Cupcake 41591's dashboard

A comment on the discussion "Sandy as perky young female ... oy vey." in I want Sandy:

I'm with you Bob!
This is a ridiculous argument. What a pointless 'feature request.' – jedweb, on July 23, 2008 13:25

Joshu replied on July 23, 2008 03:55 to the discussion "Sandy as perky young female ... oy vey." in I want Sandy:

I think there's a simple solution. It's definitely a useful service that's elegantly and cleverly crafted. But why not have 2-3 options? Why not an Andy as well as a Sandy? And maybe personalize what you want your assistant to look like? That will allow anyone who wants to keep Sandy to do so, but for those of us who believe that words and images matter, even on a subconscious level, we can have an alternative choice.

Andy Kaplan-Myrth replied on July 23, 2008 03:23 to the discussion "Sandy as perky young female ... oy vey." in I want Sandy:

Settle down, Bob Loblaw/anonymous, and give people the benefit of the doubt here.

It's not a huge problem, and nobody's "wringing their hands", or crying like babies over this, or even offended about it. We're just raising it as an issue in the service's issues forum. I'm not blogging that this is a terrible sexist service or anything. I'm supporting the claim that this is in fact a problem to some degree, I'm asking for an improvement that would address this perceived problem, and I'm suggesting an easy fix.

No big deal, and certainly not grounds for anybody (least of all an anonymous new user like you) to throw accusations at me. It's a feature request, not a complaint. Learn to understand some subtlety.

Loblaw, Robert replied on July 23, 2008 03:07 to the discussion "Sandy as perky young female ... oy vey." in I want Sandy:

Sexism has nothing to do with it. They're not positing that women are inferior or not capable. In fact, Sandy is more than capable. She fights crime, cleans Inboxes, and could well be a very valuable member of your team!

You are saying that by virtue of a cartoon being cheerful, kind, and helpful, that this is somehow sexist. It's a shame that you associate kindness, cheer and enthusiasm as inferior traits. If I'm reading between the lines, you think that these are only inferior traits in women.

So now who's the sexist? You're very comfortable giving "negative" traits as you see it another gender?

I can only imagine what you'd think if there was a body-shot of Sandy somewhere on the website. You'd probably have a heart attack if you detected the slightest evidence of a breast.

Go make yourself that greasemonkey script. Set it to use the goatse portrait for all I care. I just didn't realize we could start calling people sexist for made up reasons these days!

EDIT: I see you're an attorney from Canada. Nevermind. I withdraw my disbelief that you would complain about this.

Andy Kaplan-Myrth replied on July 23, 2008 02:58 to the discussion "Sandy as perky young female ... oy vey." in I want Sandy:

Hey, Bob Loblaw/anonymous person -- The service is innovative and unique and powerful and free, which is all great. That doesn't mean it isn't open to legitimate criticism for what are probably innocent oversights on the part of the developers. They wanted to make a friendly, human persona and they succeeded. Now some of us have pointed out that in order to do that they entrenched well established stereotypes. You're not even denying that. We're also pointing out that that's a problem. Now, whether you agree that that's a problem or not, wouldn't you agree that it's a fairly easy thing to change? Provide some choice for me in my account's settings to choose the persona of my own Sandy: male/female would be a good start. The only change it would actually need to make would be that single image of "her" face when I view the site!

For that matter, maybe somebody would write up a Greasemonkey script that would change the image to an arbitrary graphic...

Loblaw, Robert replied on July 23, 2008 02:50 to the discussion "Sandy as perky young female ... oy vey." in I want Sandy:

Anyone wringing their hands over this imagined issue needs to get a life. Bunch of babies crying about a free service because of some imagined sexism or perkism or whatever the hell you maniacs are babbling about.

I should be so lucky to have a cheerful helpful eager assistant! That's the whole point, you idiots! She's not a real person! She's probably 1200 lines of python that eats emails from slobs like us all day!

If the cheerful image of Sandy is somehow damaging your sensibilities, just give up on life now. The less whining and crying in the world the better. No amount of nerf and safety tape will protect you from the psychological horrors of places far more unsavory than iwantsandy.com.

Andy Kaplan-Myrth started following the discussion "Sandy as perky young female ... oy vey." in I want Sandy.

Andy Kaplan-Myrth replied on July 23, 2008 02:39 to the discussion "Sandy as perky young female ... oy vey." in I want Sandy:

I agree with the cupcake that the image of Sandy as a perky young female assistant, always available and always willing to help is problematic, if only because of the assumption that this is the image of what an assistant is. Of course a cranky balding man wouldn't be good branding, but there are lots of options in between.

Wouldn't it make sense to at least have some options for what Sandy looks like? You happen to have picked a name -- Sandy -- that *could* be a male name or female name. It couldn't be difficult to at least give the option of a male assistant for those who may want to avoid the retro stereotype but still want to make use of the service.

jedweb replied on November 22, 2007 03:45 to the discussion "Sandy as perky young female ... oy vey." in I want Sandy:

I think the Sandy image is great.

MadameSoybean replied on November 22, 2007 01:39 to the discussion "Sandy as perky young female ... oy vey." in I want Sandy:

I have 3 admins/assistants at my office and they are all perky females. We'd be lost without them because we are all slow and unperky without them.
I think Sandy looks like she's from an Archie comic.

R. Emory Williamson-Lundberg replied on November 16, 2007 13:36 to the discussion "Sandy as perky young female ... oy vey." in I want Sandy:

Sandy is an assistant.

She is helpful and fast.

An obese cranky balding man doesn't quite fit the "I'm here to help!" image.

Heather King started following the discussion "Sandy as perky young female ... oy vey." in I want Sandy.

R. Emory Williamson-Lundberg started following the discussion "Sandy as perky young female ... oy vey." in I want Sandy.

MadameSoybean started following the discussion "Sandy as perky young female ... oy vey." in I want Sandy.

jedweb started following the discussion "Sandy as perky young female ... oy vey." in I want Sandy.