31–40 of 62 posts
I expected at least a reference to them taking down one of their repos[1] to hide further criticism, but found none. [1] https://github.com/geeklist/jennifer
What was it?
I could care less about Geeklist but from a purely analytical perspective: this is so "how not to write an apology" that someone ought to take it apart and do an annotated version of it as a lesson to the community. It literally starts out in its first sentence by undermining itself. Incidentally, publicly threatening the job of someone who criticizes you (as a tit-for-tat for them "threatening your brand") is one of…
You COULDN'T case less.
I could care less about Geeklist but from a purely analytical perspective: this is so "how not to write an apology" that someone ought to take it apart and do an annotated version of it as a lesson to the community. It literally starts out in its first sentence by undermining itself. Incidentally, publicly threatening the job of someone who criticizes you (as a tit-for-tat for them "threatening your brand") is one of…
I'm sure this isn't what you had in mind, but I couldn't help myself. I'm not claiming this is what they were actually thinking, but it's how an upset, uncharitable reader might take it, which is who you'd want to address in an apology.
>Hi everyone. We never meant to offend any person and are very sorry as we clearly have.
Read: If you felt offended, there is something wrong with you, not us.
> Geeklist is all about inclusion of every geek. Male and Female alike. We hope you’ll forgive the company and founders and use this as an opportunity to hire more women, support women in tech and their great achievements and promote a healthy work environment for all.
Read: Diversity boilerplate goes here.
> We did not create the video at question. It was created out of love for Geeklist by a great Woman entrepreneur at Design Like Woah for us.
Read: Some of our best friends are women.
> She makes shirts and made awesome ones for us. She also goes way out of her way to help us ship to our men and women alike globally who love our brand.
Read: "Ship to our men and women alike"? Sorry, that awkward phrase was a result of our last minute copy-paste effort to make our language more gender neutral.
> She is fighting to grow in a male dominant sector and marketing to her client. Please support her and buy her shirts. http://www.designlikewhoa.com/
Read: If you don't support the video she made for us, you are anti-female-empowerment. Flipped the script on you, didn't I?
> [ Correction: Just spoke to Gemma, her videographer owns it and she is trying to contact him (thanks so much Gemma)]
Read: Oops, disregard everything I just said.
> As for our handling of the twittersphere. We could have handled it better. I know Shanley personally, have skyped and emailed her many times and interviewed her for a job at Geeklist. She is an awesome candidate that as a startup I was very sad the timing was not right to work together.
Read: We turned down Shanley for a job because she's an incompetent, crazy bitch. Ignore everything bad she says about us--it's just sour grapes.
> She is an awesome candidate that as a startup I was very sad the timing was not right to work together.
Read: Did I mention she is crazy and you shouldn't listen to her? Bullet dodged.
> Of our 5 person team 2 are women and I am certain they can speak on our behalf as respectful gentlemen in the workplace who create a welcome environment for all.
Read: We are so gentlemanly we come to work wearing top hats and monocles.
> I also own a business with my wife where we have over 350+ women employees.
Read: I have a wife. Someone who has a wife cannot be sexist or gender-biased. QED, motherfucker.
> I’ve built my career over 15 years working to make this world a better place for women, mothers, and children.
Read: I am Mother Theresa. My personal conduct is above reproach.
> In my wildest dreams we would never wish to offend any woman [or anyone].
Read: No-one likes PR shitstorms.
> The initial request made sense and we were discussing finding Gemma to take it down, when we got taken off guard a bit by her continued comments.
Read: The bitch kept mouthing off to me, which hurt my fragile male ego.
> We handled those poorly. We apologize as well if our handling of the tweets offended anyone.
Read: To reiterate: if you were offended, you are a thin-skinned whiny weakling.
> In exchange, please direct this media attention to Gemma’s company and support her company by buying her shirts.
Read: Did I mention she's a woman?
> A women entrepreneur in the valley who used our logo and the fact we wanted shirts to help promote her business to her clients too. Tech geeks.
Read: DID I MENTION SHE'S A WOMAN?
> We are sorry.
Read: Fuck you.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I guess this is how it should be done yes? Be humble, always give apologies no matter how offensive the messenger/complainer/customer? Unfortunately, not every one has this skill and I hope some will realize that at some point you cannot give in. Geeklist is the villain for giving in and letting it slide downhill (it is always a PR disaster after it hits the fan) but Kane was first to throw the rock. You don't win th…
If you think there was no reason for her to publicly complain about that video, or that calling it "fucking disgusting" was so out-of-bounds that her behavior was comparable to threatening her job, then there's really nothing about this situation for you or I to discuss productively. Either way, my point wasn't so much the specifics of this situation as how jaw-droppingly ineffective that particular apology was. You…
Other than that the apology wasn't well played out. That's a given.
Ignoring the issue/apology, I find it incredibly off-putting that the designer who got up in arms about a racy video promoting Geeklist promotes t-shirts with a pantless woman on her home, FAQ, and Pricing pages: http://www.designlikewhoa.com/ Focusing on the issue, I would say we are no better off now than before the Twitter flame-war. A personal appeal and open discussion probably would have helped, though. And oh…
Hm, I wonder if this will be deleted as well? The two submissions of the Storify article were: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3740378 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3739913 I'm a little concerned/confused as to why. If the apology is HN-appropriate content then I'm a little surprised that the reason for the apology isn't.
Wow, this scream-sexism-at-everything police is becoming very annoying. I do not believe that the video is offensive at all. I do think the Geeklist founders came across as petty in their constant back and forth with the lady. But to be clear, that has nothing to do with the video being offensive. It isn't.
Offensive is in the eye of the beholder. Plenty of people agree that it is offensive.
I expected at least a reference to them taking down one of their repos[1] to hide further criticism, but found none. [1] https://github.com/geeklist/jennifer
http://codahale.com/foss-and-male-privilege/ http://codahale.com/ruby-and-male-privilege/
Wow, this scream-sexism-at-everything police is becoming very annoying. I do not believe that the video is offensive at all. I do think the Geeklist founders came across as petty in their constant back and forth with the lady. But to be clear, that has nothing to do with the video being offensive. It isn't.
If you want to learn more about why the video itself offends some people: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexual_objectification
I could care less about Geeklist but from a purely analytical perspective: this is so "how not to write an apology" that someone ought to take it apart and do an annotated version of it as a lesson to the community. It literally starts out in its first sentence by undermining itself. Incidentally, publicly threatening the job of someone who criticizes you (as a tit-for-tat for them "threatening your brand") is one of…
It's first sentence is "Hi everyone." Is that the sentence you feel undermines itself?
It's second sentence is "We never meant to offend any person and are very sorry as we clearly have."
In that sentence they acknowledge that they have offended people and take responsibility for that, and unequivocally apologize for that.
The usual undermining apology sentence is more of the form,
"We never meant to offend any person and we are very sorry if you felt offended."
In that form, the authors are not taking responsibility for their actions, and not apologizing for their actions. They are blaming you that you feel offended.
I don't see that at all as to what Geeklist did here.
Then again, while I understand why the original viewer was offended by the video, and I agree it's a stupid video that shows the woman in her underwear, I would not call this one video fucking disgusting, nor would I attribute one video, made by one speficic woman for one specific company associated with "IT" as representative of IT, or CS or startups or entrepreneurship or geeks or men as so many people here at HN and elsewhere have done.
It was one stupid video and one stupid promotion in a world of stupid videos and stupid promotions many made by men, many made by women, and many made by men and women.
In the pantheon of fucking disgusting problems that IT or CS or startups or entrepreneurship or geeks or men or humanity or this country or the world faces, this video by one specific woman for one specific company is not present. It's out beyond Alpha Centauri.
If you would, I appreciate your elucidating why you feel this apology was so poorly done, instead of just branding it as bad and letting others fill in their thoughts why.