See my other comment...Star probably was attending burning man before this guy was. She knew more about it than him.

Also if you were into burning man since 2006, the event then was less about “bacchanalia” and “free love”. This was before it was mainstream for techies, when cheap tickets could be bought anonymously with cash at the entrance, and when you could even more believably show up in “conservative” clothes and be into it for the art and maker culture. If the victim was a man I doubt their style of attire would be mentioned, but for Star the author needs to clarify for their audience that she wasn’t there for the scanty costumed photoshoots that so many associate with burning man now. She’s a hardware engineer and well known maker. Is it that hard to believe she actually likes it for the art and everything that gets created that week? Networking for a Google X job was probably just a bonus.

...which is the charitable explanation: She's feigning surprise and indignation. She knew what she was signing up for. I'm not apologizing for the douchebag, but the narrative of "I wore my interview suit to burning man and was horrified when everyone got naked" does not hold water.

FWIW, my burning man years started in 1994. Check your assumptions, kiddo.

Star Simpson is actually somewhat notorious for her naivete:

https://thetech.com/2007/11/13/simpson-v127-n40

http://henryjenkins.org/blog/2007/10/i_was_a_teenage_terrori...

Edit: not sure why the downvotes, I was actually attempting to defend her, in the sense that her innocence has gotten her into bad situations in the past.

the only naivete I can find in those links is that of the airport workers thinking a light up nametag is a bomb. About as ridiculous as the time boston shut down over some light up LED signs [1]. Something has wires and LED lights? Must be a bomb, no other explanation possible

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_Boston_Mooninite_panic

No. She went into an airport wearing a circuitboard with flashing lights that made some people uneasy. When they asked her about it, she ignored them. Edit: Also, she was holding Play-doh, which no adult does at an airport, and can look like plastic explosives.

Even if they did overreact (and they pretty much have to aggressively err on the side of caution), it was a bit tone deaf and callous for her to act that way.

Well, if in her view, it was just a nametag and not a scary piece of technology, then I think it's reasonable to not understand why anyone would be uneasy. Did people wearing google glasses back when that was a thing respond to everyone who harassed them about it? If you were walking with your phone in your hand and someone came up to you accusing you of trying to bomb them, would you bother responding or just roll your eyes and keep walking?

Or other similar airport stories I've read of people in an airport terminal remoting into work being accused of hacking because scary linux terminals are the tools of hackers who are trying to hack planes and crash them. If that happened to me, I'd probably ignore the person while thinking to myself "what the fuck is this guy's problem, have they never seen a computer before"

Being tone-deaf means being unaware of what kinds of things would make others uneasy. If the world changed to the point that a phone like mine was easily confused with a bomb, then I would consider it tone-deaf for me to carry on in ignorance of this dynamic.

I can acknowledge that in retrospect she could have acted differently and avoided this whole situation...

But she was mainly the victim.

The over reaction by the initial reporter and the authories above them seem a bit wrong but not egregious. The real unforgivable failure is how after the incident the authorities had to double down, never admit any fault, and unfairly paint her as some nefarious perpetrator. Someone is quoted with saying she’s “lucky she ended up in a jail cell and not the morgue”.

They propagated the narrative that it was an intentional hoax and bomb scare and mis-used her claim that it was art. (she was saying her shirt was just art, not that the bomb scare was art) The “hoax device” charges brought on her were thrown out. She never was never found to have broken any law.

>She never was never found to have broken any law.

That's not the same as not being callously disrespectful of others' concerns.

Well I guess our disagreement is that the world at that point had the dynamic where any electronic item was to be confused with a bomb. I was alive in 2007, some LED lights arranged in a star would certainly not have screamed "bomb" at me, and I would not have expected anyone else to have been scared of it either. If she was carrying around a clock like that one kid made, maybe, but even by 2007 movie standards a bomb would at least have a countdown timer of some kind

I'm imagining her wearing something like https://www.flashingblinkylights.com/jade-led-christmas-tree... with a little less production value, if that can be mistaken for a bomb then those people better stay away from office christmas parties

Right, there isn't much I can say to convince you why a block of blinking electronics on someone walking around at an airport and ignoring everyone's questions, at a time of heightened airport security against suicide bombers, is tone deaf.

She was holding play-dough. You honestly don't think she was deliberately pushing people's buttons?

You can google what it actually looked like. It was a breadboard ziptied to her sweater with a bunch of wires and a 9V battery on the side

Looks harmless to me but after the moonite scare it's also pretty obvious that airport security would freak out

https://1.bp.blogspot.com/_RwdLdQxhZGk/RvQAv2mTWfI/AAAAAAAAB...

https://1.bp.blogspot.com/_RwdLdQxhZGk/RvQDoGmTWhI/AAAAAAAAB...

Also, is that a burning man sweater?

She was 19.

The obvious view is that she knows perfectly well what Burning Man is, and she also suspected lewd intentions, and purposefully dressed that way to avoid them without having to refuse the invitation, which could have cost her the job.

The sad reality is that for a significant number of people, office politics includes a good chance of sexual harassment, which they have to learn to navigate as well.