what are the genders of the people who perform at and attend live coding events in London?
I don’t know, I’ve never asked.
So how do we monitor and ensure ‘good gender balance’?
I dunno, we can guess?
When I looked through performers at AlgoRhythms in Feb, I estimated that 25% of performers weren’t white, and 35% weren’t men. Yes, I can count fairly accurately, but I haven’t asked anyone about their gender or identity so how would I really know?
Sounds a bit vague right?
Good, cos I’m not a statistician
plus when you make a metric a target…
so what really are our goals here?
vibes
it should be well known that I’m a huge fan of vibes-based organising.
Is that because I’m lazy? Well being lazy is quite good, actually. But no, its because I love good vibes!
goals
- have a great time!
- feel awesome energy!
- fun!
men-ists
I don’t know about you but when I go to something where the vibes feel off, like I’m not that comfortable or relaxed, or not enjoying it - its usually a big correlation to how much the event is a sausage fest.
this happened at <huge event that I won’t name>
if you’re the opposite, that’s cool too. Honestly, its fine go ahead.
I mean I can think of examples like talking about male suicide where it makes sense to have a excess of male energy, but even so - whatever your event or niche interest its cool if you just want to hang out with guys. Honestly.
its just not my vibe.
cos when more than half of the population aren’t there, you’re kinda missing out. By which I mean that you very much are missing out. On a lot of ideas and energy.
ideas like:
- ribbons
- dancers
- singing
- mc-ing
- EEGs
- remixes
- live coding the poster
- live drawing
- not being able to see what you type
- feeding NDI streams into TD
- the list goes on, if you remember any please say and I’ll add them!
can you see now how little energy and how few ideas I personally bring to to the scene?
anyway
but anyway, its about the vibes
I just love being around cool lovely people with great energy. I don’t mean cool in any exclusive sense, quite the opposite.
how to
so, if you want your event to have lovely vibes, how do you achieve that?
I guess start with lovely vibes?
I mean, makes sense, no?
if you’re lazy and just let confident people who feel like they deserve to be there take over then for sure you will end up with a lot of white dudes.
so maybe, do some listening, support people with awesome energy whatever their confidence levels to thrive and shine - yeah maybe do that?
I mean, maybe do that anyway? Cos like isn’t it great to see people grow in confidence?
amazing things happen, as we have seen 💖