Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Booth Babes, Street Clothes, and GDC: Thanks But You sort of Made It Worse

blog.katylevinson.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 227 posts

Re: Booth Babes, Street Clothes, and GDC: Thanks But You sort of Made It Worse

#11

Post by claudius »

Killah911 wrote: post #9
davidroberts wrote: post #2

Maybe wearing a beat-up t-shirt that says "Come to the Dark Side. We have cookies. " would help establish the OP as an engineer.

That's why I prefer to be an engineer, so I don't have to F#@$ing dress up like anybody! "Dress up like an engineer", WTF is that supposed to be? Am I the only person who is dumbfounded by this? We're all about judging worth based on who someone is and what they've done... The only time I ever "dress up" is when I have to deal with certain business types who are perfectly comfortable with a monocle & a pocket watch.

Monocles and pocket watches are cool (just like bow ties).

Re: Booth Babes, Street Clothes, and GDC: Thanks But You sort of Made It Worse

#12

Post by jgj »

Interesting read, but I have to say I'm a little put off by the conclusion

> [...] if I could have substituted them all for traditional booth babes, I would have done it in a heartbeat. Then I’d be free to have a great time being what I normally am at conferences: a curiosity, an anomaly, and an excitable nerd.

In my opinion, this trivializes what was, prior to its inclusion, a worthwhile lament. The conclusion makes it sound as if the author is ultimately dismayed not that she was dismissed as being unworthy of unadulterated engineer-speak, but more so bothered by the fact that she was no longer the center of attention and no longer unique. I'm sure in reality she cares much more about being the former, but it was quite a shallow consummation to an otherwise interesting piece.

Re: Booth Babes, Street Clothes, and GDC: Thanks But You sort of Made It Worse

#13

Post by chc »

onemorepassword wrote: post #6

Seems like a hard problem to solve. Sending people to do product promotional is perfectly legitimate depending on the type of event. Even if you weren't deliberately targeting a male audience with attractive females (although I'm sure that was the case), odds are that if you were recruiting for that kind of work 90% would be outgoing and attractive young women. Just like recruiting programmers will get you 90% geeky…

Are PR people really 90% attractive young women? I would be very surprised to find that out.

Re: Booth Babes, Street Clothes, and GDC: Thanks But You sort of Made It Worse

#14

Post by stephencanon »

Killah911 wrote: post #9
davidroberts wrote: post #2

Maybe wearing a beat-up t-shirt that says "Come to the Dark Side. We have cookies. " would help establish the OP as an engineer.

That's why I prefer to be an engineer, so I don't have to F#@$ing dress up like anybody! "Dress up like an engineer", WTF is that supposed to be? Am I the only person who is dumbfounded by this? We're all about judging worth based on who someone is and what they've done... The only time I ever "dress up" is when I have to deal with certain business types who are perfectly comfortable with a monocle & a pocket watch.

Seriously. Engineers don't (shouldn’t) need to dress like anything to have their skills recognized. Like dressing like a hipster? Great. Enjoy wearing bespoke suits? Great. Look like a Abercrombie model? Great. Hoodies? Great.

If you’re competent and honest and work hard, I respect your chops. I don’t care how you dress.

Re: Booth Babes, Street Clothes, and GDC: Thanks But You sort of Made It Worse

#15

Post by corin_ »

saraid216 wrote: post #3

I wish we had more men who dressed up as booth babes. Don't we have enough body builders in the game industry yet?

I just hired a split of both genders for the booth of a client at an event next week. Not sure if it's a coincidence that no-one else around me thinks of doing that and that I'm gay, or not..

Re: Booth Babes, Street Clothes, and GDC: Thanks But You sort of Made It Worse

#16

Post by smoyer »

Hmmm ... I'm not sure I can agree with the idea of dressing more of the booth babes in bikinis (seems like a step backwards), but I can understand the need to be viewed as technical. And at a conference like GDC, it can be hard for the guys to know who is technical and who isn't.

I propose the people that want to talk technical and be treated as "nerds" all wear propeller beanies from now on. That way we'll be able to tell our fellow hackers, and it will also root out those annoying fashion conscious nerds.

Re: Booth Babes, Street Clothes, and GDC: Thanks But You sort of Made It Worse

#17

Post by originalcvk »

jgj wrote: post #12

Interesting read, but I have to say I'm a little put off by the conclusion > [...] if I could have substituted them all for traditional booth babes, I would have done it in a heartbeat. Then I’d be free to have a great time being what I normally am at conferences: a curiosity, an anomaly, and an excitable nerd. In my opinion, this trivializes what was, prior to its inclusion, a worthwhile lament. The conclusion makes…

I don't think that was the point of her statement. I think she was basically saying "At least before, the booth babes were obvious, and other women were assumed to be engineers who belonged there for their technical merits. Now, companies are sending attractive, non-technical female product promoters and others outside of the engineering field dressed in street clothes. Now, it is harder to tell which women are engineers and which are PR/marketing/booth babes/whatever." Seems a valid observation, though I think the real issue is that women need to vet themselves as engineers at all, while it is assumed that men at a conference are technical unless proven otherwise.

Re: Booth Babes, Street Clothes, and GDC: Thanks But You sort of Made It Worse

#18

Post by JulianMorrison »

onemorepassword wrote: post #6

Seems like a hard problem to solve. Sending people to do product promotional is perfectly legitimate depending on the type of event. Even if you weren't deliberately targeting a male audience with attractive females (although I'm sure that was the case), odds are that if you were recruiting for that kind of work 90% would be outgoing and attractive young women. Just like recruiting programmers will get you 90% geeky…

Lets make it really, really simple.

1. Do not hire eye candy as eye candy. Of either sex. Dressed up or dressed down.

2. Product promotion staff should be clearly labeled as such.

Re: Booth Babes, Street Clothes, and GDC: Thanks But You sort of Made It Worse

#19

Post by abraininavat »

corin_ wrote: post #15
saraid216 wrote: post #3

I wish we had more men who dressed up as booth babes. Don't we have enough body builders in the game industry yet?

I just hired a split of both genders for the booth of a client at an event next week. Not sure if it's a coincidence that no-one else around me thinks of doing that and that I'm gay, or not..

How could you not know if that's a coincidence? You're the one who did the hiring. Attractiveness either was a factor in your selection of booth people or was not.

Re: Booth Babes, Street Clothes, and GDC: Thanks But You sort of Made It Worse

#20

Post by blhack »

jgj wrote: post #12

Interesting read, but I have to say I'm a little put off by the conclusion > [...] if I could have substituted them all for traditional booth babes, I would have done it in a heartbeat. Then I’d be free to have a great time being what I normally am at conferences: a curiosity, an anomaly, and an excitable nerd. In my opinion, this trivializes what was, prior to its inclusion, a worthwhile lament. The conclusion makes…

Mmm, I think you're reading that wrong.

Her point was that marketers are hiring people as "developer evangelists" (hint) to show up at conferences in plain clothing, attract male attention, and sell products.

This is a pretty basic marketing technique used by probably every brick-and-mortar on the planet. Look at the way that clothing stores hire employees.

The author's issue is that before this became mainstream, she was easily identifiable as not a marketer. She wasn't in a bikini, and wasn't obviously selling anything. She was just in plain clothes attending a conference.

So while she was, in her words, a curiosity, people could reasonably assume that she was attending because she was a dev, not because she wants to "evangelize" at them.

Now that "hire a pretty, bubbly girl to talk to people for you" has become common in tech, people can reasonably assume that the "curiosity" in the crowd is probably there because she was paid to be there.

Post reply on HN