was using them, which anyone would be bent over), and the kid had the gall to say that she lacked class for not thanking him for a free trial. A. Free. Trial. And his biggest issue is that she never gave him free publicity for a service that she was trialing. Not "We're sorry about the previous confusion, we'd love to have you back," not "This was a misstep for us, how can we do better?" not "We took your feedback to heart and no longer announce this publicly."
We're talking about a personal Twitter account vs. a business one. Unless you're dealing with an absolute troll, you don't engage potential customers like this - especially when they have a completely valid point. Companies tweeting on your behalf or trying to use your likeness for publicity purposes is an issue that has come up multiple times here with much dismay. Why is it any different here?
This attitude is why I don't blog; I have a lot ideas for posts but a lot of them are how X can improve Y, and I tend to write with a "charged/enthusiastic" tone because, surprise, I'm passionate about this stuff.
I agree with Jeremy Bee on that comment page, her so-called attitude (which I'm failing to see at all here) in these tweets would be a non-issue if Danielle were male. Back-and-forths like this happen every day on Twitter; this is what the platform is best at. I'm honestly astounded that people are trying to shift any of the blame here on her for calling the guy out. She couldn't have been more indifferent about stating the truth of the matter, but apparently that makes her a drama bomb, "not a queen herself" and other ridiculously gender-charged labels.
Yes, but why would that stop this person from targeting her? If anything, her geek feministing makes her a much bigger target. I guess I don't follow the logic unless she believes this person is someone she worked with and even then, I don't see someone who is truly obsessed from stopping.
Can people please stop bringing up that tweet? It has absolutely nothing to do with what happened at PyCon. Whatever she says on her own personal twitter feed is wholly unrelated to what happens at a professional event. Especially since the only people who see her tweet are people that have explicitly chosen to do so (either by following her or by following someone's link to it). What is acceptable in an opt-in scenario is wildly different than what is acceptable when unwilling bystanders are listening.
If this person really is who they say they are, I'd have to agree that it's more than a little chauvinistic to speak on her behalf as the Gizmodo story did.
IMO, this person likes to stir up attention with baseless accusations when her profit-seeking machinations don't work out. I remember there was some makezine drama related to her a couple years back too. Iirc she was whining about not being featured in makezine, and her 'project' was a very simple 'I sewed LEDs into a cooter-shower miniskirt', not really comparable to what usually gets featured in makezine. But of course, makezine ignoring her demand to give her free publicity and consequent potential increase in youtube/patreon earnings constituted sexism.
I'll wait for more details before rushing to conclusions on this one.
I’m curious about the email thing too. If she was using the ceo@bright email in the blogpost, I can see that getting filtered before any human read the contents, otherwise it’d be foolish to not give the time of day to a person who fits their advocacy profile, regardless of the business’ viability.
Aria will be fine, she has quite an audience, as her blog shows, and she will be continue to be invited. I am just not sure that I like her methods.
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