Adria Richards: Looking back at Donglegate

Before Gamergate, Comicsgate, or turdgate, the proto cultural battle was Donglegate. And, can we agree that “dongles” is a stupid tech term. Anything with “dong” in the name should be changed.

From Know Your Meme, ((While attending the 2013 Python programming language convention PyCon on March 17th, 2013, developer evangelist Adria Richards tweeted a photo of a group of developers seated behind her during a plenary session, stating that they had been making crude jokes about “forking” and “‘big’ dongles. ))

Looking beyond the two Dongles, look at the sea of people that don't get much sunlight.  And, the skinny arms and bad hair.  I am certain it smells like Dongles and burnt Moutain Dew...sweat.

There were two proper ways to have handled the situation. One, you should have turned around told them to stop making jokes because you wanted to listen to the presenter. Two, You should have gotten up talked to the security and told of the issue. However, throwing it to Twitter and posting it public is not the professional thing to do.  Twitter is never the way to solve issues it just makes them worse. 

People, including myself, took sides and sharpened our blades to do battle. In the end, it was a minor battle in a bigger culture war. Due to overconfidence and misguided statements, two people lost their jobs. Adria and one dude had to find new jobs. Unlike Zoe Quinn or Anita, the tech press sort of forgot about Adria and moved on to white knight for other people. I hope that was an eye-opening thing for Adria. It shows that neither the left or the right really cares about people of color.  Look at how they treat Quinn over Richards.  

Now, in 2013, Adria Richards has taken a few steps back from being an SJW or even having much of a digital footprint anymore. Her blog where she posted the story that caused the firestorm is gone. She hasn't posted on Twitter since 2016 and she's made some interesting statements before departing. She hasn't updated her own YouTube channel in four years. So, what is she doing now?

I am going to let go of the shame I've felt for being exploited and misled by journalists

— Adria Richards (@adriarichards) July 21, 2016

I would really like to know what she meant by this tweet.

Do I hate Adria Richards now? Nope, I actually identify with her after reading some of her more honest tweets and not the SJW crap she was spouting out at the time. Somewhere in her mind, it became more important to be the symbol of diversity and speaking on it instead of letting your job and presence BE the diversity. She was a black woman in tech, so let that be your message. What she did was wrong, but we can learn to change and become better people. I am hopping that is what she is doing with her life. Clearly, her passion wasmore into talking about tech stuff and less about the SJW stuff. Look at how happy she is in the video from 2011.