I read the webs. I use the Internets. I typically stay on the up-n-up of what’s going on in in the tech world, particularly in the Ruby/Rails area.

So, I was caught a little off guard in our weekly retrospective meeting for Obtiva’s studio today. Ends up there is a lot of buzz around Matt Aimonetti’s GoGaRuco talk, which apparently contained explicit material which many people felt was degrading to women (pictures of scantily-clad women, etc).

If you, like me, fell out of the loop for a day and missed this…you can read more here, here, and here. Mike Gunderloy has resigned as a member of the Rails Activists group over the event and the fallout that has ensued. I’m sure you can find more information about it if you are interested…

So, this whole deal came up in our meeting. Here’s my take:

Do I think Matt intended to offend people? I seriously doubt it. Do I know Matt? No. I’ve never spoken to him in my life. But, when do people intend to offend other people? I mean, sometimes people try to…but it’s definitely the exception. From my experience, when they do try to, they generally don’t choose “speaking at a technical conference” as the platform of choice. I think the “11:30pm hammered in the bar and that dude looked at me funny”-sort of platform is much more popular for offending people. Matt fell on the wrong side of that line of “edgy”, and that can have some very real consequences sometimes.

So, Matt made a mistake, I think. I think it was a poor way  “…to leaven an otherwise dry topic with humor” (his words). Whether it was because he thought it would be funny, the topic was so dry, or because it rained that day is irrelevant. I’m not saying he’s an asshole…I’m saying he made a mistake.

What is relevant is how people respond. Giles Blowkett has made a few comments on the posts linked to above which I think encapsulate the problems with this sort of behavior quite well. He refers to it as “poison” and think it’s a great way to put it. Daniel Philpott recently gave a talk at MWRC and mentioned the same term describing what I believe to be a similar topic. In the same way that when someone makes a bad comment about a person, client, company, employer, minority, etc under their breath and you just laugh about it is poison. This is poison too. This sort of behavior is particularly dangerous (vs. being extremely vocal or extreme) because it shifts the attitudes behavior of people in such a gradual way. All of the sudden the comments aren’t under people’s breath. Then it starts to go from laughs to negative thoughts, feelings, or loss of respect towards said entity. It all goes down hill from there. Is this the order of events every time? Maybe not. Does it always go this way? Probably not. Have I seen it happen? Yes. Many times.

So what can I do about it? Who’s going to read this blog? Like…2-3 people? If I’m lucky. What’s worse is that all of them (that’s you) were likely in that meeting earlier today. So, what’s the point? What can I, just another nobody, do? What can you do?

How about this: Stop laughing at that shit. After all, it just promotes it, right? Next time someone makes a wise crack about a minority, women, your employer, or whatever that you think crosses the line, call them out on it. Stop sitting there and laughing like a dumbass. I do that shit all the time “Ha hah”…chuckle chuckle…wink wink…and then I just let it go. I don’t want to offend them, right?

That’s poison.

I seriously doubt there will be an issue with this in future Ruby conferences, which is awesome. Why not? Because even nobodies in the community like me are thinking about it and talking about it. Why are we talking about it? Because people put their foot down and spoke up when they thought Matt crossed the line.

Speak up.