Titstare

Titstare is a fictional mobile application centred on pictures of men staring at women and their breasts. It was introduced at a 2013 hackathon at TechCrunch's TechCrunch Disrupt conference in San Francisco, California. Titstare became the subject of public controversy, described by some as symptomatic of sexist attitudes in Silicon Valley's startup culture, and others as brilliant satire. Conference organizers later apologized for the "misogynistic" presentation.

TechCrunch, a technology news website, was established in 2005 and acquired by internet giant AOL in September 2010. The acquisition was seen by AOL as a move towards solidifying its position as a provider of technical content and was announced at the 2010 edition of the annual conference sponsored by TechCrunch, known as Disrupt.

Disrupt events, generally held early in the fall of each year, are conclaves which bring together representatives of startup companies, industry insiders, and interested others for presentations and networking, typically also including the opportunity for collaborative hackathon sessions. It was at Disrupt 2013, held in San Francisco, that Australian programmers Jethro Batts and David Bolton debuted their new tongue-in-cheek mobile phone app, Titstare, described by the pair as "an app where you take photos of yourself staring at tits".

On Sunday, September 8, the duo delivered their rehearsed one-minute-long presentation – a series of mild breast-related jokes and puns – tying in with their humorously intended product. This generated a mixed response from the assembled crowd, running the gamut from indignation to uncomfortable laughter to genuine appreciation of the "twisted kind of standup" intended by the presenters.

While some considered the product and the presentation to be humorous satire, Titstare was accused of adding to the institutionalized sexism, known as brogrammer culture, in the American tech industry. Response was immediate and primarily negative; journalist Abby Ohlheiser wrote that the app's intent, the agglomeration of photos of men staring at partially clothed female cleavage, effectively trivialized the right of women to consent. After he defended the app against allegations of misogyny on Twitter, Business Insider Chief technology officer Pax Dickinson was forced to resign. Dickinson later wrote an apology, which was published on VentureBeat.

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