If no one cares, no one cares. You can wear whatever you want when you are spreading human feces to fertilize the vegetable garden on your Raelian commune.
If I went to work topless, I wouldn’t have my job for long.
Desslock
2042
Uh no, I wouldn’t, because only childish, small, ridiculous people would decide on an occasion as monumental as humanity landing on a comet to instead talk about themselves and how offended they are by someone wearing a Hawaiian shirt.
There’s actually a recent example of this sort of thing happening on an occasion far less momentous - at the final table of a major poker tournament recently, two friends who finished 1st and 2nd decided to use the broadcast spotlight to wear garish t-shirts with political slogans that were disagreeable to most of (or at least a significant portion of) the audience. There was a significant outcry, and as a result the poker site and tournament host instituted a policy banning overt political attire in the future. I thought that outcry was also ridiculous (obviously the poker site/host is free to institute whatever dress code it wants, however) even though those shirts were deliberately worn to provoke a reaction and I strongly disagreed with the political messaging, and obviously while that was an important event in the poker calendar it wasn’t exactly as though-provoking or notable an occasion as landing on a speeding space object.
To close the poker segue, it was actually this British female poker player (extremely talented) and environmental activist, whose political views are likely very different from my own, who I cribbed the “despair” comment from: https://twitter.com/Liv_Boeree/status/533858330997829632.
We land something ON A COMET travelling 75,000mph and people choose to complain about the shirt the scientist wears? I despair. #shirtstorm
This isn’t a left/right political issue - people across the political spectrum agree that it’s ridiculous and disheartening that people are so small, insular, and self-absorbed that they used the occasion of one of humanity’s greatest achievements to instead talk about how they were personally offended by the clothes someone was wearing.
Desslock
2043
What the hell is this gibberish? Weren’t you the one questioning whether English was Aszurom’s native language? Quit trolling for attention, you social misfit.
Wow, there is more apparent anger and personal attacks now that the thread has transitioned from a Gamergate thread to a Sex and the City episode!
-Todd
steve
2045
It’s possible to write a blog saying you’re offended by a shirt and still be in awe of the science too, nevermind that every news site in the world had tons of pieces about the achievement, and most had a single piece about the shirt and its follow-up. Then there’s the outrage over the outrage, because that’s the way things work these days.
You can also make the argument that it’s the prefect time to raise these issues, because it’s the only time you have people’s attention. A piece on hostile work environments, casual sexism, women in STEM fields, blah blah blah would get no traction without it being tied to something high profile. However, without fail, critics of an issue will always throw out the “inappropriate time” argument. Now is not the time to discuss race while Ferguson is blowing up; it’s wrong to discuss workplace sexism because science; it’s wrong to criticize the president because 9/11; it’s wrong to criticize the president because war; it’s right to criticize Obama because Obama.
magnet
2046
75000 mph
Interesting! That’s actually not as fast as I expected. By comparison, the Earth has a speed of 67000 mph.
Desslock
2047
This is strawman nonsense - more accurate analogies to the situations you cite would be:
- while Ferguson is blowing up, discussing how you dislike the police officer’s Italian made shoes since they should buy American since they’re funded by taxpayers; or
- while 9/11 is occurring, discussing how rarely Bush wears Blue ties instead of red ones and how that’s offensive to you, as a Democrat.
The “offense” of wearing a Hawaiian shirt is such an inane, small-minded thing to opt to discuss in the context of a landmark scientific achievement - people who choose to focus on their personal feelings towards that shirt just look ridiculously incapable of discernment and judgment.
Pretty sure your lack of judgement is on display here… that and this issue would be a tiny footnote were it not for your crazy wailing overreaction. It’s almost as if you think that criticism of a dudes sexist and inappropriate shirt is more important than landing on a comet!
Not a single person in this thread who thought it was an inappropriate shirt has reacted with the spittle-flecked vitriol you have managed to fling in this truly scene-chewing performance. Try to have some perspective, and stop overreacting to everything as if men are about to be enslaved in a dystopian fascist matriarchy.
Telefrog
2049
Dismissing the issue as it was brought up originally is kind of lazy. It’s not like people were outraged over a basic color or the cut of the shirt. He wore a cheeseball shirt with pictures of women in various suggestive poses which, as we’ve discussed here, can be seen as offensive depending on the situation and the audience. Work at a Beach Boys themed bar? Banzai! Don’t like my shirt? Go to another bar, buddy! Giving an interview to a journalist during a scientific accomplishment? Maybe not so much.
It was probably an innocent mistake, but live and learn. That shirt is not appropriate for that situation.
You seem pretty hung up on how much of a historic event this was, so why not have the guy representing the accomplishment show a little decorum? A plain old-fashioned Hawaiian shirt with surfboards and palm trees probably wouldn’t have caused any issue at all. Everyone would’ve been lauding the guy for his kickass sense of style.
CraigM
2050
This, this 1000X THIS.
Listen the whole shirt thing was only ever a minor ‘really, that’s the shirt he broadcast to the world?’ Very few people would have gone beyond that. Almost everyone would have been happy to go on and just discuss the comet landing. Hey mentioning the shirt was a poor choice, and not one appropriate for the occasion, was simply that. What made the topic take off and really gain attention was the reaction to this.
Certain people were so incensed that someone merely mentioned the shirt was in poor taste that they devolved into a frothing rage. Desslock you are guilty of this. Nobody here seriously cared that much about the shirt, except those who took umbrage that the shirt was even mentioned and went off the deep end. The whole reason it is a ‘controversy’ is this reaction.
Honestly I’d rather not hear about it again. I thought Ken White at Popehat nailed it with his column, and I’ve got nothing more to add than that really.
I’ve bookmarked that Popehat article for re-reading basically any time anything happens on social media.
Julie Bindel, says what i’ve been trying to say (albeit badly) all along, mainly arising out of the furor over the shirt and other recent issues.
Feminism is in danger of becoming toxic.
Moral superiority and “call out” culture has trumped political activism. Feminists have a proud history of taking state institutions and corporations to task. It would seem this is being lost in a sea of vitriol. We built this movement on a desire and willingness to question and challenge old assumptions and truisms. We are in danger of becoming autocrats who would rather organise a pile-on than try to change systems. The life blood of feminism is in danger of becoming bile.
So, equality good. SJW tactics bad, and damage the cause.
Zylon
2053
We must call for an end to shirt shaming.
Enidigm
2054
Enidigm
2055
I suspect things like that shirt hit a certain ‘gap’ in feminism that’s hard to reconcile in the sense that feminism is about agency but fictional women can’t have agency, so fictional representations are bad when the same representation of a real woman who chose to be modeled (or model herself) would probably be ok, more or less.
Aszurom
2056
Thread evolution update:
Ethics Police
…
Tone Police
…
Fashion Police
Gamergate is about ethics in unfashionable outerwear.
You know the funny thing is that if a woman wore the same clothes day after day it would probably be other women that noticed and were disparaging of her. I don’t pay attention to what other people wear unless it’s odd. I couldn’t tell you what my colleagues at work wore today other than that they wore shirts and pants. I don’t remember seeing any dresses today.
Relevant, and most of them are damn funny.
I like the blog post on that page. Seems sensible and balanced:
I actually emphasize with the position that the shirt is just pulpy comic women shooting guns. Yes, they are curvy. No, they are not nude. And no, I don’t in any way relate to these comic book characters. So I don’t feel objectified, and instead I come away frustrated over this whole kerfuffle.
I really don’t want prudish, Puritanical types who judge people based on their clothes running the show. This clothes policing is not that far from slut-shaming women who choose to wear tight or revealing clothes.
And saying that the shirt discourages girls from entering STEM fields, which I’ve also seen tossed out like a grenade during discussions of this issue is WAY out there. That’s a serious, pretty paranoid leap to make… Frankly, if more young people feel discouraged from entering STEM fields after this debacle, it’s more likely to be because they saw Dr. Taylor’s singular scientific accomplishment being treated as less important than his wardrobe.
Uh, how is that “balanced”. That’s literally, word for word, the shrieking harpies of GamerGate view. Those prudish feminazis are the worst, inappropriate(and offensive) attempt at appropriating feminist rhetoric and JUDO FLIPPING the slut shaming because it has the word “shame” in it and lol aspergersy MRAs have poor English skills, and, of course the WHINING. Oh the whining. “Tossed out like a grenade”? We all know “Michelle” who made that comment is a man, but at the same time, “Michelle” is pure bitch.
Did you read the comic? Did you try to understand? Not in the context of whether you could find a way to pretend the comic hurt your feelings, but in an actual comprehension of the issue way. That comic literally addressed exactly that point, FFS, it was created as a response to how #GGers were copy-pasting that nonsense talking point in THE WAR ON UGLY SHIRTS all over the internet.
Sexism against women is real and damaging and universal. It’s insidious, it’s societal.
Dude having his tacky shirt described as tacky… I just can’t really see the hurt here. Who is the victim? The guy immediately apologized for wearing a tacky shirt, nobody is trying to get him fired or anything. So it ain’t him.
Desslock appears to be on the verge of a mental breakdown, but that’s just generalized culture war collateral damage. He’s more than old enough to know he enlisted on the losing team there, can’t really blame The Verge(or was it someone else who set him off… Like we see a lot of generalized whining about the criticism of the shirt. Not a lot of specific critics are being rebutted, though, because it’s what Thomas Frank called a “plen-T-plaint”)
