I think it's a dupe. <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9993353" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9993353</a>
> I didn’t ask for any of this attention, and I’m rather uncomfortable with all of it.<p>I was on the front page of the New York Times for being "Hooked on Gadgets". I asked for it by agreeing to be the center of the story, didn't know it was going front page when I started, and it still made me uncomfortable when it ran. At the time, it was the most commented story in the history of the New York Times. I stopped reading the comments by people about 20 comments in. My wife made it to about 100 comments before she had to quit.<p>People say horrible things to each other. They judge each other, they make blaming statements about each other, they speak for other's feelings, they refuse to listen to the real feelings, or thoughts, and love to rationalize away whatever issues they have with themselves that they see in others. At the end of the day, it's easier to fault someone else and draw blame to them than it is to accept their own faults.<p>When you go online, you open yourself up to these people. There's not a lot you can do about them other than give zero fucks what they think or say. That's a tricky thing sometimes, because you can end up hurting people who care about you while trying to avoid those that don't. I wouldn't say I'm great at it nowadays, but I'm better than I was before as a result of having dealt with it.<p>It's a process, being excellent to each other, and all I can do is try harder at it tomorrow than I did today. :)
My college did this to me. Hastily thrown together event "Hey, let us take some photos of you for the website". A year or two goes by, and I've left town (graduated), and friends start emailing me photos of my face on the side of a bus. Big campaign, apparently.<p>To make it better, I looked pretty much like a sociopath in those photos.<p>And I'm sure I signed some forms saying that they could do this, but they also rushed us through those forms because we were apparently short on time.
<i>The negative opinions about this ad that strangers feel so compelled to share illustrate solid examples of the sexism that plagues tech.</i><p>Actually I didn't find the comments highlighted in the illustration all that sexist. It seemed to me that that commenter was not so much weighing in on what engineers are supposed to look like, but rather attempting to analyze the semantic content of the recruitment ad, because most ads/corporate presentations are so heavily designed and the people depicted are often professional models/actors, whether working on commission or selected from a stock photography database. Think of all the generic business websites where everyone in the photographs just happens to have culturally ideal proportions, have perfect skin/hair/teeth and look impeccably stylish. When I see that I don't think that the company is made up of fantastically good-looking people who happened to be photographed at their desks, but that the people depicted were chosen for a mix of attractive looks and professional presentation.<p>(Now, I don't mean this as dismissive of sexism in the tech industry, which I think is a huge problem, well summed up by the real-life experiences mentioned in the article.)<p><i>At the end of the day, this is just an ad campaign and it is targeted at engineers. [...] News flash: this isn’t by any means an attempt to label “what female engineers look like.” This is literally just ME, an example of ONE engineer at OneLogin. The ad is supposed to be authentic.</i><p>Yeah, but 'authenticity' is itself a commodity in the world of advertising, and advertising is fundamentally about turning things into commodities. Paying money to display images of people along with a commercial message in front of the largest audience possible is fundamentally different from presenting a portrait of an individual. Here, the commodity bargain is 'be part of a group of friendly cool people, in exchange for performing this kind of work.' I don't believe that people are reacting to you so much as they are responding to the superficiality of advertising in general.<p><i>In fact, if you knew me you would probably know that being famous is one of my biggest nightmares</i><p>PTSD aside, aren't nightmares where we are most ourselves?
I think there is another issues with these ads.<p>"My code helps Fortune 500 companies keep their data secure" vs. "My team is great. Everyone is smart, creative, and hilarious"<p>This gives the impression that the woman is not excited about the 'engineering' work, but instead about the social aspects of the workplace.
><i>"I am a passionate self-taught engineer, extreme introvert, science-nerd, anime-lover, college dropout"</i><p>Is engineering not a profession? How can you be an engineer without completing your education in an accredited engineering school?