Her official trailer for her Youtube channel is not something you can play in school. She will be speaking with the elementary kids as well, and many of them will google her and find the video in about 3.7 seconds and quickly get their tablets taken away. I can see the tears already.
I like her, but this isn’t the best choice for this venue.
If you want me to be honest, I think this claim is even more ridiculous than the one about vulgarity.
Being a “YouTuber” absolutely does not make someone a college dropout, or promote becoming a college dropout. YouTube is an amazing, educational platform in which people from all over get to share their own homemade videos with the world, be them entertainment, education, or the type of videos this Facebook rant calls “sh**posting.”
I know millions of YouTube videos are marketed as educational videos, and for the most part they’re extremely helpful. Just yesterday I watched a ton of videos on brushless motors because I have to create one for my Physics class this year and I wanted to get a more complete understanding on how they worked. The day before I watched an extremely educational video on String Theory, which I also found highly entertaining in addition to its educational value.
In regards to her personal YouTube page, you have to realize that she’s obviously capable of a lot more in the engineering and robotics field. If she chooses to post about her more comical inventions, then that’s her choice, and her audience. I, for one, think it’s awesome that she’s appealing to the creative side of kids that don’t just wanna build super complicated robots their entire lives, but also spend some time messing around and having fun. Those are the kids that will succeed the most in life, because they don’t just have robot skills, they’ve got people skills as well.
The point is, please don’t use “YouTube” as a scapegoat in a debate that’s titled “Why is the RECF promoting vulgarity?” Clearly your issue is with the vulgarity, which I already explained my side on, and YouTube is just a side note that really shouldn’t even be an issue.
@Mystellianne nobody said being a youtuber makes someone a college dropout but the fact is, this youtuber is a college dropout and her success on youtube is not based on bringing educational content, but, like the comment suggests, is based on her looks, being a goofball, and a strong bit of luck.
There are some great educational youtube channels. Her’s is NOT one of them.
When I first saw the choice, I watched the first several seconds of a few of her videos and they were all vulgar and, yes, that was my initial reason for not liking this choice.
As the discussion as gone on within the facebook group and as I have done more research, there are plenty of other reasons to not like this choice.
What I have not been able to find are good reasons to like her as the choice to speak to my students and elevate her as a role model.
I get it that some people are not bothered by her vulgarity. That simply demonstrates the depravity of mankind. I am just surprised that the RECF and Vex would think that is a good thing.
She is popular because she is a you tube personality, that’s why she was picked. And the issues aren’t just with the vulgarity, it’s out of all the females available as STEM role models, does this one fit for the kids? Easily could have been a better choice.
Thank goodness no, it’s just VRC
I completely agree.
She appeals to a lot of people because she shows that robotics can still be really fun, something that a lot of other people aren’t good at. I don’t see why the fact that she uses vulgar language in her videos stop her from speaking.
Her success is not based on her looks nor on her being a college dropout. Again, I’ll call to attention the fact that her content is based on having fun, something that many people underestimate when considering the fact that she’ll be speaking to kids, who are the living embodiment of wanting to have fun.
I’ll also have to disagree on the content of her YouTube channel, as again, showcasing quirky little inventions like hers not only promotes everything I mentioned in the previous paragraph, but can also inspire on-the-fence engineers to continue their careers. I’ll suport this using my own personal experience when I took AP Computer Science as a sophomore last year. At the beginning of the class, I was completely lost; I didn’t know how to program at all. I considered dropping the class, but luckily I didn’t and instead of trying all the complicated things my teacher was making us do, I made some little, fun, homemade programs that didn’t take much brainpower. I started off with a solution calculator to a logic problem known as the Josephus Problem (Google it for more information, it’s pretty interesting), then moved on to other fun things like an “AP Computer Science Simulator,” which basically made fun of the class in a text-based story. These projects were purely made for fun, not for professionalism, yet those were the things that kept me going. By the end of the year, I scored a 5/5 on the exam and graduated the class wanting to major in the subject. I hope this shows the importance of a little informal adventure in the journey through engineering, the very thing Giertz embodies.
Also, a quick Google search finds the technical definition of the word ‘depravity’ to mean ‘corruption or wickedness.’ Are you saying that because people are not bothered by vulgarity, that we as mankind are corrupt and/or wicked? That’s the most ridiculous claim I’ve seen on this thread so far, and I highly encourage you to rethink that claim before you start bashing people who aren’t as conservative in that sense.
I would be interested in hearing someone in a position of responsibility explain why this was the choice.
I’m disturbed by the views and sort of antagonism college dropouts have received in this thread. In this world there are a lot of paths towards STEM or involving STEM. College doesn’t have to be the gatekeeper to all of them. College is great, yes, but it doesn’t always work out for some.
I’m not for bashing and using someone status as a college dropout as for not being able to motivate and inspire in STEM. that’s bush league, entitled, and elitist. STEM isn’t just restricted to the Halls of college. So miss me with that nonsense claim.
+1
Agreed.
Wow! This is the most discussion of a guest speaker for a VEX event that I’ve seen in a long time. I’m not going to be at the championships event, but I’d definitely be interested in going to see her talk based on what I read here.
I’d like to point out that people do not achieve success on YouTube by accident. Sure, one video might go viral as a fluke, but sustaining that and building a community of viewers to the point where “YouTubing” is a lucrative endeavour is not a random accomplishment. I’ll also suggest that while anyone can be incompetent at building robots, it takes a lot of skill to be entertainingly incompetent at it. You can’t keep screwing up new things by fluke. Check out the “Electroboom” channel for an example.
I’ll also cut some slack on the vulgarity and crude humour. Often that is an intentional choice to gain attention, create a bit of controversy and stir up some interest. I look at the persona that some pop stars such as Madonna created and leveraged into success. There does seem to be a bit of a double standard, though, as it seems that women who employ this strategy are often judged more harshly than men who do.
I’ll give RECF some credit here for being willing to make a bold choice, and bring in a speaker who has clearly engaged some interest. I suspect the talk will be reasonably inoffensive… again, this is a bright, talented young woman who is clearly able to identify her audience and deliver an engaging message… and the more “shocked and appalled” adults there are, the more the kids (and me!) are going to be curious to hear what she’s going to say. I don’t think there are too many futures being put at risk here, any more than the Beatles, Madonna, Eminem or other folks corrupted their generations.
I haven’t read all this thread, so some of my comments will undoubtedly cross ground well-covered.
I support this choice. I like Simon Giertz. I first became aware of her because I watch and follow Adam Savage. He has no formal training in either science or engineering. He is first and foremost an entertainer. Yet few people have done more for mainstreaming science and engineering. When he spoke highly of Simone, I gave her a look.
I understand the concern about the coarse language, and I see why many here find it very troubling. But I don’t happen to share that concern. Many, many people I know speak like that, particularly when trying to capture an audience’s attention. I believe our kids will be able to figure out what not to say and when not to say it. Paul Graham (computer scientist) wrote in his book of essays “Painters and Hackers” that kids have an amazing ability to determine the rules about cursing even without being told. Also, I’ll point out that Adam Savage curses. A lot. Yet he still has managed to reach a surprising number of people in a very positive way on the subjects of science and engineering.
The kids want to hear from people like this. As several have said here , there are, of course, many women that would have made great speakers and great role models, with presumably no negatives. But for two years, the kids suggested Simon Giertz. And now RECF booked her. That seems like a net positive.
Some years ago there was a great commercial that ran briefly about pet food. It concerned how pets liked the food this particular company was offering, and how it was pretty healthy too. I gathered from the presentation they were going up against things like Science Diet, which focus primarily on health. The tagline of the commercial was this: “Remember, it’s not healthy if your pet won’t eat it.” That’s profound.
The kids won’t get the message if they don’t listen to the messenger. Many will listen to Simon Giertz.
I support this message!
@blatwell
While I do agree that there are many more suitable candidates for this role, I find your perspective to be quite archaic. If you spend any significant amount of time lurking on the parts of the internet where young people tend to congregate, you’ll find that “vulgarity” is quite normal and carries far less weight than that which you assign to it. I’m not saying that you aren’t entitled to your opinion, or that it is wrong, but I think this is a classic case of a generational gap having formed between you and popular culture. I personally see the exercising of one’s freedom of speech, however vulgar it may be, to be an indicator of social progress, which I welcome.
Her qualification for this role, however, is a different debate. There are a great many women who could make a much more substantial contribution to the community at the event, but I’m sure the organizers want to reach out to the students. The children in the program now, particularly the younger ones, glorify YouTubers. If you ask an elementary school kid what they want to be its quite likely that they’ll tell you they want to be a Minecraft YouTuber or something of the like. I think it’s quite a shrewd move from a marketing perspective to invite someone with the immediate mass appeal that a YouTuber has to the kids, riding the immense wave of popularity the personalities on the platform are having right now. While it may be a great stunt that lowers children’s’ psychological barrier to entry for the VEX program, I’m not saying that it’s “right”. She is only loosely related to the practical field, and people educated in science and technology generally fall out of the target audience for popular science videos at some point in their teens, leading me to believe that this is all for the sake of promoting growth within the program starting with the younger demographic under the assumption that any growth is good growth regardless of whether or not it is actually productive.
I can guarantee that she was invited to the event to serve a purpose, albeit not one that may be as obvious as a strong successful woman in STEM, and this is by design.
Just my 2 cents.
In response to @OscarMNOVA12
I totally agree. Even with a degree from the most prestigious university, you’re virtually worthless as a productive employee. You don’t learn very many useful things in school. There’s a reason why so many jobs and internships require experience in the field even before you’ve graduated.
I’d just like to point out that vulgarity is common in YouTube. It’s not like RECF is going to prevent kids being exposed to vulgarity by not supporting a YouTube personality who uses colorful language. There are a lot of excellent reasons why Simone Giertz is the perfect guest speaker. Her content is engaging and could get kids to consider STEM as an area of interest they might have otherwise ignored. That’s almost Vex’s mission statement exactly.
Also @blatwell, you suggested that her success in YouTube is
I doubt that you would say the same of a male youtuber in otherwise the same situation. It’s that exact double standard that puts women down in the STEM field.
I Just missed that remark. That’s a comment that reeks of potentially sexist attitudes. Scratch that it is sexist.
Simone Giertz is beyond qualified for this. We had Tony Hawk. I can’t fathom why he was more qualified than someone who actually builds robots.
Trying to gatekeep by qualifying the usefulness of her robots is pitiful.
What more the do the bots we build in VEX do?
I’m very intrigued by this line:
Graham (computer scientist) wrote in his book of essays “Painters and Hackers” that kids have an amazing ability to determine the rules about cursing even without being told.
And it reminds me of a few years back. My daughter was about 5 yesrs old and tried to use the F word with her sister. I told her that she couldn’t use the F word - especially when it was targetted to a certain person. Of course, she started to bargain with me to figure out just WHEN she could use that word. After a few scenarios, she finally blurted out: well, can I yell it at the TV like daddy does? (This happens rgularly on Sundays when the Redskins are losing…).
Not to take political sides, but just as example; If our current president was invited to speak at Worlds, do you think we’d take sides and argue over why we’re inviting him? I think people might hold a little grudge, but wouldn’t want VEX to “uninvite” him. Why is this any different?
Edit: Also, there’s the matter that the speakers have to be engaging to the audience. Sure you might want the founder of NASA to talk at the event, but I’d personally prefer someone more engaging. I don’t know if Simone Giertz is the absolute perfect person to invite, but why does it matter? Just don’t go if you don’t like it.
So this thread has been running through my head over the last few days. At times I can be pretty elitist but I also think one of the coolest things about this community and this program is that it puts everyone on a equal playing field. Most of the people on this forum joined it when they were not highly educated but we still listened to their opinions. So I am open to hearing what she has to say.
I happened to run into her yesterday which gave me an interesting opportunity. While chatting with her, I brought up the discussion here and asked her opinion.
On vulgar language
She emphasized that she understood targeting your audience was important and brought up how she used to teach in a kindergarten. She also talked about how she has done purely educational videos that have been made for kids and in something like that she doesn’t fill it with sex jokes. We also talked about how different cultures view different things as taboo for kids and she thought it was interesting how much violence we were okay showing kids but not okay with them hearing the word “■■■■■■” from an adult. She is cognizant of the different cultures and I believe she will do her best.
**On credentials **
We only talked about this briefly. I think it is clear on this forum most people here are not 100% experts in Robotics. The goal is an educational platform so the point is that anyone can pick up and use the hardware. When she builds something and it (poorly) chops vegetables she is showing people how easy it is to pick up the basics of Robotics. Who better to show that than a new person? I think a pure robotics researcher would feel too disconnected to everyone and that people wouldn’t be very interested.
I have seen students respond to cool robotics projects with the thought process
“That’s really interesting but I know I could never do something like that”
I think the robots Simone builds are approachable/attainable for everyone here. Giving students someone to look up to who works on similar stuff to them shows them a path forward is possible.
Wrap up
I think Vex made a good call. I am excited to see how it goes. I am glad they found someone fun and loosely tied into similar projects to vex.
(written in middle of the night, so might ramble and make no sense)
Awesome! Thanks for this.