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Why I don't use my real photo when messaging with customers on my website

kapwing.com

101–110 of 666 posts

Re: Why I don't use my real photo when messaging with customers on my website

#101
Amazing. The author spends a lot of time to tell us a very convincing story how sexism affects people in our industry, and the Hacker News thread is full of people rationalizing it.

- it's only because people think you're a bot

- it's because of your target audience

- it's because chat widgets are annoying

- you don't really have enough data to make any conclusions

How much will it take to convince the average HN reader that sexism actually is everywhere?

Re: Why I don't use my real photo when messaging with customers on my website

#102
post #53
post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

0.5% of users behaving like this is not a problem to you, cause you're a guy, and you don't care about sexual harassment cause you're not bombarded apparently all day. This is exactly how I felt before I read this post. But even 0.5% seem a very high number to me, cause in my opinion, you have to be mentally retarted to think that this is 'accepted' behaviour in any way, or that it will actually land you a date, a nu…

Thank you down voter for proving my point:)

I expect your downvotes are for the unnecessary and offensive inclusion of, "have to be mentally retarted [sic]." Without that I might have up-voted you for the other points made. (Although they could have been made with a less confrontational tone as well.)

Re: Why I don't use my real photo when messaging with customers on my website

#104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, people are colder and more abusive towards those less good-looking. The case described in the article is not due to beauty. It's because people think it's a bot or at least a fake photo. That's what irritates them.

But then why would you harass a bot?

Because it's safer than harassing a human. Perfectly reasonable people will be abusive to a bot, because they assume the bot cannot feel it.

Re: Why I don't use my real photo when messaging with customers on my website

#105

Amazing. The author spends a lot of time to tell us a very convincing story how sexism affects people in our industry, and the Hacker News thread is full of people rationalizing it. - it's only because people think you're a bot - it's because of your target audience - it's because chat widgets are annoying - you don't really have enough data to make any conclusions How much will it take to convince the average HN rea…

"Rude people are sexist" or "Sexist people are rude" is about the only conclusion you can draw here (maybe not even that, correlation != causation etc etc)

It doesn't even come close to showing how "sexism is everywhere". For all we know the sample could be entirely edgy 12 year olds.

Tell me again how this self-admittedly "non-rigorous scientific study" proves "sexism is everywhere"?

It could easily be that more attractive profiles result in more interactions and receive the same proportion of sexist responses. Their data measures sexist messages not the proportion of sexist messages over all of their interactions.

Re: Why I don't use my real photo when messaging with customers on my website

#106
post #88

It may also be that people are more likely to assume it's a bot if it's a female, given that almost all chat bots claim to be female.

Showering abuse on a female bot still demonstrates deep misogyny imo, even if there is no victim in that case.

If its a bot, is it really "male" or "female"? The larger point that many people are trying to make is that if websites and corporations didn't always try to disguise their bots behind the face of a pretty girl then perhaps people would consider that their messages were being sent to actual human beings.

Re: Why I don't use my real photo when messaging with customers on my website

#107
post #26

I wonder if this is a mainly US problem or an international one? While I could imagine some of the people I know would do this 'for harmless fun', it's only 1-2 idiots (out of all the people I talked to in my life), but those are jerks in real life too...

Well people who think this is fun are jerks (or kids) to start with, real life or not. But the real world has something the internet lacks: social control. The people you evolve with know you, judge you, and you must maintain a certain attitude and appear to adhere to social norms under the threat of contempt, exclusion, or even legal implications. That keeps society together. I think the internet shows the raw human nature without the social control. And it’s not pretty.

Re: Why I don't use my real photo when messaging with customers on my website

#108
post #51
post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article did state comments came from all parts of the globe (presumably they're doing some kind of GeoIP look up)? I'd love to say it's just 1 or 2 idiots but stories like these are so common that Ive come to the conclusion that there is a very real gender bias at play. Which makes me both sad from the perspective of equality and disappointed as a representative of the male species. :(

All parts of the globe, but I can't imagine comments like this coming from The Netherlands, Switzerland, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Finland... you know 'from countries such as Norway' (presidential quote here)

One of my more depressing findings in life is that no matter how you slice and dice the population, you'll find an abundance of assholes in every slice.

Re: Why I don't use my real photo when messaging with customers on my website

#109
post #14

These chat messenger pop-ups can be quite annoying, the example on the site mentioned is typically 'in your face'. What's particularly frustrating with this one is that there is already a prominent speech bubble icon in the corner of the screen that suggests they have a chat feature - if I want it. It doesn't need to crack open after a second and slap me. I am not defending the obvious misogyny here but I think an ex…

Article: "Here is absolutely convincing evidence of the extreme sexism enabled by/encountered on the internet"

Top comment: "Pop up chat boxes are really annoying. Also I don't know what objective means. But I have added a token: Not defending the sexism sentence."

Re: Why I don't use my real photo when messaging with customers on my website

#110
post #39
post #33

I can't relate to her post. We use on purpose attractive female profiles for our support chat avatars (our product is a SaaS) and the cases where a user behaves like this are 0.5% and for us not a problem at all, we just ignore them. FYI, we tested a while different pics, female, male, average looking, good looking and we just got the best conversion rates with the above mentioned.

0.5% of users behaving like this is not a problem to you, cause you're a guy, and you don't care about sexual harassment cause you're not bombarded apparently all day. This is exactly how I felt before I read this post. But even 0.5% seem a very high number to me, cause in my opinion, you have to be mentally retarted to think that this is 'accepted' behaviour in any way, or that it will actually land you a date, a nu…

>mentally retarted

In an ideal world this would be an attempt at irony.

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