Microsoft draws jeers for ‘utterly bananas’ introductions highlighting pronouns, race and even hairstyles

Ailan Evans, DCNF

Microsoft was ridiculed on social media Thursday for including land acknowledgments, pronoun statements and references to hairstyles in its corporate introductions.

While giving presentations during the Microsoft Ignite 2021 conference on Tuesday, Microsoft employees recognized that the land they were currently standing on previously belonged to Native American tribes.

Woke Capital incarnate. pic.twitter.com/KHlfMzjOt9

— Balaji Srinivasan (@balajis) November 4, 2021

Another video shows two employees, Nic Fillingham and Natalia Godyla, introducing themselves by stating their pronouns, race and hairstyle.

“I’m Nic Fillingham, I’m a Caucasian man with glasses and a beard, I go by he/him, and I’m a security evangelist here at Microsoft,” Fillingham says in the video.

WATCH:

Many social media users were quick to mock the introductions as strange and bizarre.

“[T]alking like a total weirdo is bad in contexts where you’re going to have to relate to normal people, such as customers,” Josh Barro, columnist at Popehat and Insider, tweeted Thursday.

It seems like part of the rationale for this must be to help the visually impaired. But, whatever the intentions, this makes Microsoft look like the Cirque du Soleil of wokeness. https://t.co/Uh5rSj5Qns

— Sam Harris (@SamHarrisOrg) November 4, 2021

Author and podcaster Sam Harris called it the “Cirque du Soleil of wokeness,” while venture capitalist Balaji Srinivasan said the introductions were “Woke Capital incarnate.”

“Utterly bananas,” tweeted Kmele Foster, owner of Freethink Media, while Quillette founder Claire Lehman called the introductions examples of “bizarre sectarian mind viruses.”

Microsoft did not immediately respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.

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