Would you fear for your life if someone made a dongle joke?

http://www.esquire.co.uk/culture/bo...on-ronson-book-so-youve-been-publicly-shamed/

This is an article about a guy who was fired for making a joke about big dongles at a press conference.
A woman overheard him and took offense... snapped his picture and tweeted it out.

Not sure about a focus but I am sure one of the mods can come up with something but seems like there could be some good discussion here.

Focus: For those of us that existed before social media, ever say anything that would have resulted in public shaming?

Alt Focus: Anything you wish you could say that would result in public shaming?

Alt Focus: Who got the raw deal based on this article? The guy, the girl, or both?

 

Re: Would you fear for your life if someone made a dongle jo

Hard to believe two guys were making a joke during a presentation and then this happened. Yes, when considering the environment the joke was inappropriate. But consider the guys weren't really aware of what was being presented at the time because they were doing what people do, lose focus during a seminar and think about something else.

Adria seems really malicious. She seems really content to depersonalize the guy and use him as her representation for the affluent oppressor white male. So if her symbol gets knocked down then somehow all white men get knocked down because he got in trouble. Seems like a dangerous line of thinking that allows someone to do really terrible things to others without having any remorse about harming an individual. She seems to have no remorse for causing a father of three to get fired, she seems to have no remorse for the shit storm that all caused.

It is unfortunate she got fired too, and I really don't want people here thinking I'm siding with the guy because I'm a white male also, I know a few of you will be tempted to do that. Adria getting fired is sad, but she pursued the issue, she pushed the issue and ultimately she ambushed these guys. So yes, her getting fired was sad, but she instigated the whole scenario, it seems fitting she'd go down with the boat too.

 

Re: Would you fear for your life if someone made a dongle jo

Great article, I think it balanced both sides of the story and really shows an interesting side of "When keeping it real goes wrong." It really seems like in this situation that Hank and friend had some bad timing. Adria really didn't think about how this would all play out. Given if her extreme view of white oppressive male America was true, why didn't she think about the blow back? Also, not giving these guys the benefit of the doubt is the same fucking problem minorities have with black people. Across the board, you need to give people warnings and if they don't listen, then you fuck their shit up.

Also, her explanation to the reporter was bullshit, she brought out a lot of psychobabble, I can't see how it applies. She escalated shit way too far in her mind and definitely made this guy a symbol of a greater evil. Taking two seconds to look at these two dudes would have told you that they are not the Grand Dragons. People can't go from 0-100 with shit like this because it makes everything a 100, and nothing a 100. Need to make sure the punishment fits the crime, and this shit got out of hand.

Trying to talk about people's backgrounds affecting their day to day decisions is damn near impossible. People have been bit by dogs and hate dogs, people have been bit by dogs and love dogs. Whatever happened in her childhood, it's impossible to quantify how that impacted her day to day life. Really don't like how the story ended with her family life, as it didn't go into Hanks background to see if that's where dongle jokes come from.

 

Re: Would you fear for your life if someone made a dongle jo

I enjoyed the article as well. Its funny because my female boss made endless dongle jokes at me during my training. We have a bluetooth transmitter that plugs right into our radiation detector and its called a dongle.

My biggest issue with her behavior was that she refused to accept that she played any kind of role in his firing. Yet, she blamed him squarely for her firing and the way her whole life apart. She even went as far as trying to get him to take down his posting about his personal fallout from her tweets. She applied an incredible double standard to the behavior, which in my mind, completely undermined her entire position. She not only exposed him, but she did it 3 times and with pictures. Claiming to have felt in danger. Absolute bullshit.

Do I think all that has happened to her since her firing is right? No, but if you go on 4chan, you won't find anything worth reading on the internet(except the fappening). From all that I've seen on there, what they said about her was tame. People don't deserve to have death threats made on them. But in this day and age, you can't try to be all public about something and then get butthurt when you get a bunch of unwanted attention. Especially from malicious neckbeards.

People seem to think getting fired is a completely appropriate punishment for small things. Like its no big deal. Getting fired can have disproportionately long lasting consequences when compared to the behavior in question. Especially in this article. Luckily, he got a new job. I'm not surprised no one has given her a job yet. She's the chick that everyone in the office needs to be afraid of now. You never know who she's eavesdropping on. Or how quickly she will run to HR for anything at all. People like that make work environments tremendously uncomfortable.


Several years ago, there was a guy in my old work place who was known for running to HR every time someone said or did something he didn't like. People were getting called into that office every day. We even went as far as to hold a secret holiday party that he wasn't invited to because no one wanted him around. People only talked to him when necessary, and the worst(funniest) part was that he always acted like he wasn't the person running to HR. Like he had no clue. Because it was "anonymous". I was happy when I heard he had to retire when he got some kind of cancer.

 

Re: Would you fear for your life if someone made a dongle jo

This woman deserves no sympathy. I sincerely hope she doesn't expect it. She is a hypocritical whiney and I'm glad shes unemployed. Too many people these days think that they can interfere and trash a person's life (a person who has nothing to do with them) simply because they want sympathy and attention for being "offended".

Let this wonderful example of poetic justice be a lesson to those who think they have all the hero cards when they don't. She could have either said something to these guys over their simple JOKE, or she could sit there and take it. But instead she thought she would shame them for being human and she got shamed ten times worse. What she did was cold, unblinking and reptilian. She offered no remorse or even had a clue that what she did was wrong, she just expected to be put on a pedestal for her "heroism" and got trashed like other morons such as Quin Woodward Pu before her.

This is one of few Internet shamings I enjoyed reading about, because the executioner got hung. Happy ending.

 

Re: Would you fear for your life if someone made a dongle jo

She had another option as well. Let's play devil's advocate and assume she didn't want to say anything to these two guys because they were male and white, and who knows what they would have done to her. She could simply have approached people who worked at the event and asked that they be reprimanded or asked to leave. After all, that was the initial outcome of her tweet. That would have been a very simple approach to take, and a more apporpriate level of response.

 

Re: Would you fear for your life if someone made a dongle jo

For me, all I know of the situation is what I read in the Esquire link. I don't think anyone would advocate she should've been harassed and her employer blackmailed into firing her. In this light, I won't say she deserves what she got because clearly that is more wrong. I think a lot of the sentiment on here is her actions were out of line and her being in the work place after this may be difficult because she may be perceived as difficult to work with. Her snapping that photo and sending the tweet sends a message to others that she likes to stir up trouble and has her own agenda. I don't think any employer wants that. I think her being made aware that her claims were overreaching was not wrong, the way in which it was done clearly was.

The harassment she received is obviously wrong. I'm pretty confident in saying no one here is advocating that was just.

Retrospectively, what was she hoping would happen? Was she on some sort of social justice charge? Was she hoping those comments about a simple joke would change the world? What would've been the downside to ignoring the comment she heard? This cost two people their jobs and cost a lot of pain and anguish. I can't imagine that being worth whatever she was hoping to achieve.

 

Re: Would you fear for your life if someone made a dongle jo

Actually, she did:

http://pycon.blogspot.com/2013/03/pycon-response-to-inappropriate.html

She took their pics so she could have them positively identified when she reported them to the event managers.

Sure, maybe she shouldn't have tweeted the pic, but for fuck's sake, that was literally the only thing that could possibly be construed as a misstep on her part. And even then, public shaming is a good tool to call people out on their bullshit behavior, so I don't hold it against her.

All this dog-piling on her is disgraceful - and I'm not even talking about her losing her job or getting death threats, which are a whole other level of awful. The woman's suffered enough over this whole ordeal, so I don't see the point in this continued denigration of her.

 

Re: Would you fear for your life if someone made a dongle jo

I feel like incidences like this, at least the way it's portrayed in the article, can undermine the severity and seriousness of sexual harassment and aggressions towards women, particularly in the workplace.

There's this cultural idea that "crying rape" is something that happens with way more frequency than it actually does. So when focus and attention get heaped on those instances when men are falsely accused, it detracts from the seriousness of the issue at large and perpetuates the idea that false rape accusations are more common than they are.

In the same way, I feel like focusing on a situation where a man was publicly shamed and fired for making a relatively tame joke lends more weight to the idea that women are a bunch of whiners and whistle blowers. I would bet a whole lot of money that it's way more likely for women to be harassed and threatened in the workplace, and for nothing to be done, than for a woman to "cry sexual harassment" and for a man to be fired from his job based on false or overblown accusations.

 

Re: Would you fear for your life if someone made a dongle jo

No one here is saying that she was wrong in feeling the way she did about the jokes. Although a debate on the right to be comfortable can be had in another thread. The fact is, she went and made this as public as she could within in her power. And then claimed ignorance when the man lost his job. What did she think would happen? If he didn't get fired, she would have gone right back to shaming and talking about acceptance of male-driven sexual harassment in the tech industry.

She lost her job because she became the story instead of just being a whistle blower. If she had just kept it local, there would be no fall out on her.

 

Re: Would you fear for your life if someone made a dongle jo

I think this article, which mentions that particular incident (among others) is very relevant:

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/15/magaz ... -life.html

I'm not sure what to make of it. Undoubtedly the people doing the internet shaming are in need of something more pressing to occupy their lives because whatever they have going on isn't quite doing it for them. It's almost like the modern-day version of watching gladiator fights or public executions. Making a bad joke isn't a good reason to have your life ruined, especially when the audience is being intentionally obtuse. Fundamentally, someone is - or rather, is perceived as being - insufficiently compassionate, understanding and tolerant towards others... and the hordes think that an appropriate response to this is to ruin their life, have them fired, and then go back for more to make sure they are never successful again. There's at least some irony to be found in that, but I think it's lost on people.

And hey, while we're here:

That is disgustingly offensive to the mentally disabled community.

 

Re: Would you fear for your life if someone made a dongle jo

I think we can all say "Fuck 4chan" and internet Men's Rights groups are a fucking joke. Disagree with the death threats and all of those hyperbolic, merciless comments.

I agree with everything sister said, because it's blowing things out of proportion and playing cards early, diminishing their power.

It just kills me when people don't know their targets or really what she expected. It just annoys me that things escalated so quickly. I think a dirty look as a warning would have been fine, if she's really scared of every nerdy looking white dude raping her, I'm surprised she left the house at all. This whole thing just doesn't add up right, something is off. That's not the right way to escalate stuff.

 

Re: Would you fear for your life if someone made a dongle jo

That's what really gets me about all of this. She made the mistake of posting that pic she took on twitter, and for that she lost her job and has been on the receiving end of death and rape threats.

While on the other hand the repercussions for those people making the death and rape threats are... what exactly?