Photo by PinarOzger: Tim O’Reilly, Scott Beale and Violet Blue at the Facebook Party, an evening event at the 2008 Graphing Social Patterns Conference in San Diego.
On the ETech 2008 coverage roundup post, Tim O’Reilly lists me at the bottom with a not-so-sweet excerpt. Hm. Aside from that dis, the outside observations on my talk he links to are interesting, though instead of his sad quote I would have snipped the final more direct lines, “Her talk was a bit staged and prepared for my taste, but hey, I suspect that if I stood in front of 200 people and talked about my sex life, I’d have some very careful notes as well. I can’t challenge her assertions about the sexualization of online life, much as I’d like to – I’m not female, don’t write about sex, and there doesn’t appear to be a widespread fetish for balding, overweight geeks who write about foreign policy. But I would offer a mild caution on the subject of online anonymity. It’s not impossible to be anonymous online – it’s just very difficult to do it right. There are good reasons to try to be completely anonymous online, many of them non-sexual, but it’s a provocative challenge to think about whether one really needs to be hidden when people like Blue are this out in public.”
Image by CuneytTaskiran.
If they’d give me an MP3 or video of my talk, you could watch or listen and decide for yourselves. At 3am, while I prep and send out emails to panelists about my (I think, amazing) SXSW Sexual Privacy Online panel sunday, packing to fly out in a few hours — please either tell me why I should keep doing this, or just get a fucking rent-paying job as I go deeper into debt whilst I dine next to moneyed Wired editors and Facebook millionaires and then like today when I get home, I get asked to be in Nokia commercials. And rush to deposit my Heart (fucking Hearst!) check before I fly to Austin. I’m very confused.
I had other observations about ETech and my talk to offer in a roundup post before I saw this — it was the first time I’d given that talk — and I was overwhelmed afterward when people told me they were flipped out to hear the positive aspects of sexuality (all gender, all orientation, LGBT, of course) online rather than the usual and widespread negative aspects that permeate the tech industry. And that I proposed that negative sexual attention was solvable through platform evolution. My feedback was shockingly positive and almost too much. I was chatted up about it from audience members that included MySpace professionals, Disney execs and Facebook reps, to randy startup upstarts. I didn’t get a minute afterward to even flirt properly with crush objects at afterparties because so many people, strangers, had heard my talk was amazing and interrupted every conversation I had to say either they were sad they’d missed it because the buzz was good, or to ask questions to delve deeper with me into the topic as it related to their vocations. All when I was just trying to get drunk and be a *girl*… Not to mention it was an emotionally harrowing day for personal reasons.
Crazy to feel somewhat dissed, when after my talk I was hounded by people who were excited, intrigued and provoked (in a good way) by my talk from the second I stepped offstage until I stepped on the plane home. And when I was done speaking from my former-SRL clipboard with its Laughing Squid sticker, “Xenu is my Homeboy” sticker and “PSYCHOPATH” gun sticker, the back of the room was full, doorways open, people crowding in. Huh. Well, at least ETech did put my image (shot by Scott Beale, from Halloween when I was Morticia) on their front page quite a lot, though — and next to sweetie Tim, which makes me happy:
I’ll expect the same from tech cons from now on, I guess. Nevermore. Now, let me go fix my hair. Nice candid, unknown to me, afterparty images right here (wow!) and here:
Image by netik.
I for one totally loved your talk! Was very excited when i found you on the list there!
Haters are gonna hate.
I thought your talk was wonderful and as someone who writes pretty openly (not as much as you) and is still coming to terms with what to say and what expose, it was very moving. If we remain complacent & do nothing & continue to hide & be ashamed, nothing will ever get done & we will never move forward.
Alec’s intepretation of my post in #8 is right on – that opening paragraph wasn’t meant as a diss. I was very surprised that the room wasn’t packed to overflowing for your talk and took a crack at the ETech audience to make light of it. I don’t think O’Reilly or Tim meant to dismiss or diminish your talk by quoting that paragraph – it was just the first graph of a 1300-word piece, and that paragraph wasn’t especially indicative of my views of the talk.
I thought it was an extremely thoughtful and thought-provoking talk, and there was more in there germane to my interests than I’d expected. Sorry that the places where I had criticism of the talk rubbed you the wrong way. I was very glad to have the chance to hear you speak and enjoyed the talk a great deal.
Best,
-Ethan
Don’t listen to people like Tim o’Reilly. At the end of the day, the only person you have to answer to is yourself (as corny as that sounds!) In any job, any aspect of your life, there will always be people who will put you down. So you don’t do a normal office job – but office politics still exist! I haven’t been reading long but I enjoy your blog and your talks that you post. And as long as you do too, and people are still responding, that’s all that matters. Keep on keeping on. Cos a lot of us love it! x
As for the actual nature of your talk, I read it, and I thought it was fantastic.
I pretty much agreed or came to believe what you were dropping (much of it I just hadn’t given thought to before) after having read it.
As a transgender person, I really became more aware of what I was doing and why I was doing it regarding my own internet presence some years ago when I was still trying to figure myself and my sexuality out. Like I said, it wasn’t something I had thought of before, something that I always vaguely felt guilty and awkward about, but having read your talk, it made a lot more sense to me, and took a little bit of angst out of the choices I’ve made online. So, thanks for that.
You’re a star, don’t let that cranky Tim O’Reilly talk shit. And as for the money, well you gotta do what you gotta do. But I’ll tell you this much…I started working a “normal” job, pay is quite fantastic, and I’m on my way to getting benefits and the whole package…but you know…It’s hell. I don’t have time or energy to do what I should be doing, and so I get about 3 hours sleep a night because I hate my career choice. Maybe you’ll sleep easier knowing you have health insurance or a bank account you can fall back on…but do weigh whether or not you can keep doing what you’re doing, what makes you happy, while you work a “real” job.
I totally loved your talk; it’s the reason I’m now subscribed to your blog. I also saw Ethan’s comment, but took it entirely differently. I read it as him not being surprised that your talk was well-attended, but then noting that it says something about the ETech crowd that the database talk was “as well attended” (I think the ‘as’ is important).
In either case, thanks for a fantastic talk!
To be perfectly honest, Tim O’Reilly is a tool. The man should just stick to publishing books because most everything else he does makes me want to either hurt him or beat my head against my desk.
He thinks that success in one area means that he’s an expert on everything else too.
That said, I’m glad your talk went well.
the ethan zuckerman article is an interesting pedestrian reaction to your talk. i read your notes, and really liked how you encourage responsible innnernet behavior. so many people act like jackasses because they believe they’re fully cloaked by the magical electronic curtain. 99.9% of them don’t have the cajones to be so bold in person.
also, having been on both sides of the paycheck, each has its benefits and sacrifices. right now i have $27 in my checking account and no health insurance, but i no longer have to deal with the red-tape bullshit and the soul-sucking drain of a steady job.
i think a happy medium may exist, though, and i bet you could track it down if you put your mind to it.
The money situation is one I relate to. Both as someone who has in the past falsely assumed other’s people financial wealth based on how well known and/or influential I thought they were and as someone who has it assumed of me on a regular basis. I think it is easy to equate popularity with financial success – especially when the person is somehow attached to the sex industry. Everyone seems to think we are all millionaires in this biz. Yes, they exist but rarely when they are truly independent, not doing it the mainstream way, pornographers. This it seems also extends to sex writers and visionaries like yourself.
In any case, I am not sure if the debt is worth it. I don’t know your specifics (nor do I need to) and I am not saying get a day job. But maybe you need to access your expenses and what offers you what results (financially, emotionally, etc…).
Given the state of the American dollar I have had to change how I do things. I have had to figure out what expenses offer which results. Somethings got cut. Travel was one of them. Is there an area for you that does not offer back a sufficient return on investment (or debt). I say this as someone who has decided to cut back rather than carry debt. Maybe it is a mistake on my part but when I have debt I have made myself most unhappy.
i don’t know if it’s that much of a dis, really. i mean, he took the extract that essentially said that etech attendees think database structures are hotter than sex.
doesn’t reflect well on the nerds, now, does it?
Hmmm… I’m not sure if that was his opinion, or if that was a pull-out from the article he was linking to. I just checked… that’s the first paragraph of the other guy’s write-up.
oh yeah, I forgot about his bloggers’ “code of conduct”.
I’m also now remembering that for my talk, the entire first two rows were covered with “reserved” signs; seats which of course no one sat in.
I wouldn’t put too much stock in a Tim O’Reilly assessment…
This is Mr. “Blogger’s Code of Ethics after-all” which just shows you how out of touch he is.
I wonder if he’d have been as snarky if you’d had a penis…
Don’t let him get you down, Vi. Keep rocking out and doing your thing!