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New York, 7:07 AM
Thu Dec 10
57 posts in the last 24 hours
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12/09/09
Also, she actually does have feet.
12/09/09
This is not good. Clothes, maybe. But comments about her face and body?
Also, it seems you do this only or mainly when it’s about a woman. So stop being sexist.
Cheers,
iplaudius
12/09/09
12/09/09
Regardless it IS true that this really only happens with posts about women.
You know that this is only because everyone making these comments is God's gift to beauty, right?
12/09/09
And I really should show them my “tits.”
12/09/09
12/09/09
I may have misspoken when saying it ONLY happens when it is about women.
Everyone has opinions but I really believe most women handle the dissemination of those opinions much better than most men.
Either way it is annoying. I hate people who "people watch" in real life just as much as I dislike the people who do so through the Internet.
12/09/09
The posts were like crack for sad cubicle farm tech worker-bee guys with chips on their shoulders and nothing cleverer to say than "show us yer tits"
12/09/09
Perhaps it is to be expected when the subject is a woman such as Julia Allison, whose interest and social identity are in large part defined by her appearance and sexuality. Mayer, by contrast, is interesting because of what she is doing with Google.
People rarely go after men of Mayer’s professional stature—or, if not stature, notoriety. I can’t recall a pattern of looks-based insults in, say, the comments on articles on Peter Thiel, Sergey Brin, Rupert Murdoch, or, for that matter, Luke Russert or George Stephanopoulos. That is the sexist bias: people tend not to make such comments about men, but they frequently make such comments about women like Marisa Mayer.
There is an exception: male subjects typically get criticized for their looks only when they draw attention to their looks or sexuality: e.g., Scott Brown, John Fitzgerald Page, and Paul Janka.
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12/09/09
That's her leotard look. Classy!
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12/09/09
I would like more Western Europeans to visit the United States. It's so nice to see how they dress, for the most part.
12/09/09
09/23/09
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09/22/09
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09/23/09
"It's a typical, passive-aggressive, casual ignorance towards the respect of real Chinese culture...."
Why must this one thing be about a deep seated respect for culture, and not about a fortune cookie gag -- fortune cookies aren't even Chinese? Could we pay too much respect to real Chinese culture -- for example, the Cultural Revolution, foot binding, one-child policy, censorship, China's treatment of Tibet or Vietnam?
09/23/09
It's like when you watch a Yankee game and Hideki Matsui steps up to bat and strikes out. Depending on where you are or the company around you, out come the samurai impressions and the bad pidgin english. "Ooooaaaaaa. I stlike out! I must commit halakili!" Hilarity ensues. It's all in good-natured, harmless, jokesy fun of people of a different ethnic background and culture who talk funny. This app is made for that crowd. No, it doesn't mean we should all go out and do a march on Washington or whatever. But let's call out laziness for what it is instead of giving it a pass.
09/23/09
09/23/09
No one busts out this kind of Chinese accent in an effort to accurately represent Chinese people; at best, they do it for cheap laughs at the expense of the Chinese, at worst, it's a product of real xenophobia.
As people have said, this is far from the most offensive app in the world, but I wouldn't bother trying to defend it.
As for the song, I think that's fallen out of favor more for the company it keeps. You could make an argument that it marginalizes thousands of years of Chinese musical tradition, but like I said, why bother?
09/23/09
The argument that things like this are symptomatic of systemic racism is not entirely lost on me but, like you said, why bother? Pick your battles. I would further argue hyper political correctness is the other side of the close-minded coin: a quickness to judge the moral character of somebody based on this garbage app or anything else can be just as detrimental to a productive discussion about racism.
At bottom, it seems to me that, while the criticism of this thing is justifiable at some level, it's mostly the object of misplaced scorn for real racism -- the thing becomes racism incarnate for some people: "I really hate racism, this thing seems like it has racial overtones, this thing is really racist and I hate it." It's understandable to me, I just think it's a somewhat misplaced. If we were talking about, say, a Congressman making a deplorable racist comment, or the "Obama's a muslim" nonsense, I'd be right there with you.
09/22/09
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