ihtfp07

well glad we agree on content and just have a different interpretation of what his article is implying!

Instead of discussing the article, let’s just look at other commenters and see their interpretation.

reviewing other comments in this thread I see:

- commenters that believe she made plans to go to burning man on a weeks notice and convinced her mom to join. And got tickets.

- commenters that re-interpret “conservative” to mean professional/business casual attire. That interpretation makes Simpson seems particularly oblivious about the event which is clearly untrue

- a commenter that specifically mentions her naivete

As I’ve said already, what these commenters think isn’t true, but they believe these things because that’s what the article unfairly implies.

I’m glad this article is drawing attention to this harasser and this issue in general, but it does a disservice to the victim to falsely paint them in this light.

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.

Totally agree! It really seems like the article is trying to say she was invited to attend her first burning man by this creepy interviewer and that she attended it mainly for networking purposes but brought her mom and a “conservative” attire to keep it professional. This isn’t explicitly stated but is strongly implied. The author also links predatory behavior with burning man by making Star seem like the outsider to it.

I commented because I think this article is doing a disservice to the victim and falsely depicting her as a bit naive, clueless, and perhaps a tad too desperate for the job which isn’t accurate at all.

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.

As usual the media gets this a bit wrong and is obscuring the truth. Star knew more about Burning Man than this harassing interviewer.

I was a couple years ahead of Star in school and know she was a long time fan of burning man, even going while in undergrad. No way this guy was the first person to tell her about it as this article implies. (but doesn’t explicitly state) Maybe meeting a fellow burner is what brought out his extra creepy side but that’s no excuse.

She was probably going to be there anyway. She might make plans with a weeks notice but really doubt a mom living in another state would have.

though also Star is a amazing famous person in her own right! She deserves more attention than Mr. DoucheVaul