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by Deestan 5120 days ago
> I would have thought that the developer community has come to realize that sexism is out

I was there to see how it worked out. The developer community reacted negatively to this.

During the show, a lot of people backed away to hide in the corners of the conference room. There was loud boo-ing throughout and after the dance. Critical tweets were being tweeted and retweeted.

The community is OK. Microsoft's marketing department are tasteless hamfisted twats.

Some of their earlier Cloud marketing: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Q1UgUw-4AY
2 comments
waterlesscloud 5120 days ago
I hear no loud boos "throughout" the routine. I do hear laughter. I see people crowded up to the stage, not "hiding in corners". There are some possible boos after the routine, mixed in with applause.

And what's clueless about that Cloud ad? That's an extremely mainstream corporate ad.

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Deestan 5120 days ago
You can't form opinions on that by watching a video filmed 5 meters from the stage, right inbetween the relatively very few (and mostly drunk - there had been free beer for the past 3 hours) people who seemed to appreciate the show.

The conference hall was huge. Some 30-50 meters away where I was standing, the boo-ing was quite audible, and you could see most of the attendees staying the hell away from the stage.

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listrophy 5120 days ago
Sorry, I wasn't lambasting the community at large... I was directing my anger at the fact that Microsoft is insulated enough from the dev community that they haven't picked up on this.
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Deestan 5120 days ago
Yes. Even knowing Microsoft's general marketing clumsiness, it's very impressive how out of touch they can manage to be.

Also, when they were referencing the speakers, "Lea Verou will make your dreams come true" might have looked good on paper, but in this context it was just unbearably creepy. Totally agree they need to donate some millions to inclusive causes to make up for this.

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powertower 5120 days ago
> I was directing my anger at the fact that Microsoft is insulated enough from the dev community that they haven't picked up on this.

How so? Not only were they not involved in this directly, they've posted their apology already and will take proper steps to make sure that even the smallest of parts in the smallest of regional events now have to get signed off on.

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