Where does this trend come from where people describe their physical appearence during presentations? Who asked for this? I personally am rarely curious what anyone looks like or what they are wearing. If I am, I'll ask. It feels more like a narcecistic desire of theirs, to tell us how they look and what they are wearing. Which is okay, I guess, but I thought we were supposed to not judge based on appearence? And also, it puts pressure on everyone else to do likewise. Nothnx!
@objectinspace I wonder if it's because it's the first thing sighties recognize about each other, therefore it doesn't occur to them that we don't care? They're just told to use speech that includes people with visual impairments, without being told what exactly needs describing,s o they assume based on what they'd like to know?
@objectinspace Oh gods yeah. I'm actually vaguely terrified I'm going to be facilitating/presenting one of these virtue-signally things and will have to be like "Yeah, I'm Nolan. I'm a bit overweight, sorry about that. I'm wearing...I dunno, something that passed the sniff test this morning so it's probably not giving me cholera...what else you wanna know? Oh, I just realized there's an empty beer can I forgot to throw away sitting off to my right, damn, should have thrown that away earlier. And I left my vape out, shit, oops, sorry I'm a train wreck. Oh, you want to know what I look like? Can't help you there, anyone want to try describing me? Anyone? Aaaaanyone? I'm glad this inclusivity exercise isn't the slightest bit awkward, I certainly feel included."
@nolan ROFL yes. Exactly. The thing is, all descriptions are some varient of this. Even the good ones! People are actually terrible about describing themselves, they cannot do so objectively. What you actually get is a list of physical characteristics that the person is most focused on. Someone with low self confidence will describe themselves poorly, someone with high self confidence will describe themselves positively. Which is actually pretty revealing, but not in the intended way!
@nolan Like I could even say something super short like "Hi I'm Drew. White dude, tshirt and slacks." But just your tone, if you are too proud or self-deprecating, communicates volumes more than you're intending to.
@objectinspace No one asked for this. Frankly if I'm watching a tech event or whatever I really don't give a damn what you look like, please just get onto the actual announcements I came here for. If I want to know I'll ask, I'm not a socially awkward person, incapable of talking to people.
@objectinspace Because it's information that sighted people have access to by default. Bit weird that you'd call it narcissistic for someone to make that information accessible, just because it's about them.
@rain Hi, thanks for interacting on my 5-month-old post! Sorry you found it "weird" though.
My operating definition of narcisism, from good ol wikipedia: "Narcissism is a self-centered personality style characterized as having an excessive preoccupation with oneself and one's own needs, often at the expense of others."
My contention here is that no one in the blind community is asking for this information, and that the people who provide it are doing so for self-centered reasons. What's weird?
@objectinspace It's weird to pathologize strangers at all, but in this case it's weird because the only thing these people are really doing is providing you information which you find irrelevant and maybe wasting a few seconds of your time. So you and some folks you know don't care what others look like. That's all good. But why does someone describing themself have to mean they have an excessive preoccupation with themself and their needs? I've only ever read it as inclusive. Obviously it's not an effort which benefits everyone, but it's there. What's wrong with that? People have a huge variety of reasons for caring about what the world looks like, and it's weird that you jumped right to personality disorders and prejudice.
As for responding to your ancient post, it got boosted onto my tl this morning and I didn't even look at the timestamp lol
I actually feel like this is pretty normal, we'll have to agree to disagree here!
>So you and some folks you know don't care what others look like.
It's more than that. I was trained as a young child that judging people based on physical appearence is wrong. I thus appreciate not having that information available.
@objectinspace > I was trained as a young child that judging people based on physical appearence is wrong. I thus appreciate not having that information
If you feel like having that information would make you more likely to judge someone, that's on you and I'm not really sure what else to say about that
@rain Okay. Again, I feel like bias (conscious and unconscious) is a thing that's relatively normal among humans, but perhaps this is an excuse on my part.
@rain
>Obviously it's not an effort which benefits everyone, but it's there. What's wrong with that?
The problem (IMHO) is that people cannot/do not wish to describe themselves objectively. What you get instead are a collection of traits that the person most heavily identifies with themselves, which can be good (if the person is confident) or negative (if the person is depressed or otherwise not confident)
Either way this reveals way more about their character than intended, which is awkward.
@objectinspace@rain I've been in meetings where you are asked to describe before you enter the meeting, for those who can't see you. So is that me being a narcissist? Nope. Just doing what I'm asked, even if I personally don't need, care or particularly want to. What a bad take.
@FreakyFwoof@objectinspace@rain largely agree with drew here. If the policy of the org is to describe oneself then..fine I guess. Its fucking weird and unnecessary but you do you. But for someone spontaneously to do that is either indicative of a bit of self obcession or being seen to be inclusive rather than actually being so. They're probably the same people who have inaccessible slides or forget to send them to the VI participant beforehand lol
@bermudianbrit@objectinspace@rain Not a fan, but in a meeting with potential investors clients or what have you, just do as your told, perhaps in as brief a manner as you can manage. Again, calling it narcissistic is disingenuous at best.
@bermudianbrit@objectinspace@rain Had to do that for Drake music once, made it clear I thought it was a bit weird. Don't recall if they asked us to do that again.
@FreakyFwoof I too have been asked to describe myself during meetings. I have done it. It felt weird. Obviously doing it because someone tells you is a different motivation. It is the expectation I am talking about. Where does it come from? Not me. Not anyone blind who I know. It comes from the sighted community. And it's a nice thought, but I personally would rather do eithout it. @rain
@objectinspace@rain I don't know if it's just a stupid post-covid thing, I don't believe I was ever asked before that time. Likely decided by some pointless upper-management to attempt being more inclusive, it just comes off as a ridiculous gesture and cuts into a meeting by an order of magnitude...
@FreakyFwoof@objectinspace@rain I never found myself thinking much about this before descriptions were a thing. As in, very rarely did I join a meeting, even offline, and thought hmm, this would definitely be better if I knew what everyone looked like. Which is strange, because I do try to look nice and wear at least some things that represent me or my interests because I know other people do see them and comment on them. So there's a bit of... not sure if double standard is the right word here, but double interest or mismatching interests going on here?
@talon Maybe I'm in the minority of blind people who are curious about what others look like. I'd be surprised, but I can accept that. When I first read this post, I didn't just think of meetings and presentations, but also image descriptions. When someone posts a selfie, I'm a little put out when the description is just something like "pic of me". Like here you, are sharing a picture of yourself you thought worth putting on the internet for others to see, isn't it a bit relevant what that looks like? I certainly wouldn't complain if I got a bit more detail on that. @FreakyFwoof@objectinspace
@rain@FreakyFwoof@objectinspace Ah. I think context matters a lot here. If it is a selfie then I fully agree. You’re putting yourself out there so at that point it’s the focus and I do care and descriptions are useful.
@rain Sure, I think that is different though, you can choose to engage with that or not, and as a creator you can take time to do a good job. But I think doing so ad-hock in front of strangers puts pressure on people, and to me it is awkward. But that's me! Others might feel otherwise, which is why I put it out there. @talon@FreakyFwoof
@FreakyFwoof@objectinspace@rain I think part of the problem is that if you're describing someone visually to a blind person, they're going to have their own interpretations of what that means. And most of the time, it's probably not much. I imagine it's similar to describing a sound to a deaf person. No matter how many words you use, you'll always lose something in your translation, and often you'll introduce bias. Like if I were to describe a song I very like, I'd probably use more positive adjectives, whereas someone who despises the song would not. Not even consciously, but just in the general choice of words. Also I'm trying to figure out how to describe me without sounding either too negative or pretentious or something and at least for me it seems to be quite difficult.
@FreakyFwoof Right that's what I am saying. If we want this and I am overreacting, that's fine, happy to be wrong. But if this is being done for us and it turns out that we don't actually want it, we have to speak up or they'll just do it more. @rain
@objectinspace > ...people cannot/do not wish to describe themselves objectively.
People are generally pretty subjective about themselves, I wouldn't call that narcissism. If you don't want to know, that's fine. If it makes you uncomfortable to describe yourself, I can understand that. I can even get wondering whether the information is really accurate. But everything else you've said feels disingenuous as hell to me
@weirdwriter Curious to get your opinion on this. Do you yourself find them helpful? My experience has been that it's info I either have already ("I am a white woman") or don't need ("I am wearing a blue shirt") have you had better luck with this? @rain
@objectinspace@rain It actually depends on what industry you’re in. If you’re coworkers work in communications for example, the descriptions are much more informative and much more succinct. If you work in an industry where communication is not Paramount, that’s when the descriptions become very awkward and very lackluster. I’ve had immense Success with this because people will often point out a nugget about their wardrobe or hairstyle or whatever that clues me in on how they interact, how they perceive the world, and even how they perceive others. This has helped me when negotiating contracts because I can make a comment about their Choice in wardrobe or similar to make them feel more comfortable so the negotiation will go in my favor
@TheQuinbox@objectinspace I'm not sure where it came from initially. I have a slightly different take on it. I'm not sure it should be required, but it is information that sighted folks get automatically, so I don't have a problem with us getting it as well. How many times when you mention someone do sighted people ask something like, "Oh he's wearing the red shirt right? without thinking? that kind of information can help avoid moments like that. ;-)
@objectinspace I have heard this happen twice now and find it bizarre. I'm sighted, so I figured it was just me, but interesting to hear your perspective!
One of the times the person spent a lot of time describing themselves too, down to their outfit choice
@objectinspace Nothing to do with the people doing it, some sighted board meeting probably happened about 'those poor disabled people' and decided that 'it should now be necessary to describe yourself without consulting with those whom such a thing would benefit.' Sure... I'll do so if asked, but I'm not bothered about the idea personally.
@FreakyFwoof Yeah at best it feels like "those poor blind people don't know what we look like, let's make sure they aren't missing out on that experience" which is the cherity angle, and is making an awful lot of assumptions about our interest without asking first which is the classic error. But I am willing to be wrong about this, if there are folks who do find it useful then that's aces.
@FreakyFwoof I also feel weird about describing myself because I don't know! LOL. I put maybe 8 seconds of thought into my appearence. If I am in that situation I will have to ask someone else what I am wearing in order to tell them!
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