Compiling this data was not as hard as I expected, let’s go through the data and the shiny graphs!
Age of Beeple
Most are above 24! Seems we got an older average age compared to a lot of social media. It would be interesting to see how many came here with experiences from independent forums before Reddit.
Where Beeple reside
This one’s a big graph. Though we can notice most people are from the US. Would be nice to see more countries represented though a big part of it likely has to do with language. (You will need to open the big graph in another tab, it’s too big to show properly.)
Gender identity of Beeple
So, as expected, mostly men. However, less than expected which is nice to see. There should be outreach to at least equalize this.
Sexual orientation of Beeple
This is kinda surprising. It seems we managed to get a lot more LGBTQ+ people than expected considering most of you all come from Reddit - so this is nice to see. This is most likely because of our focus on a safe space.
Whiteness of Beeple
As expected, mostly white which is unfortunate. I think there’s outreach to be done in that regard as well.
Neurodivergence of Beeple
We seem to have a really surprising amount of neurodivergent people! Definitely nice to see.
Beeple with disabilities
I… have no idea how to interpret this data so I’ll just say, shiny graph.
Beeple’s awareness of the Fediverse
Most knew about the fediverse but still a good 20% had not heard about it so glad to see you all managed to find your way here!
How Beeple have been dealing with Beehaw
It seems most people feel relatively confident in their ability to use Beehaw and most people seem to enjoy it. That makes me really happy to see. Feels rewarding, feels good.
Conclusion
I wanna thank everyone for the feedback about the survey and its questions - we’ll do better next time! I’m glad we did this survey because it shows the areas to work on in terms of outreach! Thank you all for your participation!
I just want to pipe in and and say thank you for caring about diversity. Lots of discourse here about how that’s hostile to white people. In my opinion purposefully misinterpreting “unfortunate” to mean “white people not welcome” is a perfect representation of why WHY diversity matters.
Because as a POC it’s clear to me that there are valid reasons why a white-dominated community can be… Uncomfortable. Like the very comments here that push back and pretend that race isn’t a issue and that POC are racist ones for caring about it. Not bothering at all to understand where it’s coming from and why it matters.
Edit: I didn’t write this at first but I can’t bite my tongue anymore. White people who get hositle over this have suffered from main character syndrome for way too long. You feel unwelcome because some online community simply wants more diversity? Why is it that in your mind one more POC means one less white person? Speaks more about your world view than anything else.
I’ve felt unwelcome my entire life because people resent my intrusion into their white bubbles. The whole point of Beehaw is that it’s inclusive. I’m a snowflake who wants her safe space.
In my opinion purposefully misinterpreting “unfortunate” to mean “white people not welcome” is a perfect representation of why WHY diversity matters.
it’s a good indicator we are going to continue to ask that question on the survey forever, for what that’s worth. very clearly a “the beatings will continue until morale improves” question because oh god, some of the responses here
I’m so glad that the mods aren’t getting steamrolled into submission. I was having a bad mental health day today and some of these comments really bothered me. Immediately my reddit-trained mind was like, oh, you dumbass snowflake. Touch grass.
But then I was like, fuck, the whole reason I’m on Beehaw is because it’s supposed to be different here. Thanks for continuously affirming my belief in it 👍
To be clear, we’re also aware that repeatedly being exposed to this kind of conversation can be demoralizing as well. I watched this happen on another website where the just asking questions crew would show up in every goddamn thread about every identity that wasn’t ciswhitemale. I remember a specific thread asking for women to talk about what’s hard for them, which was both dominated by male voices before any women showed up and then when women actually talked about the problems they experienced (and deeply couched their language, I might add), they were met with an endless line of men insisting “that’s not me”.
So to be absolutely clear, we value your voice and we don’t want to lose the community we’ve built here either. If this is ever frustrating to see, please vent about it. I can’t promise I’ll be perfect, but I’m trying my best to avoid tone policing (I’ve already screwed this up a few times, and I apologize deeply to anyone I scared away), especially on issues which directly effect or marginalize your experience. I think it helps a lot to have such a diverse set of responses, because often people are unaware how deeply frustrating and exhausting fragility and managing other’s emotional state can be, especially when you are on the receiving end of marginalization.
The most refreshing thing here has been to be able to respond and be backed up in my response.
Personally the most demoralizing thing about having the conversation taken over is often not being able to respond/take it back. At first I was afraid to say that this is just one more example of white people main character syndrome, because I was like, ugh, I’m going to get a bunch of comments of how I’m the actual racist one for generalizing all white people.
The justaskingquestions crowd makes me feel crazy for getting upset, and then villanizes me for being the upset one. But obviously I’d get more upset than them, they’re the ones erasing me.
So normally I just slink away from these places, whether it’s online, or my (supportive) boyfriend’s shitty white family, or my uni alum groups, or my workplace. And that’s the most demoralizing part, that they can say whatever they want and I have no recourse other than to leave.
So it means a lot to me that I don’t have to leave here. That I can say my piece and have it backed up by the mods, not bullied & downvoted into submission.
I genuinely support people asking in good faith. Some white people just don’t understand and they want to. But by the 2nd or 3rd response it’s very clear which are in good faith and which are simply camouflaging their intolerance. So thank you for shutting the latter down.
For me, a concept that really helped me feel like I’m not crazy for being upset, is microaggressions. I’m white, but a woman, and I always was bugged by how upset I’d get by sexist shit. The people saying, ‘there are no women on the internet’ and ‘go make me a sandwich’ etc.
Each one of them is no big deal-- but it’s not just one. It’s dozens upon dozens upon dozens… for your whole life. If I went my whole life in full equality with men, and one asshole said, ‘go make me a sandwich’ I’d be like, ‘wow, what a weird asshole’ and shrug it off. But it’s not one time, and it’s not in a life where I have equality with men.
It’s the whole concept behind the water torture where one drop drips on your head, over and over, for days upon days. Only it’s your whole life. And always, there will be people saying, “It was just a joke” or “it’s just one water drop, GOD.”
I wasn’t sure if pointing out all the JAQing off would be appropriate. I always knew they were coordinated, but they just showed up so fast! 😩
I’d like to respectfully ask that you don’t hide behind the excuse of people acting in bad faith. I think that section, as written, is actually difficult to interpret in good faith. The charitable interpretation of it is that we need to be intentionally welcome and aware of POC in the community, but that is just factually not what that sentence says. It just says that it’s unfortunate most of the people here are white. It just seems like an intentionally inflammatory way of phrasing the meaning.
This has been addressed ad nauseum in this post.
You are bringing social connotations to the definition of the word unfortunate, ones which are influenced by your background and upbringing. The person who used the word clarified how it was meant to be used. Your ‘charitable interpretation’ has been definitively proven already. We’ve asked for people to treat each other with good faith in this space and have requested that you ask questions rather than assume bad faith unless it’s unequivocally clear they are spreading hate speech - this is outlined in our philosophy docs and is generally nice behavior.
I understand that you are upset, but I’d ask of you and anyone else reading this to stop creating the same conversation again in another place on this post.
It just says that it’s unfortunate most of the people here are white. It just seems like an intentionally inflammatory way of phrasing the meaning.
we could have used the most flowery, cushiony language possible to explain how we want a more diverse community and i am confident it would change almost nothing–but in many ways, it’s been much more revealing of people’s insecurities and hangups that need to be overcome to have phrased it that way.
[edit: on re-reading, the sentence that followed it that said “I think there’s outreach to be done” is clear, even if I think the words could have been ordered better for flow, and connect this more directly and closely to the “unfortunate” comment.]
The charitable interpretation of it is that we need to be intentionally welcome and aware of POC in the community
Yeah, I think as written it implies too much to be interpreted unambiguously. I agree, the charitable interpretation is “we need to do more” but that’s an inference that is drawn from my pre-existing understanding of beehaw’s management and vision, and maybe a sprinkling of trust in their intentions.Without explicitly stating “unfortunately we failed to reach minority communities,” my feeling is that it leaves a lot of room for accusation of other parties for the “unfortunateness” of the situation or misreading of future intent, and personally I think that just leads to unclear communication.This post and that phrasing were in full context, however. Why would pre-existing knowledge not be relevant?
It is possible I set an unusually high bar for specificity, and when I read it back actually the following sentence “I think there’s outreach to be done in that regard as well.” does give appropriate grounds for interpretation. I’ll strike or retract the paragraph because with what I know now, I don’t think what I said was accurate any more.
Personally though, I do think that the clearest communication is done with a lower reliance on context. What may appear obvious to some may simply go over others heads. I don’t think that pre-existing knowledge is entirely irrelevant, but I don’t think it should be completely relied upon either.
I read the sentence as it’s unfortunate that there isn’t more diversity in the population. I don’t think that’s negative or insulting or that it needs an excessive amount of context to understand the meaning of it. We all read and interpret differently…
Thank you for writing this!
As a straight white male it’s a bit hard to feel your words carry any weight in discussions like this.
I’m here trying to be an ally to ant decent human being who might feel they need one! <3
I actually think your words carry a lot of weight, both bad and good. As an ally you can advocate for and support. As a POC it can be exhausting to always have fight. You can’t live our lives but you can help carry the torch when we’re too tired to do so. And other white people care more about what you have to say.
The reality is as a white man you have outsized power. You can use that to dismiss and berate, or you can use it to understand and support. Thank you, from the bottom of my heart, for doing the latter. Your words are extremely important in this discussion.
Yeah, it’s easy to forget. A former boss of mine had a great coffee mug, it said… paraphrasing here but basically “when you’re used to privelege, equality can feel like oppression”.
I’m so happy to part of corner of the net that actually try to love your neighbor instead of hating everyone and everything.
I just don’t understand why you would want to waste the little energy you have to be an ass.
Basically… “Don’t be a dick” - Wil Wheaton
(Of yeah… the biggest fucking irony… got to love all the white folks working on a tan while still hating people of color. I mean. What the fuck? Almost everyone love a tan… but that’s just working on getting the skin color that bugs you… nutters)
Ok, sorry for the rant. I’m a bit drunk at the moment. Love you guys!
I like to say that everyone deserves white privilege… Including white people! Thanks for showing up and trying to be a good person!
o7
As a fellow snowflake, I’ve got your back.
A bunch of snowflakes makes a blizzard ;)
What is ‘white’ exactly and why is it unfortunate?
Where I am from, we don’t make these distinctions on the color of a person. That and the fact that unless we are quantifying somehow the ‘shade’ of the skin color it’s impossible to make any serious category.
I’ve always thought that the way americans divide people by color is really dumb and very antiquated, even bordering immorality.
I wouldn’t bring that for future statistics. I don’t understand why race is important in a medium where we can’t see each others.
I’m white, and I just took that to mean they’d like to see more diversity. As in, it’s not unfortunate that members are white so much as unfortunate they haven’t attracted more diverse representation (if I’m right, I do think it could have been worded better).
And to be clear, in contexts like this, no one is dividing people “by color,” but by experience. While race may be largely imaginary biologically, it has been and continues to be a major variable related to a person’s economics, education, housing, etc. due to the external factors that do treat race as significant (i.e., as an American, we have historically and systemically discriminated against non-white people in pretty much every facet of civic and social life).
That stuff matters to…a lot of people. But it’s not at the expense of white people–we can all be happy to see diversity in our communities. It’s a net gain for everyone.
Yes - I’m white as well. It’s more so that I want to see more diverse representation because I believe that a majority white (also majority men) tends to push out people of colour as they will be a minority group.
For example, if a thread about abortion (an issue that affects mostly women) was filled with men talking about it - it’s unlikely that a women would want to comment there. I believe the same would apply with a majority of people being white in a thread about BLM for example.
I think it could’ve been worded better but I didn’t really think about the wording of these much at all.
I understand.
I guess part of me wanted to get away from the same pervasive US politics that’s plaguing reddit. I had hopes that maybe we wanted to build a less american community and more inclusive of other points of view but it seems we are going to fall back to the same thing here.
I guess part of me wanted to get away from the same pervasive US politics that’s plaguing reddit.
i hope you understand this but: asking whether people are white or not isn’t US politics, it might literally be the single most important sociological question in the world because whether you’re white or not for the vast majority of living human beings immediately predetermines a huge chunk of your status globally
IMO the interesting part is that this is not American politics. Ironically out of all the western countries, the US actually talks about it the most, but the legacy of colonialism and white supremacy is still taken as the default in much of the world. Most folks in Europe are quite blind to it since it’s really taken as the default. It’s a pretty global issue, but very few places do people openly confront it.
How does wanting to increase diversity result in fewer points of view?
Yeah, sorry, I gave an American example because I’m American, but Alyaza said it best… race and its significance is not an exclusively American phenomenon by a long shot. But I sympathize with American fatigue, we do dominate the discussion a lot 😀
What is ‘white’ exactly and why is it unfortunate?
‘White’ is an artificially constructed privileged racial caste predicated on and necessitating anti-Black violence.
It is a legal and social ingroup whose borders expand and contract as needed to preserve itself.
Its over representation is “unfortunate” in so far as any lack of diversity-of-experience will make for a less rich community for all involved, but specifically having membership skew towards the more privileged members of a hierarchy can damage that community by having it tend toward obviousness of how its own privileges and position in society can affect its worldview.
A member from the community might, for example, say they “don’t see race” and not understand how that position itself upholds white supremacy.
They might suggest racism can be solved by not talking about race and get no pushback from a community whose members by-and-large have no experience of being subject to racial discrimination themselves.Generally, there are things we all don’t know we don’t know and the more similar those around us are to us, the more overlap there is likely to be in those things.
A diverse community is less likely to be oblivious to its own lack of knowledge.
I don’t understand why race is important in a medium where we can’t see each others.
Because people bring their personal experiences, histories, and identities to every discussion. Having a folks with a range of different experiences and identities contributing, imo, greatly benefits discussions; I want to hear multiple perspectives on an issue (within reason of course - I’m not interested in engaging with racists, transphobes, fascists, etc., for obvious reasons). If a community is very one-sided (ex. Mostly white folks, mostly men, and so on) how can I curate a well-balanced perspective on a given topic? I only know what I know, and if everybody around me is coming from a similar background and we’re all saying the same shit - what kind of discussion is that?
Good point, but then you are generalizing about ‘white’ men like they are all the same and they all have the same point of view.
And by saying that it’s unfortunate that the majority of users are ‘white’ it looks as if they wished these users weren’t here.
I’m a cis white man and I felt no offence when reading that. I also embrace diversity and I’m curious why you don’t?
We could build a community of men, each having a unique points of view, but none of them would be a woman’s.
We could build a community of men, each having a unique points of view, but none of them would be a woman’s.
Well said! Hope you don’t mind if I steal this for future use, I think it illustrates the point very well. Could be useful in some real-life interactions, I’m thinking.
Go ahead :)
The interesting thing about words is that we made them all up. Different people feel very differently about certain words in certain contexts. Slang and vernacular are perfect examples of this - we learn how people are using existing words in new ways all the time, and we adjust appropriately. What people don’t always recognize, however, is that words fall in and out of fashion constantly and how they are applied are also cultural artifacts. Prolific artists, famous movies, and important political figures all shape the way we interpret specific words - the cultural zeitgeist controls more than we are often aware.
Rather than assuming that unfortunate means it must be negative, because that’s the experience you’ve had when that word was used around you, I’d suggest asking questions and assuming good faith. You could ask what do you mean, when you use the word unfortunate before jumping to conclusions. Perhaps English isn’t the posters first language, or perhaps English in the country they are from use the word unfortunate in a very different way. Questions and good faith, rather than assumptions and escalation can quickly solve any questions you have and everyone leaves happy.
I think this is also a perfect example of why diversity is so amazing to be around and experience because you get exposed to so many more ways to utilize language, so many different backgrounds, and so many diverse points of view 😄
That’s true. I don’t think all white folks, or men, or any other category of people is a monolith - but just that hearing, for example, a woman’s POV - especially a Black woman’s POV, or a trans woman’s POV - on gender disparity in sports is a voice I really want to hear in that discussion, since those folks might have a very specific take on the topic. Even if everyone else in the discussion is a man - and I assume they WILL be men from a wide range of cultures, language communities, sexual orientations, etc. - still, none of them can bring the particular nuance that (in this example) a woman can.
I could get a lot more political on this, but I think that’s really the heart of the issue. I believe admins are saying “we have a majority group here in these ways, and while that’s not unexpected, it’s unfortunate that we’re pretty one-sided in those categories of folks right now - so we want to try and change that.”
However, I want to acknowledge that the tendency to single out white people and men, in particular, is kind of a thing right now, which - speaking from my lived experience as a white person - can feel real bad in the immediate moment. Nobody wants to feel unwelcome or like their existence is problematic. Unfortunately, the world is set up in ways where certain groups of folks (usually white, usually men) are repeatedly asked their opinion on things, or given the power to make decisions over the lives of people from completely different backgrounds. Assuming everybody is engaging in good faith, it’s more about making sure everybody has a seat at the table and less about “your very existence is problematic and you should be shunned.” Yes, some people mean that when they say it, but again, that does fuck all to foster a healthy discussion space (again, within reason here - fuck fascists and so on). How tf is a woman (for example), regardless of the diversity of her lived experiences, ever going to be able to speak to men’s mental issues and the crisis of care going on there? Like, a thousand women, all of them from widely different cultures and backgrounds, could never bring the personal nuance necessary to truly discuss that important issue.
Do marginalized people sometimes vent by making sweeping generalizations? Sure. Does that promote open and healthy discussion? No. But not every space is a discussion space, and I try to stay open-minded when I’m met with that energy. People are hurting; sometimes they talk shit. And this goes both ways - folks can end up defensive after hearing people talk shit constantly. That’s completely natural, but I truly don’t think that’s the case here. And Beehaw is young - there’s still lot of growing to do. That this survey was even launched makes me feel like Beehaw’s future is pretty bright.
Because people bring their personal experiences, histories, and identities to every discussion.
Exactly this. I think it’s great to bring a range of social values from different cultures to a discussion. I think that a wider range of values helps make for fairer outcomes.
What is ‘white’ […] Where I am from, we don’t make these distinctions on the color of a person. That and the fact that unless we are quantifying somehow the ‘shade’ of the skin color it’s impossible to make any serious category.
i absolutely promise that your country does, whether you are conscious of that or not. whiteness, in any case, is a social construct (and even if it wasn’t, race and ethnicity are also basically arbitrary) so you’re not going to ever get a singular, satisfactory answer on this. the whole point at a sociological level is that it’s an amorphous, hegemony-based category that transcends political barriers and basically divides the world into “haves” and “have-nots”. it doesn’t make sense because it can’t ever, it’s arbitrary, and it’s not a “serious” category because it’s not really intended to be.
unfortunately, on that basis it’s also the single most important (and unambiguous) descriptor of one’s racial identity in a global context–so we’re kind of locked into using it here because it is actually really important to know what our community looks like, and we don’t literally want to use American census groupings.
I meant that there is no official sanctioned discrimination (but of course there is racism in my country). If I remember correctly, in the US you have documents where you have to write your ethnicity or the color of your skin. This makes me think that there is an active effort by the government to categorize people based on the color of their skin. This for me is immoral.
It also is ridiculous because there is no definition of what ‘white’ is or how much white is white. There must be like thousands of shades of skin colors but no definition of what white is.
And I’m saying this because there also countries you may call white in Europe that are dirt poor and clearly in the have-nots bag so this ‘whites have’ and the rest ‘don’t have’ is a very american way of understanding this.
Again, just hoped for a less americanized point of view.
Uh, outside of census data, no, I don’t think ethnicity or colour of skin is in us documents. The discrimination does not come from law targeting based on ethnicity but usually the characteristics of the social group that are inherited from segregation and slavery.
Also, yes, there is no definition of white, it’s why we phrased it “do you consider yourself white?”.
It’s not as bad now, but these used to be on things like IDs/driver’s licenses and birth certificates. My parents (both born in the late 60s, one white, one biracial) have the races of both parents listed (and in the case of my maternal grandfather, still listed as ‘Negro’) on their birth certificates, while mine from the 90s does not, IIRC.
One area of official documentation that absolutely does still are tickets from cops, whether traffic or otherwise, as every traffic ticket I’ve gotten in my life has listed my race. (Amusing for me as a biracial person because I’ve gotten three different ones listed over the years, but I digress.) There’s still things in the legal system that very explicitly call out race still.
Oof, that’s awful. I didn’t know.
For recent tickets, is it actually to make sure that demographics are accounted for with police action in the hopes of countering racial profiling? As for the legal system, is it about asking a jury to be of a race similar to the defendant (is that a thing? I’m not too familiar)?
I’m not sure, but I would guess that it’s for the first, at the very least. At least for my traffic tickets, it was not something asked of me, but was written down by the ticketing officer. I have no experience with the actual trial side, but again, your assumption is mine there as well.
In this context it’s mainly shorthand for privilege because white includes most European ancestry. I can’t speak for everyone here but I absolutely love diversity and I’m thrilled we have such good representation on so many levels but this is a good potential target for improvement.
As an American, there isn’t any official paperwork I’ve ever seen in the US that requests, let alone requires, my skin tone or race, with the sole exception of the US census and the occasional optional and anonymous EEOC questionnaire that some job applications have, neither of which record anything to do with skin color or appearance.
So are you saying 23andme is lying about my ancestry
Honestly? Yes, kinda. Ancestry is a lot more a cultural phenomenon than a genetic one.
That’s a lot of words for you to say you literally have zero understanding how the lived experience of people of color is very different.
Beehaw wants to be better than reddit, which was mostly straight white men voices at the detriment of everyone else. It’s really dishonest as even in the EU the loved experience of people of color is different.
It’s really ignorant and narrow-minded of you as white people are a minority worldwide but the majority in wealth and tech. A space that celebrates people of color is rare and why oh fucking why do you HAVE to make it about you?
Where I am from, we don’t make these distinctions on the color of a person.
Not everybody is from wherever you’re from. There’s a chart up there for that, too.
So you don’t care about people from other countries and you want to bring US politics to this site AGAIN like in reddit? Got it.
You seem to go out of your way to read and respond to everything in the most argumentative way possible. Basically every comment I see from you is this way. In case you are not aware, people are not obligated to talk to you. Please discover a new way to interact with people.
Thank you for taking time in reading my comments even if you dislike it so much.
I don’t understand why race is important in a medium where we can’t see each others.
I think it matters if the demographics of the site skew strongly from the demographics of the countries represented, as that suggests something about the site might be offputting to certain people.
Though I don’t think this is the case based on the results?
What could be offputting about this? I don’t get it.
Maybe there have been a lot of issues with these people you call ‘white’ here but I haven’t seen anything out of the ordinary.
What could be offputting about this? I don’t get it.
Allowed communities, moderation styles, etc. If you find that certain demographics are not eager to participate it might suggest an issue with moderation.
Maybe there have been a lot of issues with these people you call ‘white’
I don’t think that’s the implication at all. They’re not saying ‘white’ people are bad. They’re expressing concern that they might be hosting a place that isn’t sufficiently welcoming to others.
Yeah, this whole thing REALLY rubbed me the wrong way. I’m going to get shit for this, but it comes off as really sexist, racist and - as someone who is neurodivergent - kinda condescending.
Exactly. Maybe we’ll get an explanation.
- PanaeolusPrince ( @PanaeolusPrince@kbin.social ) 2•11 months ago
Its the same oppression olympics game they always play. They think the more disenfranchised you are the more legitimacy there is to what you are saying.
Calling it oppression Olympics to desire diverse representation is such an astonishingly bad faith interpretation and self report.
it’s astonishing how frequently the worst takes on our instance come from kbin federation chuds who don’t seem to understand where they are
So many of the comments just read like “white cishet chud is angry that Beehaw wants to be more diverse”. Then again being angry at shit they don’t understand is a default setting for white cishet chuds 🤷
I’ll be honest - as pleased as I am that our communities are still federated, I am somewhat surprised because kbin registration is open and is growing fairly steadily. I only hope that useful and constructive participation from our instance outweighs the bad, although I can certainly understand a few awfully rotten apples would probably not have left a good impression!
We’re having our own issues trying to shut down the intolerant crowd. That being said, I should report that they’re currently being downvoted 3:7 (because that’s a feature kbin supports); and I might have to ask around if Ernest (kbin dev) could be clearer about showing the names of federated communities and users because those things are not nearly as clear as when I view the same post from a Lemmy instance.
I’ll be honest - as pleased as I am that our communities are still federated, I am somewhat surprised because kbin registration is open and is growing fairly steadily. I only hope that useful and constructive participation from our instance outweighs the bad, although I can certainly understand a few awfully rotten apples would probably not have left a good impression!
we do, to be clear, get a lot of good crossposters (there are many even in this thread)–but kbin’s size also means that by far it’s the biggest source of federated trouble for us at this point, lol
The sad reality is that there is racism in more countries than the US. Even if it’s “just” subconscious racism.
Where are you from if you don’t have to deal with that?
Love seeing the results from the survey, and also love the word “beeple.”
Beeple is also an amazing 3d digital artist
It seems like I’m probably the rarest Beeple here, since I’m from Vietnam (which is not even in the graph), and I’m not even 16 yet LOL
Well, many of those countries only have 1 person! So if you didn’t answer the form, no Vietnam
Awwwww, welcome! I see you just joined a few days ago like me. Seems like a great time here 🎉
Us Aussies sneak into the top 5, yay.
As for the age thing, I’ll just say I have posted to usenet :)
I’ve posted to Usenet years before the HTML protocol existed.
Nice! Thanks for compiling all that!
Regarding the gender split… IIRC, most Reddit users are male. This actually does have a bit of an effect on Reddit’s share of trans people. Worldwide, I believe it’s about an even split between transmasculine and transfeminine people. But Reddit has more transfems than transmascs, and I’m pretty sure it’s because people don’t leave their preferred website when coming out as trans. In that same vein, I hear that tumblr leans more transmasc.
Yeah, Reddit and a lot of forum websites are very heavily biased towards men so I’m not surprised we ended up inheriting that bias. I’d be nice to reach out to correct that bias.
One other thing to note is that this doesn’t give us any information on trans people which might affect how we assess that bias. It’s something that would be interesting to see in a future survey.
I frequently link posts from Lemmy communities to friends, family, and some co-workers in part to encourage wider acceptance and participation.
If people keep up with the good content and keep engaging then more will come in time.
My only feedback is the words choices here were, unfortunate. It comes across as the author found undesired demographics which felt not inclusive.
In my opinion this is not being nice.
I am a minority in some parts of the graph and a majority in others. Reading this left my feeling I wasn’t welcome here which I have felt ever day before reading this post.
I think you should read the post again. To me it seems that a focus was put on being an inclusive and diverse space. That includes everyone and you of course too!
Which part specifically made you feel not welcome?
The part where he says it’s “mostly white people which is unfortunate” was an odd thing to say.
Doesn’t make white people feel very welcome I’d imagine.
I think the intention was “it’s unfortunate there’s not more diversity” and not “it’s unfortunate that there are a lot of white people on here,” but, yeah, that part could have been worded better. I don’t think it was meant to be unwelcoming.
The part where he says it’s “mostly white people which is unfortunate” was an odd thing to say.
Doesn’t make white people feel very welcome I’d imagine.
I’m as white as driven snow and I took that as “it’s unfortunate we don’t have more diversity in this area”
I understood the intent, but words mean things and phrasing matters. As written, it doesn’t seem welcoming or inclusive. They phrased the other sections much better–(which almost makes it seem more targeted even though I sincerely doubt it is)
“We don’t have as much diversity as we would like in this area, so in an effort to cultivate a richer community, we’ll need to do more analysis and outreach. We are open to ideas!”.
The reality is: you can’t force diversity. You can only make an environment where its welcome and encouraged–and you should be welcoming to everyone. Obviously this rubbed some folks the wrong way.
As an aside: it’s also a little short sighted to assume that bucketing people in a “white” group means they aren’t diverse in their own right. I’d imagine there is quite a diverse makeup of “white people” on here-- people from Western Europe, Eastern Europe, the US, Canada, Australia, and elsewhere who all have very different perspectives, cultures, and norms that they bring to the table.
As an aside: it’s also a little short sighted to assume that bucketing people in a “white” group means they aren’t diverse in their own right. I’d imagine there is quite a diverse makeup of “white people” on here-- people from Western Europe, Eastern Europe, the US, Canada, Australia, and elsewhere who all have very different perspectives, cultures, and norms that they bring to the table.
this is the sort of sensitivity and white fragility–the idea that we as white people are diverse too, damnit!–that makes me think it genuinely is “unfortunate” our community is even as white as the survey suggests (and it’s not that white, to be clear!). respectfully: the “diversity of opinion” between various white people in the world is not nearly as interesting as you think it is on a lot of issues, and on those issues i’m not super interested as a non-white person in getting the “diversity” of five opinions from five white people with the same privileges just because they also happen to be from five different majority-white countries.
A couple of things: It sounds like you are assuming I am white.
This response doesn’t seem all that nice or inclusive. Calling someone with an, ironically, slightly different opinion than you (read: diverse), fragile and sensitive seems to be counter to the community you are trying to build here. Right? Am I crazy?
I think we need to strive to have an environment where we can have open, honest, and sometimes uncomfortable conversations about all of this stuff. Being dismissive of it as “white fragility” isn’t productive or helpful.
As I said in my initial comment, I understand the intent of that section of the report, and I think more diversity is better than homogeneity, but the way that information was conveyed, and almost specifically that information, seems unwelcoming. For what its worth, I very intentionally joined Beehaw vs any other instance because I truly appreciate what you are trying to do here. So hopefully you take this in the manner it is intended: (hopefully) constructive criticism and food for thought.
A couple of things: It sounds like you are assuming I am white.
if you are not: you sound completely indistinguishable from every white poster on here who thinks the idea of not being the center of attention is some sort of attack on their identity. the fact that you immediately jump to “well, you’re assuming” does not help you beat the allegations here either.
I think we need to strive to have an environment where we can have open, honest, and sometimes uncomfortable conversations about all of this stuff. Being dismissive of it as “white fragility” isn’t productive or helpful.
very bluntly: this is white fragility and you are again demonstrating to me that maybe the “unfortunate” phrasing is actually the correct one here despite all the ire it’s drawn. if your “diversity” is when five white people in a room have opinions and those five white people happen to be from different countries and have distinct culture that’s essentially just white people jerking themselves off. there are a million other spaces that cater to that online, so if you’re interested in that i’d recommend going literally anywhere else.
As an aside: it’s also a little short sighted to assume that bucketing people in a “white” group means they aren’t diverse in their own right. I’d imagine there is quite a diverse makeup of “white people” on here-- people from Western Europe, Eastern Europe, the US, Canada, Australia, and elsewhere who all have very different perspectives, cultures, and norms that they bring to the table.
Couldn’t agree more. I can understand why people from the US may think that a graph showing mostly white people would mean a lack of diversity, but this is not a US-only website. There are so much diversity amongst white people. As a Turkish person, my skin is white yes, but I have grown up in a vastly different culture and environment than a white American, or a white Russian, or a white French. Or while my skin is white I’ve yet to have a “white privilege” because again, I’m not from the US.
I know, in a poll like this you can’t just make every ethnicity and background an option -there are just too many of them. But again in an international community like this, saying that a white majority means a lack of diversity is just wrong in my opinion.
As an aside: it’s also a little short sighted to assume that bucketing people in a “white” group means they aren’t diverse in their own right. I’d imagine there is quite a diverse makeup of “white people” on here-- people from Western Europe, Eastern Europe, the US, Canada, Australia, and elsewhere who all have very different perspectives, cultures, and norms that they bring to the table.
It was precisely white people that created the concept of whiteness, without taking into account any cultural differences (or, actively trying to hide them), in order to create a us vs them situation.
We don’t get to complain about POC using a term that we created, the way we created it.
As someone who isn’t it was odd, since most the social media I’ve been drawn to has been ones where I don’t ever really know anyone’s identity.
Has primarily been the draw of message board type places for me, since it allows me to just be judged on my text I write. At least the communities I participate in like games and tech. It’s nice being able to just blend in I guess as opposed to always just standing out depending on the location in real life.
Unless some place is outwardly bigoted I don’t really see it as bad if it just happens to be a specific groups that respectfully comes to have conversations. I don’t get the sense that places like this is has been unwelcoming so whoever congregates here is what it is and not really a negative. Like I don’t know how to push for more diversity. It’s just an internet message board to me that is welcoming of everyone, and that’s enough.
The entire point of white supremacy has been to make an in class which unquestionably dominates in all spheres of life.
There is no place white people are not “welcome”.
There is no space white people cannot go.You can see in the response to (relatively weak) Covid restrictions of white people reacting violently to (likely for the first time in their lives) being told there was somewhere they could not go. And what did the signs they held say? “I Need A Haircut!”. They felt the withdrawal of not being waited on—being able to feel superior to someone—like a drug.
Further, a main power of whiteness is its invisibility. To not only have the freedom to go anywhere but to have that freedom never acknowledged or commented on. To never have to hyphenate. American. Not Mexican-American. British. Not Black-British. A person, who never has to consider that they are indeed “a white person”.
I would ask the imaginary white person referenced in your post if they are really being made to feel unwelcome by other white people asking if they’re white, or if they are experiencing discomfort at having to confront the fact that they –are– white and not “default”.
I would question how often they even consider “Am I welcome here?”. I would ask them to examine if they ever ask themself “is this a space for me?” or if they conversely tend to move through anywhere and everywhere with no thought to the idea they might be stepping on someone’s toes.
I understand, I’m a white cis man and I used to feel this way sometimes when reading things like this, but my perspective has since changed.
The way I see it, Beehaw is actively trying to be an inclusive space, as opposed to a lot of other online spaces which really aren’t so inclusive.
My expectation would be that, naturally, POC, women, and lgbtq+ people would hang out more in inclusive spaces than non-inclusive ones, while non-minorities may be evenly spread of even favor non-inclusive spaces. Therefore, I would expect demographics of inclusive spaces to have an overall significantly smaller percentage of non-minorities.
However, some of these numbers look relatively close to national demographics (at-least based on those I see on Wikipedia for the US), and may even have a smaller percentage of minorities than national average. I don’t know much about statistics and I’m not a mathematician, there’s probably all sorts of factors going into why those numbers are the way they are. Still, instinctively, those numbers look unfortunate to me, since they don’t reflect my expectations of a successfully inclusive community.
I hope nobody feels left out.
Thing is, beehaw is pretty loud about being a safe space the neurodivergent and or folks with different gender identities and sexualities. That stuff is race agnostic and those people will likely fall in line with national percentages for race.
Given that most of folks are from the US, which is about 75% white, and another big chunk is from nations that are 80-90% white, I can’t say that I’m surprised buy the numbers. If anything, given the users from Canada, western Europe, and Australia, Beehaw is probably a hair more racially diverse than the general population.
I’m white and I understood it as: “It’s unfortunate that we don’t have more diversity yet.” In no way was it meant to sound like “oh great, look at all of the white people.”
But what irks me is that whole “exclusion” of cis males thing. I’m being general here, but it seems more and more it happens under the guise of “creating safe spaces for people.” It spoils and demeans the entire social experience even if maybe we don’t see it from that perspective. I mean, I get it, not everyone is completely comfortable around others and sometimes there’s underlying issues/trauma there, understandably. People are, and can be, just gross.
On here, and this applies to everyone, it’s an open, shared space for ALL – not just “make a special space for me.” That’s the thing about equality…it needs to be equally divided to ensure we can have specific spaces for men, for women and for alllllllllllllllllllll of those who fit in between or don’t fit at all into these categories. It just astounds me how a group can be literally screaming to be noticed and loved, and yet there is so much hate a vitriol coming from that exact same group shot back when people take notice, reach out and try to do something about it.
Beehaw from what I have seen and experienced is indeed trying to proactive and advocate for all users, not just some.
All I’m saying is you can’t have it both ways – its either inclusive for everyone, or its not. Simple as. If you want a blinders on, customized, experience where there is absolutely no interaction with anyone outside of who/what you deem acceptable… check out Facebook or Twitter. Or even find a trans-run trans-only board/community.
Edit: punctuation
Completely agree with you! I’m also white and one of the harder things I’ve had to come to terms with is that I shouldn’t be automatically comfortable in all spaces. Where I live in the US, the default space is white and we expect BIPOC people to integrate into our spaces but we never put effort into integrating into their spaces. I would rather this be a space where more people are comfortable even if that means I might have an adjustment period…
I’m glad we are 100% on the same wavelength on that, RiddleMeWhy.
Honestly, same here up in Canada; the expectation is “they” came to “us” and need to adjust to “our” ways. Scarcely do we take the time to put the effort into doing the same; whether that be in the form of actively trying to understand that culture, gender, or sexuality, etc.
The act of genuinely just acknowledging that there are other people in the room with different and valid viewpoints that, like or unlike, your own do in fact exist! Especially to try to consciously do this before you type your response, and be kind, speaks volumes to the room. It goes unspoken, though, the effort it takes to be civil, even when something upsets you. It just takes a moment to be kind.
As expected, mostly white which is unfortunate.
Well, as the graph shows before, it’s also mostly U.S-based. Those are really good diversity numbers if you factor that into mind. Like, way better than expected.
I just checked 2020 US census data (https://data.census.gov/table?g=010XX00US&d=DEC+Demographic+Profile) and that’s unfortunately not true unless I’m reading the data wrong. It says that people who identify as White form around 61.6% of people in the US.
It’s 71.5, as of 2020. Also, if you take into account that most of our users are technical and online, then that number probably increases given the digital divide. Of course, this could all be negated by that very large “prefer not to say” percentage.
We’re using the same source but um, I don’t know where you’re getting 71.5% because that’s not on the page you linked. In fact, from the page you linked, the number seems to be 61.6%.
White Population
Overall, 235.4 million people reported White alone or in combination with another group.
- The White alone population accounted for 204.3 million people and 61.6% of all people living in the United States, compared with 223.6 million and 72.4% in 2010.
- Together with the 31.1 million people who identified as White in combination with another race group, such as Black or African American or Asian, the White alone or in combination population comprised 235.4 million people and 71% of the total population.
- Although the White alone population decreased by 8.6% since 2010, the White in combination population saw a 316% increase during the same period.
That said - yes, our results are more biased due to being online and because of people who didn’t want to answer.
It looks like they pulled from the “White alone or in combination” statistic – although you’re right; “71.5%” is not used, only “71%” or “71.0%” without the extra 0.5 on the end!
Ah, I see, good catch. I would think our question does not include “White in combination to African American” for example so I’m not sure if I’d use that number…
Maybe an interesting question: how does this compare to the diversity of admins? I guess doing an actual survey is bad for your anonimity, but some idea could be cool
I was wondering about this, too - but including the mod team, as well. It’s good to have a mixed group of folks when it comes to moderation purposes. Maybe something to consider when hiring for the new communities?
Maybe an interesting question: how does this compare to the diversity of admins? I guess doing an actual survey is bad for your anonimity, but some idea could be cool
we are more diverse than the community as a whole because there are only four of us. we didn’t separately poll our mods but they’re probably a bit more diverse on average than the site just eyeballing it
Nice breakdown of users. I’m happy to see there are a number of people in my age group. I often feel like an outlier (pretty sure I’m the oldest person/token grandpa in two of my discord servers haha)
Hey nothing wrong with that! The best wine gets better with age. 🤌
Looks good!
Beeple has got to be the official term for us going forward!
Nice to see a pretty diverse crowd in here! A bit US health perhaps but that’s too be expected. Doing my bit to represent the tiny percentages of other places :D
Thank you for the awesome shiny charts, Lion 🥹❤️
Also thanks to everyone who filled out the survey, it’s great to know who’s around and to see that most Beeple seem to be having a good time!
Off topic, if you don’t mind: how do I add pronouns to my name?
Go to your settings and set a display name that includes them
Thanks! I wondered what that was for.
Go to your settings, then beside “Display name”, you can put in a nickname (or just your username) and then add your pronouns at the end.
I also like to put a link to a pronouns website like https://pronouns.page/ or https://pronouns.org/ in my bio, but that’s optional.
Awesome, thanks so much! Looks like the server is too busy to save my changes so I’ll try again later. The pronoun link is a great idea.
Did you press the save button at the very bottom of the page?
When I press the save button it seems to get stuck on the spinning circle animation.
It may be related to one of my ad/script blockers, but I’ve tried the obvious things.
UPDATE: It seems to be a character limit issue? If I add more than “communication [they]” I get caught on the spinning circle. I guess Lemmy doesn’t have an error message for this situation yet.
I understand the arguments given by many of us regarding why knowing the demographics is important. Maybe I shouldn’t feel this way, but I bear the burden of having to deal with the crap that comes with being at the intersection of many of the categories that are discriminated against in real life, and reddit/lemmy was/is a place where I could engage with others while not having to shoulder most of that. So it bothers me a little that it is being brought up here too, albeit indirectly. On the other hand I can imagine how this would be different if there was actual discriminatory behaviour in beehaw itself.
A los otros 4 weyes de México un cordial saludo 🫡.
Always love me some data porn. Thanks for this!