5 ms·

Google is sexy now (Tom Anderson)

15 points by duck 15y ago

nextparadigms 15y ago
Excellent article. I've also noticed that Google+ is giving Google new life, and it's like they're starting over. They're redesigning all their products and services with the Google+ style, and hopefully Android 4.0 will get a bit of this style this fall, and they're going to integrate Google+ across all their services. Because of Google+, they're starting to become a "media darling" once again, and they look better even if the eyes of some bloggers that love Apple. I think we'll see a more positive tone overall on the web about Google from now on.
bhickey 15y ago
I'm glad that Tom won't be one of my co-workers at Google. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2807796 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2807796
marquis 15y ago
Oh awesome, fake breasts. Way to attract the other 50%. And there are complaints that g+ is male-dominated? This disappoints me. My internal dialogue: "Great, now I'm either going to keep my opinion to myself and move along, or speak out and be perceived as a hardlining feminist". Goddamn, do I hate unthinking misogyny sometimes, I'm completely sick of it and it's totally acceptable in a male-dominated forum where so many other forms of isms have been classified as inadmissable. Reading the comments was even more disturbing, as the scrolling arrays of men commenting on the +00+ interspersed with only a few disapprovals from the women strong enough to speak out about this in the public forum.
- Hisoka 15y ago
  I also thought that pic was in bad taste... Seriously, why do we need that? People seem to be so conflicted. First, we say we should respect woman, and treat them equally, then we show pictures like this casually as if it's OK. I mean what the heck? Which is it? Are we just animals? We just pursue the orgasm? Come'n man!
- thomasgerbe 15y ago
  I'm not condoning the comments, but I don't see the big deal about the pic. It's not like they told her to open up her shirt and expose her bra.
  - marquis 15y ago
    It's simple: the men are engineers and the woman is a pair of tits. That's all. Nothing more. It's blatant objectifying and absurd that in 2011 this is even up for discussion. Oh, and if she's holding, say, a PhD from Harvard? Then she's a woman with a pair of tits and OMG she's also intelligent. Secondly - she's intelligent.
    - dpark 15y ago
      > It's simple: the men are engineers and the woman is a pair of tits. That's all. Nothing more. This is your bias. It's a picture from Halloween or a costume party. The woman is dressed as a nurse. The guys are dressed as geeks. Yes, she's supposed to be sexy (she chose to dress as a "sexy" nurse). I'm not sure how that's objectifying. She's an object because guys find her image attractive? What does that make the guys in the image? Not even objects?
      - marquis 15y ago
        This is a prime example of how the Male Gaze* systematically expresses a power imbalance. By using this image as an illustration of Sexy, Sexy becomes the objectified. In this context there has been debate after debate about why women are not comfortable entering male spaces (particularly of late coding environments and google+). While there remains a particular imbalance it is harmful to the cause of trying to rectify this by further objectifying the subject of the imbalance. Now, in Facebook where I have equal male/female participants in my stream I can see far worse than this, but Facebook has managed to grow a balanced community, and the comments on an image like this, if posted by someone I know, would be far more relevant to the person's personality and placed in a context. In this large, open space that is currently Google+, an image like this serves only to remind the minority that they are the minority. I have since uncircled Tom, as the comments posted remind me that my time is wasted in participating in such a dialogue. * http://google.com/?q=male+gaze http://google.com/?q=male+gaze
- dpark 15y ago
  > Reading the comments was even more disturbing, as the scrolling arrays of men commenting on the +00+ interspersed with only a few disapprovals from the women strong enough to speak out about this in the public forum. There were quite a few women who commented and did not complain about the picture. > Corina Newby - Google has always been sexy :) > Lisa Bimmerz - Well, that's one way to spell "Google"! lol > Corinne Maloney - I wouldn't consider myself a techie, but I've loved google since I started using it! :) > Frederika Katuuk - this is sexy..lol Some did complain, however: > Diana McQueen - Wow. That a disgusting sexist image. If that's officially from Google, I'm terrible disappointed in them. There should be two women in lab coats standing next to a chiseled guy in a thong. Then maybe. Of course, the image is disgusting but "a chiseled guy in a thong" would be okay... I'm all in favor of making software engineering a friendly place for women, but this is not the way to do it. This is a post that someone made on their personal Google+ site. It was not a statement from Google. It was not a Google employee. It was not a conference speech. It was a guy who posted a sexy picture to accompany his thoughts on making Google "sexy". Would it be okay if he had also posted a picture of a guy in a thong? Trying to tell guys that they can never enjoy sexy images is not the way to fix the gender inequality in the software field. That just breeds resentment.
  - marquis 15y ago
    This is symptomatic of societal denial that there are serious gender imbalances in the objectification of women. Not long before Tom posted this image there was this public post: https://plus.google.com/117378076401635777570/posts/AQ6Fp44B7VZ https://plus.google.com/117378076401635777570/posts/AQ6Fp44B... How can I, as a woman, read this story and then look back at Google+ and see this image?
    - dpark 15y ago
      How can you seriously compare a woman choosing to dress in a sexy outfit with women who are forced into prostitution? When Anthony Weiner sends pictures of himself in his underwear, does it cause gender imbalances? Does it cause male objectification?
- cowboyhero 15y ago
  100% agree and I'm glad you said something. I clicked the link, saw the photo, blinked in disbelief and closed the window without reading Tom's article. So awesome that the guys get to be the nerds while the woman is literally nothing more than an ornament, existing solely to fill out Google's logo. I mean, seriously? That's the kind of cheap "humor" that I expect out of strip club signage. (For the record, even though it shouldn't matter: I'm a guy)
  - dpark 15y ago
    > So awesome that the guys get to be the nerds while the woman is literally nothing more than an ornament, existing solely to fill out Google's logo. Why is the woman nothing but an ornament to fill out the logo while the guys are not? The guys' are literally dressed to fill out the logo.
9999 15y ago
I'm not really sure what the word "sexy" has to do with a giant multinational corporation. Is this creep speak for "Google is receiving more positive esteem from random members of society due to its recent emphasis on slight aesthetic improvements across its product line?"
username3 15y ago
The woman in the photo commented, Steph L Davis - +Tom Anderson Tom - I'm sad you used this pic :(
whalesalad 15y ago
Google+ is not sexy. No one thinks Facebook is sexy. My mom doesn't think it's sexy. My mom doesn't think the electrical company is sexy either. Neither does my sister, or my girlfriend, or my roommate. They are all tools for communication and some are better than others. I think most of this Google+ noise is just fanboys who are glad to have something new. I'm all for competition but Google+, to me, is not very impressive at all. I'll use whatever tool those people I mentioned above are using... because that's all that really matters.

15 points by duck 15y ago

Excellent article. I've also noticed that Google+ is giving Google new life, and it's like they're starting over. They're redesigning all their products and services with the Google+ style, and hopefully Android 4.0 will get a bit of this style this fall, and they're going to integrate Google+ across all their services. Because of Google+, they're starting to become a "media darling" once again, and they look better even if the eyes of some bloggers that love Apple. I think we'll see a more positive tone overall on the web about Google from now on.

bhickey 15y ago

I'm glad that Tom won't be one of my co-workers at Google. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2807796 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2807796

marquis 15y ago

Oh awesome, fake breasts. Way to attract the other 50%. And there are complaints that g+ is male-dominated? This disappoints me. My internal dialogue: "Great, now I'm either going to keep my opinion to myself and move along, or speak out and be perceived as a hardlining feminist". Goddamn, do I hate unthinking misogyny sometimes, I'm completely sick of it and it's totally acceptable in a male-dominated forum where so many other forms of isms have been classified as inadmissable. Reading the comments was even more disturbing, as the scrolling arrays of men commenting on the +00+ interspersed with only a few disapprovals from the women strong enough to speak out about this in the public forum.

Hisoka 15y ago
I also thought that pic was in bad taste... Seriously, why do we need that? People seem to be so conflicted. First, we say we should respect woman, and treat them equally, then we show pictures like this casually as if it's OK. I mean what the heck? Which is it? Are we just animals? We just pursue the orgasm? Come'n man!
thomasgerbe 15y ago
I'm not condoning the comments, but I don't see the big deal about the pic. It's not like they told her to open up her shirt and expose her bra.
- marquis 15y ago
  It's simple: the men are engineers and the woman is a pair of tits. That's all. Nothing more. It's blatant objectifying and absurd that in 2011 this is even up for discussion. Oh, and if she's holding, say, a PhD from Harvard? Then she's a woman with a pair of tits and OMG she's also intelligent. Secondly - she's intelligent.
  - dpark 15y ago
    > It's simple: the men are engineers and the woman is a pair of tits. That's all. Nothing more. This is your bias. It's a picture from Halloween or a costume party. The woman is dressed as a nurse. The guys are dressed as geeks. Yes, she's supposed to be sexy (she chose to dress as a "sexy" nurse). I'm not sure how that's objectifying. She's an object because guys find her image attractive? What does that make the guys in the image? Not even objects?
    - marquis 15y ago
      This is a prime example of how the Male Gaze* systematically expresses a power imbalance. By using this image as an illustration of Sexy, Sexy becomes the objectified. In this context there has been debate after debate about why women are not comfortable entering male spaces (particularly of late coding environments and google+). While there remains a particular imbalance it is harmful to the cause of trying to rectify this by further objectifying the subject of the imbalance. Now, in Facebook where I have equal male/female participants in my stream I can see far worse than this, but Facebook has managed to grow a balanced community, and the comments on an image like this, if posted by someone I know, would be far more relevant to the person's personality and placed in a context. In this large, open space that is currently Google+, an image like this serves only to remind the minority that they are the minority. I have since uncircled Tom, as the comments posted remind me that my time is wasted in participating in such a dialogue. * http://google.com/?q=male+gaze http://google.com/?q=male+gaze
dpark 15y ago
> Reading the comments was even more disturbing, as the scrolling arrays of men commenting on the +00+ interspersed with only a few disapprovals from the women strong enough to speak out about this in the public forum. There were quite a few women who commented and did not complain about the picture. > Corina Newby - Google has always been sexy :) > Lisa Bimmerz - Well, that's one way to spell "Google"! lol > Corinne Maloney - I wouldn't consider myself a techie, but I've loved google since I started using it! :) > Frederika Katuuk - this is sexy..lol Some did complain, however: > Diana McQueen - Wow. That a disgusting sexist image. If that's officially from Google, I'm terrible disappointed in them. There should be two women in lab coats standing next to a chiseled guy in a thong. Then maybe. Of course, the image is disgusting but "a chiseled guy in a thong" would be okay... I'm all in favor of making software engineering a friendly place for women, but this is not the way to do it. This is a post that someone made on their personal Google+ site. It was not a statement from Google. It was not a Google employee. It was not a conference speech. It was a guy who posted a sexy picture to accompany his thoughts on making Google "sexy". Would it be okay if he had also posted a picture of a guy in a thong? Trying to tell guys that they can never enjoy sexy images is not the way to fix the gender inequality in the software field. That just breeds resentment.
- marquis 15y ago
  This is symptomatic of societal denial that there are serious gender imbalances in the objectification of women. Not long before Tom posted this image there was this public post: https://plus.google.com/117378076401635777570/posts/AQ6Fp44B7VZ https://plus.google.com/117378076401635777570/posts/AQ6Fp44B... How can I, as a woman, read this story and then look back at Google+ and see this image?
  - dpark 15y ago
    How can you seriously compare a woman choosing to dress in a sexy outfit with women who are forced into prostitution? When Anthony Weiner sends pictures of himself in his underwear, does it cause gender imbalances? Does it cause male objectification?
cowboyhero 15y ago
100% agree and I'm glad you said something. I clicked the link, saw the photo, blinked in disbelief and closed the window without reading Tom's article. So awesome that the guys get to be the nerds while the woman is literally nothing more than an ornament, existing solely to fill out Google's logo. I mean, seriously? That's the kind of cheap "humor" that I expect out of strip club signage. (For the record, even though it shouldn't matter: I'm a guy)
- dpark 15y ago
  > So awesome that the guys get to be the nerds while the woman is literally nothing more than an ornament, existing solely to fill out Google's logo. Why is the woman nothing but an ornament to fill out the logo while the guys are not? The guys' are literally dressed to fill out the logo.

9999 15y ago

I'm not really sure what the word "sexy" has to do with a giant multinational corporation. Is this creep speak for "Google is receiving more positive esteem from random members of society due to its recent emphasis on slight aesthetic improvements across its product line?"

username3 15y ago

The woman in the photo commented, Steph L Davis - +Tom Anderson Tom - I'm sad you used this pic :(

whalesalad 15y ago

Google+ is not sexy. No one thinks Facebook is sexy. My mom doesn't think it's sexy. My mom doesn't think the electrical company is sexy either. Neither does my sister, or my girlfriend, or my roommate. They are all tools for communication and some are better than others. I think most of this Google+ noise is just fanboys who are glad to have something new. I'm all for competition but Google+, to me, is not very impressive at all. I'll use whatever tool those people I mentioned above are using... because that's all that really matters.