Dale Dougherty, CEO of Make magazine, accuses Naomi Wu to be fake

[Dubbie]

As a good journalist, he asked other sources for confirmation like Bunnie, and he still wrote this tweet. And in his apologize message he didn't explain why he was wrong. So he could do this again in future, who knows why, maybe he got grumpy. These are all reasons to resign as a CEO for such a reputable brand

This to me is why he should resign. He didn’t make a mistake. He demonstrated that he holds attitudes that are incompatible with his position. His apology did zero to demonstrate that he had changed. Basically it’s the issue that he is not qualified for his job. For other expertise areas, no one expects that an incompetent CEO will “figure it out eventually”.

[taydin]

I watched the video where she builds the 3D printer and curiously, I had a lot of trouble concentrating on the 3D printer   

Joke aside, it is obvious that her looks are a very big part of her business model.

[BBBbbb]

I don’t like her appearance, as I find her looks unhealthy (fragile frame low on muscle mass burdened by huge implants)

She's Asian and Asians tend to be on the skinny side. One of my Asian friends, once an IEEE model at Texas A&M, is even skinnier than her. That is not to say that Asians (or anyone) have to be crazy skinny to be attractive, of course.

If you prefer women who are modest and very strong (as in strong enough to lift one end of a Nissan Leaf battery!), watch Rinoa Super-Genius instead. You'll find a number of instances where her modesty causes some thermal issues and she even goes to length to build an electronic contraption to keep her cool. Naomi's low tech solution seems to be far more effective and (at least to some) cooler looking as well.

It was a comment from an engineering point of view.
I have no problem with her being skinny, but that frame is too fragile for that amount of silicone. At one point it’s going to take its toll on the lumbar area and could easily lead to kyphosis.

Regarding my type of women, man not sure you or many other would share my taste. Powerlifting as an occasional hobby left some serious consequences. I like them a lot bigger and stronger. (Likes of Larissa Reis, Michelle Lewin, and bigger...)

[EEVblog]

We all seem to be avoiding, due to sensitivity, fact that she’s using the old rule “sex sells”, and I wouldn’t blame anyone from the public who would find this inappropriate, but it’s a legitimate business model, and somebody from the “media world”, like this CEO of Make should know better than to give a dumbass criticism like this.

That's the thing. I don't think this was just a flippant comment, there has to be some personal motive of sorts behind this.
He only apologised when the Internet blew up in his face.

[EEVblog]

To me that reads like "Sorry I got caught, I'd better say something to moderate the backlash" not like a proper apology.
The most damning thing in all this is that three days before the infamous tweet he asked Bunnie Huang about her. Here's what Bunnie had to say:

What is personally disappointing is that Dale reached out to me on November 2nd with an email asking what I thought about an anonymous post that accused Naomi of being a fake. I vouched for Naomi as a real person and as a budding Maker; I wrote back to Dale that “I take the approach of interacting with her like any other enthusiastic, curious Maker and the resulting interactions have been positive. She’s a fast learner.”

To me, that adds premeditation to the tweet. This wasn't something carelessly said in a moment.

Yep, that's the big thing here. Dale approached Bunnie because, well, not many come with a bigger reputation, and he knows Naomi personally.
If should have been done and dusted right there from a journalistic investigation standpoint.

Should they put her on the front cover of the next issue? 

[donotdespisethesnake]

Dale Dougherty is clearly not fit to be be CEO of an important company in the maker community! Maybe champion of women in tech, Lady Ada, and her white knight, Phil Torrone, will start an internet  campaign to depose personal friend and former colleague, Dale Dougherty, from his influential office?

Oh wait, maybe not 

[coppice]

Before this I knew who Naomi Wu is. I've been surprised over the last year or two how many people with no interest in technology seem to know who Naomi Wu is.

Before this I had never heard of Dale Dougherty or Make magazine.

Sounds like someone thinks no publicity is bad publicity, and acted accordingly.

[chicken]

For a bit of context, one should keep in mind that she was publicly hackling Make and Makerfaire for months. She finally succeeded to provoke an unprofessional response from Dougherty with the accompanying internet blow-up. Congratulations, I guess.

As an example, see this article about her from last January:
http://www.makery.info/en/2017/01/30/sexy-cyborg-la-communaute-maker-est-reservee-aux-privilegies-blancs/

"If she was invited this January 21-22 to the Bangkok Mini Maker Faire, last October 2016, her own hometown of Shenzhen preferred to do it without her—much to her chagrin."

"When you have a Maker Faire in a city of 10 million without a single local female Maker- your "movement" is broken"

And to the Raspberry Pi foundation: "When you have an all White "Educational Foundation" snubbing a self-taught female Maker from a 2nd world country- your "movement" is broken".

Way to make friends.

[janoc]

I watched the video where she builds the 3D printer and curiously, I had a lot of trouble concentrating on the 3D printer   

Joke aside, it is obvious that her looks are a very big part of her business model.

Well, she actually admits so much here:
https://pastebin.com/V3474kYs

Good read, explains a lot of thing why she is doing things in the way she is. She also says very clearly that she is Chinese, in China her looks never gave her trouble and it is not really her fault that Westerners assume that cultural norms are the same everywhere (they aren't).

Seriously, fellow guys, if we can't keep our hormones in check because of a half-naked Chinese girl with boob implants and resort to things like slut-shaming her or assume she has to be a bimbo, that's really not her problem but ours. Requiring women to dress "modestly" so that our manly sensitivities are not offended and our hormones are not distracting us from the discourse is something the likes of Taliban do. I thought we were a bit more civilized than that?

[NiHaoMike]

I watched the video where she builds the 3D printer and curiously, I had a lot of trouble concentrating on the 3D printer   

Joke aside, it is obvious that her looks are a very big part of her business model.

The interesting part is that she doesn't consider herself a model. Maybe because unlike the other models I know who are also engineers, she doesn't model for a company or organization. (Joanne Chiang, however, is also independent but does call herself a model...) Doesn't change the fact that if you have a 4K display, turning on the high quality upscaler is well worth the fraction of a cent in lost mining profits. (I actually leave the high quality upscaler on even when watching content that does not take advantage. Those extra fractions of a cent are not worth the effort to constantly change settings.)

Regarding my type of women, man not sure you or many other would share my taste. Powerlifting as an occasional hobby left some serious consequences. I like them a lot bigger and stronger. (Likes of Larissa Reis, Michelle Lewin, and bigger...)

Interesting that the examples you gave show themselves off to about the same extent Naomi does. Apparently being stronger than 95% or so of the general population makes that more acceptable? Another interesting data point is Freelee the Banana Girl, who is an independent Australian fitness model but not a bodybuilder/powerlifter and does often get criticized for showing off too much and being too skinny. (The really funny part is when others claim that her diet would make her fat when results clearly show the opposite!)

[janoc]

Way to make friends.

Seriously, and what was she supposed to do? Be a good girl, shut up, swallow it and toe the line in order to not anger the mighty Make magazine and its CEO?

She spoke up pointing out something she considers unfair. Regardless of whether her action was justified or not, Make could have kept ignoring her or called her out on it if it was incorrect. But none of it justifies the attempts to destroy her reputation - which is pretty much everything in China.

[Cyberdragon]

My how history repeats itself...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hedy_Lamarr

[rsjsouza]

For a bit of context, one should keep in mind that she was publicly hackling Make and Makerfaire for months. She finally succeeded to provoke an unprofessional response from Dougherty with the accompanying internet blow-up. Congratulations, I guess.

As an example, see this article about her from last January:
http://www.makery.info/en/2017/01/30/sexy-cyborg-la-communaute-maker-est-reservee-aux-privilegies-blancs/

"If she was invited this January 21-22 to the Bangkok Mini Maker Faire, last October 2016, her own hometown of Shenzhen preferred to do it without her—much to her chagrin."

"When you have a Maker Faire in a city of 10 million without a single local female Maker- your "movement" is broken"

And to the Raspberry Pi foundation: "When you have an all White "Educational Foundation" snubbing a self-taught female Maker from a 2nd world country- your "movement" is broken".

Way to make friends.

Well, the article you sent is alright - I really don't see much of anything serious, really, especially with quotes such as:
"It’s the other way around, I actually wear more conservative clothing when taking maker pictures and video for English-speaking social media than I do normally just walking around and running errands. Westerners just seem to get enraged over silly clothes. Well, Americans and British mostly. Europeans and South Americans just think it’s funny and exciting, like Chinese do usually."

Culture greatly varies across the world. I could send pictures of Brazilian people that would make some cultures cringe. 

"I think when trying to participate in a community, being an outsider is always an issue. There are obviously plenty of female makers featured in Make and on the Raspberry Pi Foundation’s website, so that alone is not the issue."

That shows quite a balanced and real way of addressing the hurdles.

What I have a bit of an issue is with:
"That there was a deliberate decision to exclude me is something pretty much everyone agrees on. Whether it’s justified is really the only point of contention. Make had been in contact with me for months but felt that it was preferable to have no female Chinese makers at the Shenzhen Maker Faire in October rather than to have me"

Which goes against my personal belief that merit should be the bar to be chosen to be a highlighted speaker.

One quote that reveals her sentiment towards the publishers/makers/organizers is:
"Two years ago when I came across making, and all the books and magazines said they wanted people like me, I assumed that it was true. Now I know that people can achieve status within a community simply by saying they have certain values—without the inconvenience and wasted resources of acting on them."

I can't say I disagree with her based on the quote above (I have seen this happen myself), but perhaps they simply didn't see enough merit in her work to pursue further promotion? That or the numerous "books and magazines" can't be all wrong and perhaps there is more to the story that it is brought to light?

And yes, I disagree with the CEO for making the poor judgment call. Regardless of her heckling, there were many other ways to address this apart from trying to tear apart the image/reputation in a somewhat ad hominem way. The effects a tweet or opinion of a person of influence is quite disruptive to a regular person that works in the same field. Is it enough to sack him? I am not entirely sure, but publicly extend the hand to help untangle the position the person was put would certainly be a good act.

[langwadt]

all things considered she should probably send him a xmas present, you can't buy this kind of exposure

[chicken]

<quote>but felt that it was preferable to have no female Chinese makers at the Shenzhen Maker Faire in October rather than to have me"</quote>

That's her side of the story. It may have gone down something like this:

Real Sexy Cyborg: Hey I'm an Internet personality doing maker stuff with a hot YouTube channel. We should do something together.

Makerfaire: (watching a few videos with a lot if skin, thinking about their target audience - kids, families, schools) Errr, thanks, we don't think it's a fit.

Real Sexy Cyborg: wah wah Make is discriminating against women!

The cultural thing goes both ways. While her outfit may be acceptable in down-town Shenzen, Make would be in hot water with a lot of its target audience in the West with a figurehead like Naomi.

[Cerebus]

The cultural thing goes both ways. While her outfit may be acceptable in down-town Shenzen, Make would be in hot water with a lot of its target audience in the West with a figurehead like Naomi.

Yeah, because pasty faced middle aged hipsters are sooo attractive as figureheads.

OK, that's a bit snarky but I think it's justified in the circumstances.

The conversation here has gone back to revolve around Naoumi's appearance, rather than the substance of all this, which is, lest we forget, an experienced editor, ignoring trustworthy sources to favour and promulgate an anonymous accusation that Naoumi was a front, a fake, whose work was really done by others.

Anyone would think that some folks are so insubstantial that the sight of a sexy woman makes them incapable of rational thought from that point onward.

[FrankBuss]

Makerfaire: (watching a few videos with a lot if skin, thinking about their target audience - kids, families, schools) Errr, thanks, we don't think it's a fit.

She was at a Maker Faire in Bangkok and can dress more "family friendly", as she called it: https://imgur.com/a/X85wY

[janoc]

The cultural thing goes both ways. While her outfit may be acceptable in down-town Shenzen, Make would be in hot water with a lot of its target audience in the West with a figurehead like Naomi.

Which would be relevant if:

a) She wanted to be such figurehead (she doesn't - she complained about the event in Shenzen, not in the West)

b) She didn't say explicitly that she respects the cultural norms of other places (see the FAQ she posted - it is right there). So one can assume that she would dress differently if she was to be on the cover of Western edition of Make.

OTOH, I don't see why - her look is very much part of her identity, her brand. And let's not talk that "family friendly" BS - twerking Miley Cyrus is not a problem but a Chinese girl in crop top putting a 3D printer together is?

So this is pretty much a strawman argument. And again, for some reason, it focuses on how she looks and chooses to dress - as if that was somehow making her point less valid. I haven't seen a man's look or choice of dress being considered relevant when discussing something similar.

[EEVblog]

Makerfaire: (watching a few videos with a lot if skin, thinking about their target audience - kids, families, schools) Errr, thanks, we don't think it's a fit.

She was at a Maker Faire in Bangkok and can dress more "family friendly", as she called it: https://imgur.com/a/X85wY

Preface:
I fully support Naomi and have done so publicly on several occasions, and am not trying to provide an excuse for what Dale did in any way at all, I think he did a duche thing very deliberately.

So ignoring all other issues at play here, let's play devils advocate on the "image/branding" issue alone and turn the tables over and see what happens, as I think this is an interesting side discussion. And this can apply to anyone, not just Naomi.

I get invited to lots of conferences and faires, but let's say I started dressing up in a Borat Mankini in videos and renamed my channel and twitter handle to RealSexyDave and started turning up to interviews and site visits in said mankini and that was now my "look" and "brand".
What would happen? I'd get dis-invited quicker than you can blink, and all requests to feature or present at any conference or faire would be met with deathly silence, that is practically guaranteed.
And I'm a "white male".

The point is obviously that in a practical world you can't expect zero consequences for being extremely outside the "norm", and I'm sure Naomi would agree. Gender and race, it doesn't matter. She has chosen her brand and appearance as "sexy" (and more power to her), and some good opportunities will come from that, and some opportunities will be missed because of that, that's the nature of the game.
Not everyone will take her seriously or want their event/brand to be associated with her "image". It's unfortunate, I as much as anyone would like a meritocracy based society, and we should work towards that. But I'm not naive enough to think that's even close to 100% possible.
The "celebrity" based thing can often work in your favour too, be it appearance based, or news or social media based or something else. Take a look at "Clock Boy", a kid with near zero skills gets invites to all sorts of opportunities.

And it's not just appearance, it could be your political leanings. Say you tweeted constantly about the Jews or *insert controversial political hot topic here*, the result would be the same, you'd miss lots of opportunities regardless of how good you are and your body of work are.

How many celebrities have been dis-invited from events or had their careers ruined by a single tweet because people and companies don't want to be associated with what that person said?
Take Dilbert creator Scott Adams, his very successful speaking career was completely ruined because he said Trump would win the election and outlined his technical reasons why. And he didn't support Trump, it was purely a technical commentary on his chances. Boom, engagements cancelled and no more invites, career gone.

[Cerebus]

@RealSexyDave:

[TerraHertz]

As one of her fans since she first showed up on the net, I've observed several factors in her story:
* There are large numbers of very negative people on the net, who just like to try and tear down anyone who seems to be doing well. The more successful someone is, the more the losers attack. You can find many discussions of this mentality, with labels like psychopaths and narcissists. There really are many people who just waste good oxygen.

* Reacting to and engaging the losers, just gives them more incentive to continue attacking. The only practical way to deal with them is to completely ignore them.

* Something in Naomi's character makes her unable to ignore detractors, no matter how absurd their attacks. She spends way too much time in battles with Trolls. She always easily and spectacularly wins in the eyes of fair observers, but she can never ultimately win that war since there are infinite numbers of Trolls.

About her assumed persona:
* In her teens she identified a problem: How to avoid the unbearable fate of becoming one of millions of anonymous factory workers? I gather her family/financial situation didn't allow for the university path. Her solution was brilliant, and shows an incredible creativity, intelligence and determination. She self-taught herself enough coding skills to freelance, earned enough money for the boob job, and made herself into 'Sexy Cyborg'. The entire purpose was to stand out. Which she very effectively does.

* It's important to realize that her boob job was not for the same purpose as many women get breast enlargements. Typically it's to make money by pandering to (some) male's fetish, doing porn, marrying some rich guy. In her case it was part of a theme - becoming an artificial person, a cyborg, while pursuing a public technology arc. It's more like a kind of artform. I don't like fake boobs in general, but admire her choices for their creativity.

* The 'minimal permissible clothing' thing is a thematically consistent part of her persona. What many people who only bother to seek the extremes of her range don't realize, is that she adapts her style to the social expectations of where she is. When she went to a Maker show in Thailand for instance, she dressed quite conservatively. Still very bright and stand-out, but well covered. I think people who avoid inviting her to mainstream Maker shows don't bother to even ask how she'd dress at their show. Or maybe it's true they have other reasons for excluding her they'd rather not state, and just use the clothing stuff as an excuse.

* Having grown up in China, which is pretty blase about such things as clothing choices, she didn't anticipate something she encountered when her network persona went global. Religion-based wowsers, in America particularly. I'm pretty sure she walked into that one entirely unprepared. She still doesn't really get it - that it doesn't matter what she says or does, her appearance just triggers the witch-burning instinctive hate reflex in a lot of sexually repressed types. They don't even know why they react that way or how stupid it is, and they are certainly not going to change their attitudes under any circumstances. This blends with the Narcissist hate response, into a very poisonous result. Luckily she's not within geographical reach of those guys, or it would be mobs with flaming torches and pitchforks time.
Anyway, she can't resist trying to argue with them. Bad luck for her.

* There's really only one mystery about Naomi. Many of her photos and videos are selfie stick or tripod sets. But some are taken by another person. Who has never, ever been shown. At most sometimes an extra meal set at her table. Might even be multiple people at different times, friends, family, boyfriend, etc. Doesn't matter. They are not doing the projects, she is.

* I know for sure it's her conceiving and carrying out her own projects, not due to what she achieves, but rather what fails. She has had a few fails, and they are all exactly what I would expect from someone with her background, age, and lack of experience. If she had an older, more tech-experienced person helping, guiding or scripting her, those fails would not have happened. For instance one of them was her trying to implement a driver circuit for her LCD-see-through skirt. She wanted to matrix drive it, in patterns. She bought a proto plug board, and tried to implement the scanning circuit on it. Nice try, probably would have worked, except in pics of the proto board I could see she doesn't understand about grounding, supply caps, ringing on lines, etc. She got very frustrated over why it didn't work. She has no oscilloscope btw, would someone PLEASE give her one and show her how to use it? (I would, but she refuses to communicate.) Anyway, it was an electronics nube conceptual mistake, that revealed she definitely does not have anyone knowledgeable helping her with even basic electronics theory. She's fiercely independent, will sometimes ask for advice among her circles, but other times tries to smash through all on her own. Respect for that!
Though, hopefully eventually she'll learn that true engineering means getting whatever help you can.

* The American guy claiming she's not real... ha ha. Probably an idiot, sexist, racist, American-Exceptionalist, whatever. Just finds the idea of her success story offensive to his narrow worldview, didn't bother to do any web searching, and stuck his foot-in-mouth. Now has been taught a quick lesson in not being a jerk.
Best to simply ignore such people, no matter who they are. It's very unfortunate someone like him runs an important Maker magazine. But then, virtually ALL the mainstream media is in the hands of corrupt, biased people who should be in jail for various reasons, so what else is news?

I still can't decide if I wish she was less combative, or if that is really essential to her success.

Edit: left out a point. And a word.

[BBBbbb]

Regarding my type of women, man not sure you or many other would share my taste. Powerlifting as an occasional hobby left some serious consequences. I like them a lot bigger and stronger. (Likes of Larissa Reis, Michelle Lewin, and bigger...)

Interesting that the examples you gave show themselves off to about the same extent Naomi does. Apparently being stronger than 95% or so of the general population makes that more acceptable? Another interesting data point is Freelee the Banana Girl, who is an independent Australian fitness model but not a bodybuilder/powerlifter and does often get criticized for showing off too much and being too skinny. (The really funny part is when others claim that her diet would make her fat when results clearly show the opposite!)

I thing you didn't understand me in the way I intended to be understood. I never said I have a problem with her way of presentation. I said "sex sells" model is fine with me, I'm just not interested in it, and I'd rather spend my time on "higher level" electronic videos than on what she's offering.
Ladies I mentioned were just as an example of my personal taste in women, and they are someone who is straight up cashing on their looks, more as a reply to your suggestion for me for a stronger woman in electronics.
Simply, I don't care how my presenter looks like, otherwise an easy conclusion would be that I have quite a strong fetish on male hands, since I also watch big Clive, pileofstuff, Voltlog...
I still stand by my conclusion that her current body composition is going to lead to health issues along the way.

p.s. what you said about banana girl, those diet/fitness people are 99% bullshit, even those I mentioned, so don't pay too much attention to them.

[Neomys Sapiens]

I pity both Mister Dougherty and those trying to cook up excuses for his Statement for not being able simply to cherish her existence!

[FrankBuss]

I get invited to lots of conferences and faires, but let's say I started dressing up in a Borat Mankini in videos and renamed my channel and twitter handle to RealSexyDave and started turning up to interviews and site visits in said mankini and that was now my "look" and "brand".
What would happen? I'd get dis-invited quicker than you can blink, and all requests to feature or present at any conference or faire would be met with deathly silence, that is practically guaranteed.
And I'm a "white male".

I'm not into men, but I don't think a mankini is sexy. The equivalent would be you, wearing only shorts and sun glasses on the beach, weightlifting, but with oscilloscopes instead of weights, demonstrating some weird earth magnetic field inductance effect, or measuring the Schumann resonances (because you can't do this in the lab) 

[EEVblog]

I'm not into men, but I don't think a mankini is sexy. The equivalent would be you, wearing only shorts and sun glasses on the beach, weightlifting, but with oscilloscopes instead of weights, demonstrating some weird earth magnetic field inductance effect, or measuring the Schumann resonances (because you can't do this in the lab) 

I tweeted this a few days back, an ad for Back Magic cinema cameras.
Damn, if only I was that good looking, imagine the conference invites!