Demoscene social issues
category: general [glöplog]
Discussing is always good.
Everybody has there own views on this. I don't even know if Leijaa as organizer is even aware of the animal porn Atari Falcon demo at Eremation and Dreamdealers' Gasp which made my brother and his girlfriend not submit and leave, don't know if Gengis/Bomb or Clawz/Bomb remember hitting at my brother's girlfriend at that same party either. And these are the nice guys we remember.
@tomkh
About forgetting children :
It's not only women that we need but also children :
read this thread please.
or tl;dr :
I assume you want more women for the reason I stated above, not so just you feel surrounded by them like in a nightclub, so please also include the children group.
About your own choices :
You can never expect a North American party to be like a European party because of cultures. Within Europe you have the suck parties where people yell a machine name, exclude, puke and grop and then you have nice parties. You chose which party you want to go to, thus it is not difficult to understand why the organizers cannot be blamed. When you look at who organizes what, it's difficult not to see what to expect.
About the issue of why won't women or children attend more :
Like Havoc hinted more or less, things don't change or so slowly that these are society changes and unreachable by will alone. I'm not certain waving the "females/all welcome" flag frantically is going to really boost such targeted attendance : on the contrary it's a bit frightening (a friend organized a party where fee was waived for women and he got akward comments albeit I knew for sure he was doing for the right reasons we are alluding to here - just the wrong way).
You don't bring someone at a party and they want to become demosceners (there are rare exceptions) - in most cases, it's the other way around : someone studies computing and science and has spare time during college to "try this out"(they stay or leave after a while). The root of securing a future generation of demosceners has to do little with an implicit CoC (no porn on beam + silent room/earplugs for kids) and much with changing mentalities in schools and nations (if you have a daughter you know boys will be pushed to science activities even with lower math grades than girls, for example). At your own level the only thing you could do is provide learning material for children orientated towards learning how to program imho (just so you know we have such current project in our group : hint hint hint).
I might be incorrect of course, this is just my opinion.
Everybody has there own views on this. I don't even know if Leijaa as organizer is even aware of the animal porn Atari Falcon demo at Eremation and Dreamdealers' Gasp which made my brother and his girlfriend not submit and leave, don't know if Gengis/Bomb or Clawz/Bomb remember hitting at my brother's girlfriend at that same party either. And these are the nice guys we remember.
@tomkh
About forgetting children :
It's not only women that we need but also children :
read this thread please.
or tl;dr :
Quote:
-the scene died, or is dying because ...Blabbla ;
-the scene is made of 80% of white aging males ;
-the only two pools left to maintain survival are : women and children.
I assume you want more women for the reason I stated above, not so just you feel surrounded by them like in a nightclub, so please also include the children group.
About your own choices :
You can never expect a North American party to be like a European party because of cultures. Within Europe you have the suck parties where people yell a machine name, exclude, puke and grop and then you have nice parties. You chose which party you want to go to, thus it is not difficult to understand why the organizers cannot be blamed. When you look at who organizes what, it's difficult not to see what to expect.
About the issue of why won't women or children attend more :
Like Havoc hinted more or less, things don't change or so slowly that these are society changes and unreachable by will alone. I'm not certain waving the "females/all welcome" flag frantically is going to really boost such targeted attendance : on the contrary it's a bit frightening (a friend organized a party where fee was waived for women and he got akward comments albeit I knew for sure he was doing for the right reasons we are alluding to here - just the wrong way).
You don't bring someone at a party and they want to become demosceners (there are rare exceptions) - in most cases, it's the other way around : someone studies computing and science and has spare time during college to "try this out"(they stay or leave after a while). The root of securing a future generation of demosceners has to do little with an implicit CoC (no porn on beam + silent room/earplugs for kids) and much with changing mentalities in schools and nations (if you have a daughter you know boys will be pushed to science activities even with lower math grades than girls, for example). At your own level the only thing you could do is provide learning material for children orientated towards learning how to program imho (just so you know we have such current project in our group : hint hint hint).
I might be incorrect of course, this is just my opinion.
Quote:
Quote:Next time send a PETA speaker to a fur hunter association. I´m sure it will be a great success!
I wasn't aware that the scene was supposed to be against demo coding.
Proof: http://www.pouet.net/prod.php?which=6574 (#1 @ MS2K1)
And don´t forget that all those windows "intros" are cheating anyway.
Baudsurfer: it's not even that I want more women, I am sure there will be more. I just hope there will be more as low-level coders to make fully female-powered teams possible. And yes, "waving" doesn't work, just treating each other seriously; equality, at its best.
At the same time, I wouldn't put women and children into the same "bucket". It even sounds like some old tales were "women and children" were left "at home" while men were going to hunt/fight/etc... pretty much irrelevant nowadays.
Unfortunately, I didn't think about children issue so far, so I would restrain myself from making a stand here, sorry, but in general, yeah, what you say sounds like a good thing to me.
At the same time, I wouldn't put women and children into the same "bucket". It even sounds like some old tales were "women and children" were left "at home" while men were going to hunt/fight/etc... pretty much irrelevant nowadays.
Unfortunately, I didn't think about children issue so far, so I would restrain myself from making a stand here, sorry, but in general, yeah, what you say sounds like a good thing to me.
tomkh: I saw those posts about Woodstock Festival, and in fact they got me thinking today about hacker camps: Chaos Communication Camp, OHM, EMF. I think they have a lot of parallels with demo parties, and are probably a *way* better reference point than tech conferences: they have booze and music and creativity and 24-hour activity and light shows and people who haven't washed for three days. The gender balance is somewhat less than 50:50, but probably a fair bit closer than a typical demo party. (That can be partially put down to the fact that "hacker culture" is broader than just IT, covering things like arts and crafts as well.)
Admittedly they're a lot less rowdy than demo parties, and overall there's a sort of liberal hippie vibe to it all. Which suits me just fine, but judging from the comments here I can see that's not necessarily what people want from a demoparty atmosphere. (While I don't agree with all of the viewpoints in this thread, I've certainly learned a lot from them. Thanks!)
Anyway. CCC doesn't have a code of conduct that I can see, which surprises me quite a bit, but the one from EMFcamp is here. You may notice that there's nothing in there to say "don't get uncontrollably drunk"... in fact there's very little I can see in there that would interfere with people enjoying a demoparty in the way that they do now. (FWIW, I expect we'd need to carve out an exception to allow some degree of offensive content in demos: "tone policing" demo content is not a road I want to head down.)
Havoc: Thanks for the explanation - I didn't know there was so much red tape involved in adopting a CoC officially. I'd see no problem with them just having the status of 'house rules' though - certainly, I was under the impression that that's how they work for most hacker camps / tech conferences.
Admittedly they're a lot less rowdy than demo parties, and overall there's a sort of liberal hippie vibe to it all. Which suits me just fine, but judging from the comments here I can see that's not necessarily what people want from a demoparty atmosphere. (While I don't agree with all of the viewpoints in this thread, I've certainly learned a lot from them. Thanks!)
Anyway. CCC doesn't have a code of conduct that I can see, which surprises me quite a bit, but the one from EMFcamp is here. You may notice that there's nothing in there to say "don't get uncontrollably drunk"... in fact there's very little I can see in there that would interfere with people enjoying a demoparty in the way that they do now. (FWIW, I expect we'd need to carve out an exception to allow some degree of offensive content in demos: "tone policing" demo content is not a road I want to head down.)
Havoc: Thanks for the explanation - I didn't know there was so much red tape involved in adopting a CoC officially. I'd see no problem with them just having the status of 'house rules' though - certainly, I was under the impression that that's how they work for most hacker camps / tech conferences.
gasman: didn't know about this EMF (and others), interesting stuff! We could learn from them, for sure. I've also checked out some Chaos Communication Group photos and man, we are all "doing it wrong" ;)
(Chaos Communication Camp, not Group)
Ok, sorry, CCC is a little bit crappy, going to sleep...
PulkoMandy & Gasman: What you are asking for pretty much matches my definition of fascism. You are requesting political correctness and gender shit, but actually are quite intolerant and insulting yourself, and clearly have big problems that other people have another view on the world.
The organizer that got drunk and did "HALLO WAS?" was someone who before getting drunk always worked his ass off to have you visitors have fun and who has been a lovely person. You are judging someone because he's an alcoholic (not mentioning: dead.).That's social, yes?
Gasman: To claim that the Viprinet banners - who all have been designed by a fashion, a well-known female scener - are "sexual harassment" gives me the urge to punch your face the next time I see you. And even me doing that still would be MUCH more social and tolerant than you are. So now even girls are no longer allowed to have their own opinion, just because you don't understand the concept of irony? Fucking Fascist!
The demo scene is the most open minded community there is, and our parties are a heaven for everyone who likes freedom of expression and art. That's what many of us love about the scene.
And here is how it works:
- We make our own rules. Rules from the "outside world" we don't care about. (Example: Compos)
- There are virtually no taboos
- You can be sure to see and experience something you COULDN'T expect
- Nobody gives a shit about political correctness. PC is nothing else than censorship of mind, nicely dressed up as common sense.
- We care for each other. We care for you even if you drank far too much or puked on the floor which we now have to clean.
- There are assholes everywhere. We have far less of them than other communities.
- Any form of Bigotry typically will be noticed and crushed in the scene
- We are trying to push EVERY limit we can find
If you don't wanna watch porn, move your head to another direction. Take a seat somewhere else. Just as you have any right not to want to see it, everyone else has an equal right to do. Think a compo entry is sexist, and you think sexism is bad? Fine, don't vote for this entry!
But DON'T FUCKING TELL US what is right or wrong. Our freedom and creativity is non of your fucking business.
Now, about this gender bullshit. Many sceners come from a background of being nerds, and due to this not being really used that much of girls. Because, back in the days, girls didn't want to talk to IT guys, but rather with the athletic football player over there. This has changed once people discovered that these nerds actually have something in their heads and hearts, and make good money, too.
So yes, the scene in the past consisted of nearly male only, and whenever a real girl joined a party, that gained a lot of attraction. And tell you what: A significant part of all girls that go to scene parties today do it exactly for that reason: Getting attention. Once we actually had some girls in the scene that didn't join as attention whores but because they were nerds themselves, this indeed caused problems in differentiation. We still have this situation today. Just that we all grew up a lot and many male sceners now actually have made love to a lady instead of just watching 8 bit porn about it. But in the end, most of us very well can differentiate between "someone is giving blow jobs at the info desk" kind of girl and "is sitting at her computer finishing up her compo entry". And it's completely OK to treat sex objects as sex objects. Freedom of expression, remember?
Yes, in many places of the world, people do not have equal rights. Depending on where you are, you might be oppressed because of your sex, your believes, nationality, skin color and a whole lot of other things.
The demo scene is not one of these places. When it comes to gender topics, the scene has a very distinct history, which nobody is to blame for. Possibly the biggest influence on the scene has been how the world used to look at nerds / autists 20 years ago compared to today.
And hey, it's not like you are only getting half of the prize money for winning a compo if you are a girl, like it is for example still the case in much of the commercial western world.
Anyway, to those that think demo parties are too loud, too abusive, too annoying, too colorful - there are other options than the scene. Join the Catholics. Become an apple fanboy. Collect stamps. Visit a technology conference.
So, here is a good choice you could make:
a) Try to drastically improve in regards of tolerance. Understand that your rules (including social ones) are not our rules, and that other people have completely different set of things they find insulting than you. And stop trying to feel insulted, good damn it. It's not like the frigging Viprinet banner ruptured your vulva while shitting on your mum's face. It's a banner made out of cuddly fabric. It can't hurt you (unless you try really hard.)
or
b) Take your political correctness up your arse and GET THE FUCK OUT
But sure, you can also waste your time trying c) - bringing law and order and political correctness and gender debates and soya lattes and shit to our community. Good luck with that.
The organizer that got drunk and did "HALLO WAS?" was someone who before getting drunk always worked his ass off to have you visitors have fun and who has been a lovely person. You are judging someone because he's an alcoholic (not mentioning: dead.).That's social, yes?
Gasman: To claim that the Viprinet banners - who all have been designed by a fashion, a well-known female scener - are "sexual harassment" gives me the urge to punch your face the next time I see you. And even me doing that still would be MUCH more social and tolerant than you are. So now even girls are no longer allowed to have their own opinion, just because you don't understand the concept of irony? Fucking Fascist!
The demo scene is the most open minded community there is, and our parties are a heaven for everyone who likes freedom of expression and art. That's what many of us love about the scene.
And here is how it works:
- We make our own rules. Rules from the "outside world" we don't care about. (Example: Compos)
- There are virtually no taboos
- You can be sure to see and experience something you COULDN'T expect
- Nobody gives a shit about political correctness. PC is nothing else than censorship of mind, nicely dressed up as common sense.
- We care for each other. We care for you even if you drank far too much or puked on the floor which we now have to clean.
- There are assholes everywhere. We have far less of them than other communities.
- Any form of Bigotry typically will be noticed and crushed in the scene
- We are trying to push EVERY limit we can find
If you don't wanna watch porn, move your head to another direction. Take a seat somewhere else. Just as you have any right not to want to see it, everyone else has an equal right to do. Think a compo entry is sexist, and you think sexism is bad? Fine, don't vote for this entry!
But DON'T FUCKING TELL US what is right or wrong. Our freedom and creativity is non of your fucking business.
Now, about this gender bullshit. Many sceners come from a background of being nerds, and due to this not being really used that much of girls. Because, back in the days, girls didn't want to talk to IT guys, but rather with the athletic football player over there. This has changed once people discovered that these nerds actually have something in their heads and hearts, and make good money, too.
So yes, the scene in the past consisted of nearly male only, and whenever a real girl joined a party, that gained a lot of attraction. And tell you what: A significant part of all girls that go to scene parties today do it exactly for that reason: Getting attention. Once we actually had some girls in the scene that didn't join as attention whores but because they were nerds themselves, this indeed caused problems in differentiation. We still have this situation today. Just that we all grew up a lot and many male sceners now actually have made love to a lady instead of just watching 8 bit porn about it. But in the end, most of us very well can differentiate between "someone is giving blow jobs at the info desk" kind of girl and "is sitting at her computer finishing up her compo entry". And it's completely OK to treat sex objects as sex objects. Freedom of expression, remember?
Yes, in many places of the world, people do not have equal rights. Depending on where you are, you might be oppressed because of your sex, your believes, nationality, skin color and a whole lot of other things.
The demo scene is not one of these places. When it comes to gender topics, the scene has a very distinct history, which nobody is to blame for. Possibly the biggest influence on the scene has been how the world used to look at nerds / autists 20 years ago compared to today.
And hey, it's not like you are only getting half of the prize money for winning a compo if you are a girl, like it is for example still the case in much of the commercial western world.
Anyway, to those that think demo parties are too loud, too abusive, too annoying, too colorful - there are other options than the scene. Join the Catholics. Become an apple fanboy. Collect stamps. Visit a technology conference.
So, here is a good choice you could make:
a) Try to drastically improve in regards of tolerance. Understand that your rules (including social ones) are not our rules, and that other people have completely different set of things they find insulting than you. And stop trying to feel insulted, good damn it. It's not like the frigging Viprinet banner ruptured your vulva while shitting on your mum's face. It's a banner made out of cuddly fabric. It can't hurt you (unless you try really hard.)
or
b) Take your political correctness up your arse and GET THE FUCK OUT
But sure, you can also waste your time trying c) - bringing law and order and political correctness and gender debates and soya lattes and shit to our community. Good luck with that.
Hey don't go to bed just yet ;)
I think you are missing the point. No extra women of your age (exept someone's girfriend) is going to come by automagically at a demoparty : that generation has already been "doomed" somewhat. But these women you talk about are now girls, hence it makes sense to invest in children bringing up to demoscene culture rather than focusing on already "too late" present imho.
And no not all PC intros "cheat" (sizetros don't and oldschool intros don't). That's also excluding while this thread is about including and evolving one's way of perceiving.
Quote:
At the same time, I wouldn't put women and children into the same "bucket". It even sounds like some old tales were "women and children" were left "at home" while men were going to hunt/fight/etc... pretty much irrelevant nowadays [...] Unfortunately, I didn't think about children issue so far
I think you are missing the point. No extra women of your age (exept someone's girfriend) is going to come by automagically at a demoparty : that generation has already been "doomed" somewhat. But these women you talk about are now girls, hence it makes sense to invest in children bringing up to demoscene culture rather than focusing on already "too late" present imho.
And no not all PC intros "cheat" (sizetros don't and oldschool intros don't). That's also excluding while this thread is about including and evolving one's way of perceiving.
And the PC intros that cheat, cheat equally. By this I mean if on a 100m race, each runner has exactly 1m in advance, the result on that 99m ought to be the same as the former. It starts being akward when you have "combined" compos, and some platforms or size can feel cheated a bit I reckon. But then if you have those "combined" compos, it means there are not enough entries per category from the start : it means the number of prods is reducing because the number of sceners leaving is higher than the number of sceners entering (not always orgas' fault) - taht's the subject of renewal we're talking about at this right instant. That and the explosion of number of demoparties.
TS: "regarding the "ati-schnitte"" - we wanted her to give an actual seminar in the seminar area, ATI forced us and her to have her talk on the main stage. I wasn't too happy either to see her getting boo'ed at, but people doing that did have a point.
It was a good lesson to us, though. That stuff was the reason we started doing the "VIP area", which actually meant "any sponsor that arrives will be made stoned and drunk instantly, and then party hard instead of trying to treat a scene party like a technology conference". Turned out to work great.
These days major demo scene party sponsors typically are much better prepared and have adjusted expectations and ways to approach sceners.
It was a good lesson to us, though. That stuff was the reason we started doing the "VIP area", which actually meant "any sponsor that arrives will be made stoned and drunk instantly, and then party hard instead of trying to treat a scene party like a technology conference". Turned out to work great.
These days major demo scene party sponsors typically are much better prepared and have adjusted expectations and ways to approach sceners.
Gasman - Can't say I've ever had any issues of groping or inappropriate comments, other than some banter which I am capable of handling. Maybe I don't seek out "perceived injustices" or rather look for something that doesn't really exist. The industry that I work in is even less diverse than IT. Being a mixed race woman, I have never really found an issue with sexism nor race in the scene or in my industry. Perhaps it was the way I was raised; my parents were wonderful enough to equip me with the ability to see myself as a person and allow myself to be judged on my abilities rather than defined by my race or gender. I don't even recall any problems back at my first party in 1999!
ewww don't get me started on children at demparties. Wholly inappropriate imo....
ewww don't get me started on children at demparties. Wholly inappropriate imo....
I am a nice guy, but please stop advancing the strawman that if we were all politically correct people, the scene would suddenly have an influx of young women.
It's not like we are doing too hot on attracting new people in general, and here I even mean sweaty young males with bad skin whose primary female experiences revolve around porn sites and awkward making-out with their aunts. If we can't even attract those people in numbers I think the idea that if nobody had shouted "tits" in 2008 we would have ushered in the new utopia is... bizarre. And we are way way more tolerant than sweaty young nerds who bitch on twitter. Way more. Eons more.
I will be the first to admit that we aren't exactly an easy community to penetrate - so much internal jokery, a high technical treshold and such a sensory bombardment of otherness at parties. Thats why things like the Revision Newbie area as well as events that are not pure demoscene parties like TG Creativia and the more mellow tech-conferencey american demoparties are a good idea. I think we need do these kinds of things in order to help people penetrate the veil and acquire both the cultural and technical competency.
And THEN we need to maybe take 10% off the edge of a few people. In 2004 I would have said 30% but age took care of that. Thank you, Arrow of Time.
It's not like we are doing too hot on attracting new people in general, and here I even mean sweaty young males with bad skin whose primary female experiences revolve around porn sites and awkward making-out with their aunts. If we can't even attract those people in numbers I think the idea that if nobody had shouted "tits" in 2008 we would have ushered in the new utopia is... bizarre. And we are way way more tolerant than sweaty young nerds who bitch on twitter. Way more. Eons more.
I will be the first to admit that we aren't exactly an easy community to penetrate - so much internal jokery, a high technical treshold and such a sensory bombardment of otherness at parties. Thats why things like the Revision Newbie area as well as events that are not pure demoscene parties like TG Creativia and the more mellow tech-conferencey american demoparties are a good idea. I think we need do these kinds of things in order to help people penetrate the veil and acquire both the cultural and technical competency.
And THEN we need to maybe take 10% off the edge of a few people. In 2004 I would have said 30% but age took care of that. Thank you, Arrow of Time.
The times I walked past the "new visitor area" and looked at it I saw a handful of people sitting there at most. How did they perceive their first demoparty? Were they approached by other demosceners and actively joining the party happenings?
I'm asking this because, without having spoken to them myself, it seemed to me like a well meant idea had somehow gone wrong - at least the tables seemed like a lonely place.
Now I really wish I had stopped by and said Hello! a couple times.
I'm asking this because, without having spoken to them myself, it seemed to me like a well meant idea had somehow gone wrong - at least the tables seemed like a lonely place.
Now I really wish I had stopped by and said Hello! a couple times.
I have been reading the whole thread twice and I still don't see where the discussion is supposed to go: so far it is as pointless as stating that if Harley Davidson bikers meetups had no strip teases and no Motorhead gigs they would be much more appealing to the general public.
Scamp- no need to get personal.. my entries were complete, so I had my fun. Oh wait, you totally forgot that I entered two compos at that party? Or do you just pick and choose what you consider a meaningful contribution?
Same Sunspire - wish I had spent some time saying hello and all. The smaller parties are a great way of integrating new people too - it seems easier to get to talk to people for some reason... or maybe thats just me :)?
Regarding "party hard" and "tolerance": I don't mind the people partying hard if they leave me with an opportunity to avoid them. Most of the time, I walk away from the drunks, sit away from the PA systems, or ask nicely if they could tone it down. That works well.
...with one exception: Compos. Here's one request to the people that stress it's a demoPARTY: Please remember that it's mainly a DEMOparty. During compos, don't puke on me, don't talk loudly all the time, and don't shout anything while a demo is running. Shouting inbetween demos is fine, but everything else is fucking rude (to me and even more so to the people who worked hard to create the demo).
I can't go to the organizers for help during compos because I'll lose my seat then. And I know from first-hand experience that asking nicely won't help much in that situation most of the time.
Tolerance works both ways. So, dear party people, I let you party hard in peace if you let me watch the compos in peace, okay? Because that's one of the main reasons I go to demoparties, and that's probably also true for newbies who are not yet "members of the family" as well.
...with one exception: Compos. Here's one request to the people that stress it's a demoPARTY: Please remember that it's mainly a DEMOparty. During compos, don't puke on me, don't talk loudly all the time, and don't shout anything while a demo is running. Shouting inbetween demos is fine, but everything else is fucking rude (to me and even more so to the people who worked hard to create the demo).
I can't go to the organizers for help during compos because I'll lose my seat then. And I know from first-hand experience that asking nicely won't help much in that situation most of the time.
Tolerance works both ways. So, dear party people, I let you party hard in peace if you let me watch the compos in peace, okay? Because that's one of the main reasons I go to demoparties, and that's probably also true for newbies who are not yet "members of the family" as well.
Couple of things, Scamp.
1. You can't really claim someone is fascist right after you threatened to punch them in the face.
2. You can't really claim someone is intolerant and then tell them they should either change or leave.
3. You can't really claim there's no bigotry and then claim nerds are popular with women now because now they make more money.
1. You can't really claim someone is fascist right after you threatened to punch them in the face.
2. You can't really claim someone is intolerant and then tell them they should either change or leave.
3. You can't really claim there's no bigotry and then claim nerds are popular with women now because now they make more money.
...and that's really just scratching the surface that is the trainwreck of a post.
Baudsurfer: I see your point now, and sure, it makes sense. Few years ago there was a big social action in PL encouraging young girls to study engineering topics - I guess other EU countries were doing the same. I don't know how it all went (probably it is not hard to find out the exact numbers), but apparently there was an issue. So, hopefully, thanks to actions like this, we will have newcomers;)
I have to admit that I agreed with a couple of scamp's points until he took a jab at me. Next time I'll make a point to not have my entries finished ahead of time so that I can "sit at my computer and finish my compo entry" haha ;)
Gargaj, +1000 in agreement w/ your reply
Ok, got numbers. Currently (in PL) only ~10% of comp.sci.students are women, and no real growth :( Although there is a clear and sustained growth in other technical/engineering faculties (up to 36% of women, 6% more over 7 years). So it's not as good as I thought, but that would explain why EMF-like meetups (oriented to other sciences) has higher ratio.
Quote:
The times I walked past the "new visitor area" and looked at it I saw a handful of people sitting there at most. How did they perceive their first demoparty? Were they approached by other demosceners and actively joining the party happenings?
One of the newbies was in the livecoding competition (LJ), he was eliminated in the opening round but told me he'll be back for revenge next year.
And to the @#$% who threatened to punch my buddy Gasman: Karma is a bitch and there's always bullies bigger than you.
