Protesters Will Disrupt TechCrunch's Award Ceremony
The fabulous, 7th annual Crunchies—Silicon Valley's Teen Choice Awards—will kick off this coming Monday. As startup luminaries and the press converge on the Davies Symphony Hall in San Francisco, a group of angry protesters will be waiting for them.
Organizers from the group Jobs with Justice San Francisco are behind the rally—somewhat ironically organized via Facebook—which they say is a celebration of the "worst in tech," a gentrification gala:
I should note that I was planning on covering the Crunchies before some travel plans got shelved, and that the event itself isn't quite Oscar-lavish: honors are handed out for inglorious nods like "Best Collaborative Consumption Service" and "CEO of the Year." Less Dior, more ill-fitting suits and fedoras.
But an award show is an award show, and part of the fun is self-congratulation—so at a time when anti-tech antipathy is at a high point, there are plenty in the community who think that congratulation is undue.