| 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/ |
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.