Yahoo Sorry About Lap Dancers at Hack Day in Taiwan–So What’s the Excuse for Last Year’s Go-Go Girls?
by Kara Swisher
Posted on October 19, 2009 at 8:37 PM PT
One word: Shameful.
So, no surprise that Yahoo (YHOO), which is trying mightily to burnish its image worldwide, quickly apologized for the presence of women lap dancers onstage at its Open Hack Day in Taiwan last weekend.
In a post on its Yahoo Developer Network blog tonight, titled “Sorry,” YDN head Chris Yeh wrote:
All,
I wanted to acknowledge the public reaction generated by the images of female dancers at our Taiwan Open Hack Day this past weekend. Our hack events are designed to give developers an opportunity to learn about our APIs and technologies. As many folks have rightly pointed out, the “Hack Girls” aspect of our Taiwan Hack Day is not reflective of that spirit or purpose. And it’s certainly not the message we want to send about our values here at Yahoo!. Hack Days are about making everyone feel welcome, including women coders and technologists.
This incident is regrettable and we apologize to anyone that we have offended. Rest assured, it won’t happen again.
Best,
Chris Yeh
Head of YDN
twitter: @ydn
email: cyeh at yahoo-inc dot com
Ironically, in a post listing the winners and details of of the Open Hack event, at which Yahoo invited outside developers to brainstorm, Yahoo’s Erik Eldridge noted earlier today (italics are mine):
“This was our second visit to Taiwan, and we were really looking forward to coming back to see the passionate Taiwanese developers.”
Ouch. Worse still, top Yahoo execs–such as Taiwan CTO Joy Chan, Asia head Rose Tsou and Chief Technologist Sam Pullara, all pictured here with another Yahoo exec, Peter Lin–were in attendance at the event, although it is not clear if any of them attended the lap dance performance. (Yahoo PR is checking on that now for me.)
Like the image above, here are some more pictures of the lap dancers from a Flickr video, posted here, which has since been made private (click on the images to make them, um, larger):
And, rut-roh, here is a link to some more, even shorter-skirted photos on Flickr.
But, perhaps worst of all, this kind of thing is not new for Yahoo’s hack events in Taiwan, at least, where there seems to be some history of this sort of Pussycat-Dolls-meets-geeks tone.
It is not clear why all the thumpa-thumpa music and dancing gals did not engender complaints last year, although I am guessing the nerd lap action sent over the top.
In any case, here are four videos from the event in 2008 of even more gyrating ladies, which you can contrast with a video from Yahoo’s New York event on Oct. 12 of this year.
UPDATE: The videos have been suddenly made private by the person who posted them since I posted them last night, as they now say when you click them. They are not searchable or available any longer on YouTube. But you can see the situation from the images on the videos.
(If you want to know what a lap dance is, by the way, try Yahoo Answers!)
Comments
Not to defend what Yahoo! Taiwan did, but Taiwan does have some strange practices, including having strippers/dancers at funerals.
I was surprised to learn this from my Uncle when he attended my grandfather’s funeral. Here’s a quick backgrounder:
Grave Stakes. Time Magazine. Monday, Jun. 11, 2001
http://bit.ly/YIbQ1
and this made the mainstream U.S. press last year:
Posted by John Lin at October 19th, 2009 at 10:47 pmhttp://bit.ly/4tnWAS
What does this have to do with hack or the Yahoo! brand?
http://www.flickr.com/photos/c.....485872337/
Posted by Shuan Lo at October 19th, 2009 at 11:09 pmJ:
That is strange, but it is still a corporate event.
Posted by Kara Swisher at October 19th, 2009 at 11:15 pmS:
Precisely the point!
Posted by Kara Swisher at October 19th, 2009 at 11:15 pmHey, at least it was part of the show on a stage. After I read the headline, I pictured private lap dances.
Posted by Jerry Boyd at October 19th, 2009 at 11:50 pmJ:
Oh, phew, that changes everything!
Posted by Kara Swisher at October 19th, 2009 at 11:52 pmThe argument about this being in Taiwan is a red herring, Yahoo is a U.S. headquartered company and must be sensitive to how such images and reports will play out in that market. Besides that, this would still be inappropriate, even in a Taiwanese corporate event.
http://praetorianprefect.com/a.....-of-women/
Posted by Daniel Kennedy at October 20th, 2009 at 12:24 amD:
Exactly. Thanks for saying so.
Posted by Kara Swisher at October 20th, 2009 at 7:17 amNot to mention the robots in those pictures are totally naked!
And they are touching his private areas.
This company must be stopped!
By the way, how is this much different than US trade shows where vendors large and small have hired models in skimpier clothing than this handing out literature?
From the still, the whole thing look pretty lame.
They could have done better to follow the Microsoft example and get a well known Taiwanese singing star to perform, or followed the Google example and had a panel of programmers showing off their slide rules.
Posted by Mac Beach at October 20th, 2009 at 9:59 amM:
Good point. It’s just a line is probably crossed when you move into lap dancing.
Posted by Kara Swisher at October 20th, 2009 at 10:31 amhackers are people, too
what’s wrong with a dance? these poor slobs probably never get anything close to that in real life
who are we/you/ and any of the politically correct hypocrits to judge?
Posted by Sam Harrison at October 21st, 2009 at 7:39 pmI get that the lap dancing is over the top. bad form. distasteful.
the comment about short skirts was probably unnecessary. It certainly didn’t lend anything to the story except pointing out something that, to me, doesn’t mean much culturally or ethically.
A lot of young women in TW dress like that. Because it’s fairly normal (of course, influenced by whom and what?), it shouldn’t need to be mentioned as egregious.
I find that a lot of people get alarmed, blog, and don’t bother to look into the rationale and psychology of why things happen, why people make certain decisions, etc.
In this case the Yahoo group doesn’t have a chance to justify anything, because, you’re right – it’s lap dancing, and it’s dirty and has seedy connotations and we’re all more civilized than that here in tech world.
But if you bother to look into youth culture in Asia (and even here), you’d find that gogo girls are standard accoutrement at the big clubs. Hell, just go to a TW club for the patrons.
This event was a Hack Day, obviously targeted at (but not limited to) young people. The use of the word “Hack” presumes an association with youth/hipness/cool-ness/rebellion. I can see how the organizers (a small, young, local group, probably) thought it would be a good spectacle to bring some girls out in an attempt to make it fun and titillating/exciting. because geeks there are different.
But yes. you wouldn’t see that here because too many people would get fussy about the lack of professionalism. “Leave that for the Comic conventions, and the EEE” right?
What if this was that local organizing group’s attempt at mimicking a vibe of EEE? [shrug]
Or, maybe they just got it wrong. ‘Hack Girls’ could’ve been executed to what they may have envisioned, with ‘good girls’ as Hosts/Brand Ambassadors, welcoming people into Developer world. But in the fast game of event planning, they had to settle for girls who only know the traditional form of.. the laptop.
…
Anyway, I just came here to comment about that one short skirt remark. the pictures weren’t that risqué and it was what, two girls being themselves? the fact that you were surprised made you seem.. i don’t know.. older. the ‘ruh roh’ is cute like zOMG, so i’ll subtract some.
maybe in general you are a little on the tongue in cheek, tech mom style, i’ll have to read more from you.
…
OR, did they take down all the pictures, and I’m the one that’s late to the finger pointing? if that’s the case then I feel silly.
maybe this is what makes TW Hack Day fun.
\./
Posted by waylan choy at October 27th, 2009 at 7:35 pm