Where exactly did you spot sexism and racism in those tweets? I can easily see the same tweets targeted at a white male with a decent number of followers.
His reaction is poor because, as Sara herself pointed out, it's not fair to tolerate opinionated articles when they rave about a tool and police them when they don't. Also it's poor because it's low quality in general. That was not the best way to go about defending a product or complaining about unfair criticism.
However, the poorness of his response has nothing to do with sexism or racism or bullying. Even Sara's complaints in that feed didn't touch on those topics!
In the tweets you shared, Sara was not targeted on any personal level. They did not mention her nationality, gender, or faith; and she was not insulted or belittled. In fact, he actually said he admired her and you took the man's admiration and turned it around to be a sense of entitlement!!!
This is no different than what minority groups have to deal with sometimes. All of a sudden now, a white male has to worry that saying he admires someone means that he expects them to return his kindness. What?!
A man incited bullying onto a Lebanese woman for sharing a critique of a framework he wrote not for the critique itself, but because she didn't give him the admiration he felt he deserved. That's not respect. That's systemic entitlement.
Him being a "man" and her being a "Lebanese woman" have absolutely nothing to do with the whole incident. His misstep was not properly taking criticism for his product.
Also, you have no evidence that he was bothered because she didn't give him the admiration he felt he deserved. He never said anything remotely close. He basically said it hurts him that people he admired are spreading negativity about the work of his life. That's NORMAL!!!! ANYONE would be hurt if people they admired spread negativity about the work of their life!!
The problem here is that he labeled criticism (fair or not) as negativity. Criticism is not negativity and sharing criticism on a popular platform should not ruin someone's day. But you missed this point entirely and went straight into making accusations.
Someone who understands the severity of sexism and racism should also understand the severity of accusing people of them!
PS: I am a Lebanese Muslim and a huge fan of Sara Soueidan. So I want to feel offended for her, but I'd rather be fair.
He didn't like her criticism (or rather, agreeing with criticism) because she had a large following... but he did the exact same thing by directing (unintentionally) his following at her.
Racism and sexism are systemic and woven into our interactions.
One aspect of this is that he was hurt by Sara sharing the criticism, and that she is someone he admires. I'd get into how people in general need to learn how to take criticism, but that's not really what we are talking about here.
The other aspect is his public manipulative reply to her, and why he felt it was acceptable and was confident to do so, despite that the criticism was not hers to begin with, and that they are not friends.
You cannot separate the power dynamics involved in giving him the perception that he could and should post what he did at her, and the lack of consideration of the cult-like dog-pile on her that would follow. Women are uniquely faced with this kind of toxic response when challenging men. Is it intentionally sexist? Not usually.
If you turn it around, you could also question why Sara felt the need to share the article, since it was incredibly poorly written also incorrect in some occasions and she's also not Adam's friend.
In my opinion, his reply was primarily emotional, hurt by someone he seems to admire (I won't get into if that's a good or bad thing), not well thought out and knee-jerk-ish.
However, I'd like to point out that his view of Sara is probably what skewed the effect it had on him. If some random person was to share that article it wouldn't have had an impact on him (probably).
Without disagreeing with your post, I think it would be interesting to figure out why we tend to put people on pedestals in the first place (it seems unhealthy) and why the dev community seems to suffer from this in particular.
To anecdotally illustrate my point: my first ever interaction in the front-end world was with someone who can be regarded as one of the leaders back in the day (still is). They encouraged people to reach out and ask questions about anything FE, so I did (as a new developer) and got insta-blocked by them (I don't know why, btw).
Long story short: our community seems, for whatever reason, quite hostile at times. That, combined with the whole "admire this select group of people" culture seems to just not work out.
Sorry, my response was a little off-topic in the end, but I think we're touching on a much, much deeper problem in our community.
If you turn it around, you could also question why Sara felt the need to share the article, since it was incredibly poorly written also incorrect in some occasions and she's also not Adam's friend.
Sara actually disclaimed that she simply agreed with some of the points in the post, not the tone or all of it. She shared it because she felt those points were an important consideration in whether or not to use TailwindCSS. She is a CSS and accessibility expert and front-end developer, so it is related to her expertise and something you would expect her to speak on.
In my opinion, his reply was primarily emotional, hurt by someone he seems to admire (I won't get into if that's a good or bad thing), not well thought out and knee-jerk-ish.
I'm not disagreeing with that. The point I'm making is that he felt it was acceptable to post it, and has been unapologetic to the damage it caused, let alone that it was inappropriate in the first place. The framing here is the system that gives him the space to do so.
I think it would be interesting to figure out why we tend to put people on pedestals in the first place (it seems unhealthy) and why the dev community seems to suffer from this in particular.
I agree that hero worship culture is toxic, and social media seems to have created an especially gross variation of it, including here in tech. I have had the same types of interactions that you describe here. I am blocked by some folks I would consider like-minded peers, and still have no idea why.
I agree that it seems like it was a hurt-feelings reaction.
However the point is, as a woman in Tech, I'd triple check myself for having that kind of public, hurt feelings reaction. And good odds it would backfire on me. I have to be very logical & calm in my professional life. This goes even more for Black women.
There is a discussion to be had about who has the space to critique or react or be emotional or controversial in our industry.
That Adam is safe to do so... is an interesting discussion to have.
I'd suggest Adam isn't the least bit safe to do so, given that this Dev.to article has more likes than literally every Dev.to article I've ever read for work in the last 2 years combined...
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Where exactly did you spot sexism and racism in those tweets? I can easily see the same tweets targeted at a white male with a decent number of followers.
His reaction is poor because, as Sara herself pointed out, it's not fair to tolerate opinionated articles when they rave about a tool and police them when they don't. Also it's poor because it's low quality in general. That was not the best way to go about defending a product or complaining about unfair criticism.
However, the poorness of his response has nothing to do with sexism or racism or bullying. Even Sara's complaints in that feed didn't touch on those topics!
In the tweets you shared, Sara was not targeted on any personal level. They did not mention her nationality, gender, or faith; and she was not insulted or belittled. In fact, he actually said he admired her and you took the man's admiration and turned it around to be a sense of entitlement!!!
This is no different than what minority groups have to deal with sometimes. All of a sudden now, a white male has to worry that saying he admires someone means that he expects them to return his kindness. What?!
Him being a "man" and her being a "Lebanese woman" have absolutely nothing to do with the whole incident. His misstep was not properly taking criticism for his product.
Also, you have no evidence that he was bothered because she didn't give him the admiration he felt he deserved. He never said anything remotely close. He basically said it hurts him that people he admired are spreading negativity about the work of his life. That's NORMAL!!!! ANYONE would be hurt if people they admired spread negativity about the work of their life!!
The problem here is that he labeled criticism (fair or not) as negativity. Criticism is not negativity and sharing criticism on a popular platform should not ruin someone's day. But you missed this point entirely and went straight into making accusations.
Someone who understands the severity of sexism and racism should also understand the severity of accusing people of them!
PS: I am a Lebanese Muslim and a huge fan of Sara Soueidan. So I want to feel offended for her, but I'd rather be fair.
He didn't like her criticism (or rather, agreeing with criticism) because she had a large following... but he did the exact same thing by directing (unintentionally) his following at her.
Racism and sexism are systemic and woven into our interactions.
One aspect of this is that he was hurt by Sara sharing the criticism, and that she is someone he admires. I'd get into how people in general need to learn how to take criticism, but that's not really what we are talking about here.
The other aspect is his public manipulative reply to her, and why he felt it was acceptable and was confident to do so, despite that the criticism was not hers to begin with, and that they are not friends.
You cannot separate the power dynamics involved in giving him the perception that he could and should post what he did at her, and the lack of consideration of the cult-like dog-pile on her that would follow. Women are uniquely faced with this kind of toxic response when challenging men. Is it intentionally sexist? Not usually.
If you turn it around, you could also question why Sara felt the need to share the article, since it was incredibly poorly written also incorrect in some occasions and she's also not Adam's friend.
In my opinion, his reply was primarily emotional, hurt by someone he seems to admire (I won't get into if that's a good or bad thing), not well thought out and knee-jerk-ish.
However, I'd like to point out that his view of Sara is probably what skewed the effect it had on him. If some random person was to share that article it wouldn't have had an impact on him (probably).
Without disagreeing with your post, I think it would be interesting to figure out why we tend to put people on pedestals in the first place (it seems unhealthy) and why the dev community seems to suffer from this in particular.
To anecdotally illustrate my point: my first ever interaction in the front-end world was with someone who can be regarded as one of the leaders back in the day (still is). They encouraged people to reach out and ask questions about anything FE, so I did (as a new developer) and got insta-blocked by them (I don't know why, btw).
Long story short: our community seems, for whatever reason, quite hostile at times. That, combined with the whole "admire this select group of people" culture seems to just not work out.
Sorry, my response was a little off-topic in the end, but I think we're touching on a much, much deeper problem in our community.
Sara actually disclaimed that she simply agreed with some of the points in the post, not the tone or all of it. She shared it because she felt those points were an important consideration in whether or not to use TailwindCSS. She is a CSS and accessibility expert and front-end developer, so it is related to her expertise and something you would expect her to speak on.
I'm not disagreeing with that. The point I'm making is that he felt it was acceptable to post it, and has been unapologetic to the damage it caused, let alone that it was inappropriate in the first place. The framing here is the system that gives him the space to do so.
I agree that hero worship culture is toxic, and social media seems to have created an especially gross variation of it, including here in tech. I have had the same types of interactions that you describe here. I am blocked by some folks I would consider like-minded peers, and still have no idea why.
I agree that it seems like it was a hurt-feelings reaction.
However the point is, as a woman in Tech, I'd triple check myself for having that kind of public, hurt feelings reaction. And good odds it would backfire on me. I have to be very logical & calm in my professional life. This goes even more for Black women.
There is a discussion to be had about who has the space to critique or react or be emotional or controversial in our industry.
That Adam is safe to do so... is an interesting discussion to have.
I'd suggest Adam isn't the least bit safe to do so, given that this Dev.to article has more likes than literally every Dev.to article I've ever read for work in the last 2 years combined...