48
votes
I am kinda curious about the demographics of Tildes
not sure if this is the appropriate sub group for this question or if its even allowed but figured I'd try.
I am curious the demographics of tildes users. You can be as specific as you feel comfortable.
I am in a dude in my 30s in Canada who works in software development.
Atlantic Canada
Oops I mean 18/F/California
omg me toooo!
At least I actually was when I was 18...
I seem to be the oldest to post in this topic so far. I'm 69, which is not as fun as it sounds. Male, single and straight. A lifelong woodworker, furniture maker and antique restorer, I shifted gears late in life and started writing novels.
Aw my dad was a woodworker in his retirement. He passed away unexpectedly in November, but I have a lot of his pieces. He would make fine musical instruments. My harp for example, and also several guitars, one of which was played by Tommy Emmanuel, and I have a parlour sized one that he made. Many ukuleles. Also boxes, chessboards, and lots of other things. Not furniture though, always smaller stuff.
A parlour sized guitar?! Wait hold on .....OH it's a size standard terminology! That's amazing I would love to have a bunch of ukes and a harp :D
Trim, I'm so sorry for your loss. I've heard of fathers leaving voice recordings for their kids just in case they perish suddenly. In your case, his voice continues on in the music from his instruments.
Thank you for your kind words. Aye. I downloaded all his music videos from his youtube channel too, and I have recordings of us performing together when we used to gig. I have a lot of regret to work through, but here's not the place. I might post something in life at some point.
The instruments are strange as they are such fine quality I'm terrified to play them. I should though. Maybe once a year, in memoriam.
Sorry to hear about your father. Instrument makers are awesome, with amazing skills. It's good you have many of his pieces. They'll be heirlooms to pass down and remember him by.
Do you still do any woodworking, or just writing? If you don’t mind sharing more about what you write, I’d love to hear more about it, or what genres you write in?
I keep trying to pick up simple woodworking as a hobby, but I think it’s probably reliant on me getting a house with a garage I can actually work in, rather than trying to woodwork in an apartment.
I still have a complete woodworking shop, and I try to stay in practice with projects for myself, my family and a few friends. I'm going to make a new chest of drawers for myself, to match a cherry armoire that I made years ago, and a new headboard is in the planning stage as well. A longer term project is replacing the two sofas in my front room. I've only got a vague notion of the design I want, so I suspect it will stay on the back burner for a bit.
Woodworking in an apartment can be done on a small scale. Are you interested in carving? That can be done with just a few tools and a small workspace. I tried chipcarving for a while, but never got proficient.
As for my writing, I've finished eight Sci-Fi novels. I'm working on another right now, though progress is similar to walking through mid-calf cement. This current work is a slight deviation into fantasy, rather than Sci-Fi. I'd characterize all my works as adventure tales, so nothing in the hard science fiction sub-genre.
Never really been interested in carving unfortunately. My first foray into woodworking came from making theatre sets, so very much not small scale, and also not very “quality” woodworking.
Sci-Fi and fantasy-adjacent Sci-Fi is cool! I do tend to like hard sci fi, but I’m also a sucker for fantasy. Good luck with your current novel, hopefully it gets easier as you keep working on it.
Gen X software developer bloke (though I do a lot of deployment infrastructure / devops type work now) from the UK.
I think we've done surveys here before, you might be able to find them.
Edit: here
https://tildes.net/~tildes/1kn5/tildes_demographics_survey_year_uh_its_2024
@Kat was the one doing them
I think we should do a re-do of four seperate survey monkeys so no one has to compile and no one has to do any sort of correlating and fancy data anything: age,
sexgender, country, "Free text"That we can all see immediately
I'm sure meerkat meant well but it's a Herculean task
This is what gets into good survey making though - Sex would not typically be the correct or useful category. And you'll get people who won't answer the question if it's offered that way.
It's complicated.
Myself, I firmly stand by the belief that, unless clearly specified as "natal sex"/"sex assigned at birth"/"gonadal sex"/"immutable sex" and such, I am absolutely technically correct in choosing the sex I've transitioned to - i.e. the sex (mutable) that matches my gender (immutable), and is what I always do. I didn't change genders; I literally changed a subset of my body's biological sex.
In no world would I ever ask you to do anything different.
I'm not your doctor and I don't need to know shit ;)
This is one of (many) reasons why if you want to get a sense of how many trans people are in your survey sample, it's much better to just ask directly whether participants are trans than to try and figure it out based on their responses to "sex" and "gender" questions.
And to ask non-binary separately because even if I acknowledge I'm in the trans umbrella I don't feel right answering "yes" to being trans. Mostly because I still semi-/demi- identify with the gender I've experienced my whole life. I'm just more complicated than that.
Yeah, agreed. While I personally believe any non-binary person has the right to call themselves trans if they want to, no matter what the specifics of their gender identity are, not every one of them will be comfortable with it themselves.
Indeed, well called out, @sparksbet as well -- mistakes like this are indicative of an attitude, in this case negligence at best, indifference possible, and ill-intent at worst case that folks unfortunately very much need to watch out for these days. My privilege was showing, apologies.
I knew you didn't have ill intent. The previous survey was a good one. I'd be happy to take the data and parse it if it were still available. It's the sort of thing I like doing to avoid things I should be doing.
surely a site with ~lgbt has people smart enough to not make "sex" the survey category
You’re absolutely right that sex/gender should not be conflated but there are more tactful ways to point that out than to question @chocobean’s intelligence.
Sometimes people make mistakes. Even on a site that (rightfully) welcomes people of all genders and sexual orientations.
No no no, it was my mistake, and I think sparksbet meant that if we were to undertake this as a community, Tildes' people would collectively have better sensitivity intelligence to together come up with better categories instead.
yeah I didn't mean to specifically be mean to you chocobean! I was probably a bit more terse than usual, as I just got home after a long travel day (and I think I left that comment while I was stuck on a delayed train 😅)
:>
And also thank you @Skylark, you guys are what makes this place special
I don't see the problem. Sex and gender are different things, why can't the survey ask for one, the other, or both?
Which a survey should ask for is highly dependent on the purposes of the survey in question, and one's sex is very rarely what you actually care unless you're deliberately interested in other private medical information. Unless you're also asking questions like "Have you had a vasectomy?" or "When was your last period?", asking for survey participants' sex is probably not what you actually want. Even in medical contexts, a binary "sex assigned at birth" question tends not to be fine-grained enough when it concerns queer folks if you actually care about how their anatomy and medical needs come together. I'm in a longitudinal study of queer health that has their own (very thorough) demographics questions but also often direct participants to voluntarily take part in other studies that need queer participants. Mang studies still use the sex assigned at birth question, but even those that do often include other questions with more specific anatomical and health history details depending on what the study is about.
As Tildes probably shouldn't give a crap about our private medical information, a question asking for gender is more appropriate. When it comes to identifying what proportion of Tildes users are trans vs cis, a question that directly asks about this would be a far better measure than attempting to guess it from sex assigned at birth alongside gender.
Haha 😅 whoops sorry, although I would also have been pleased to receive answers along the "Yes" "No" continuum
lol I would be pleased with a "Sex?" question with yes and no as the answers. maybe on a Likert scale 🤔
Maybe we need a dedicated Tildes demographics survey that re-compiles itself as new responses are added. Would be best if it was anonymous (responses not stored with identifying data like IP). Thoughts? Question suggestions? I like gender as "whatever you identify as" as opposed to "sex". The dropdown might get long but better that than a bunch of write-ins that can't be automatically normalized. Income range? Education? Favorite human microbiota? Do we dare ask about politics? Spirituality/religion?
I believe I can find some time to waste if people are interested.
That survey is probably never going to be posted
Ah do you know I thought I’d just missed it. Thanks
I’m a dude in my late 20s living in northeast US and I work in software development. I also enjoy programming as a hobby, avoid public speaking whenever possible, delete 90% of comments before I post them, and prefer IRC to discord where available.
Sneaky.
I'm late 30s, cis, straight, white, American, male, professor of mathematics in a US state that loathes the existence of truth and logic.
One kid, married (but estranged I guess, long story), generally pretty into my life. Been learning to let go of things I can't change so I can better focus on the things I can.
18 years old male from Russia, doing software development for almost half of my life, though now studying biology in the Netherlands
Late 20’s/M/Ohio (USA). Software Engineer (Satellite ground comms). As far as I know, I don’t work for @devalexwhite lol.
Adopted a cat this week
:D can we see new adopted cat pictures? What's their name? Congratulations on new cat
Pics: https://postimg.cc/gallery/cvsDN1z
Thanks! Her name is Ears lol. She’s been settling in OK but is still both very curious and wary about our apartment. Luckily she does know me and my wife fairly well as we’d been over to visit her/house sit where she was quite a few times over the past few months.
(@DefinitelyNotAFae you can see her too)
Awwww, tell her I said psss psss psss psss or tch tch tch tch, whichever she likes better.
That is a gorgeous cat.
She is very pretty, and I think she knows it.
What a pretty, precious baby!!!
My heart is melting! I wonder what is her deep and inscrutable singular Name? We will never know. Something fabulous.
So happy you were able to add to your family! Ears looks exactly like the first cat I ever had and I hope you'll get the 20 year companionship she brought me.
Also here for the cat pics
Haha well if you're in Columbus there's at least a good chance we've met!
Middle millennial in Kentucky, instructor to locksmiths/security professionals.
Edit: @Cannonball, howdy neighbor!
Hey hey! Love the username considering what you do lol
Thanks! It's a fun conversation starter
42/M/Michigan (USA)
Freelance electronics instrumentation tech, occasional low voltage/security/access control contractor.
Basically I built out a home electronics lab and buy and sell test equipment, metrology gear, and other related stuff. Sometimes what I get just needs cleaning and testing, sometimes it's faulty and needs service or repair. I have some contracting side-work that is basically legacy connections from people I have good working relationships with from before I transitioned to my lab being my primary income.
Some recent pictures for those who are interested.
Hail and well met from a fellow Michigander - there are surprisingly many of us here! I'm an EE dropout from way back and have followed your commentary with interest. Your workspace is a thing of beauty.
I know my way around the infrastructure and ops side of tech, as well as a soldering iron and a voltmeter, but don't do much of anything with it anymore.
Awesome! Thanks for following along with me, and I'm glad you appreciate the electronics lab - it is very much my happy place. I'm semi-regularly changing things, but I think it's about time for my next 'state-of-the-bench' video (this is the last one I made, back at the end of March 2025). Lots of things have changed and a number of items are sitting on my floor pending integration, like the Keysight/black 3458A and more recently a Keysight SMU, plus major updates to the RF section. Maybe I'll post it on Tildes when I make that video?
More long term I really need to just build an entirely new bench setup as I've long since outgrown this one, but that is definitely a major project so I don't know when it will actually happen. It's been on my to-do list for like a year or so by now?
But enough about me - you mention infrastructure and ops? Do tell. Are we talking server room stuff, or telecom infrastructure or what? I'd like to know more about the area of tech you interact with, if you're ok to discuss it?
Demographics: 60/NB-F. I've done general sysadmin and network stuff all the way back to the Novell, Unix, Windows NT, and VMS days, up to and including a small hosting and consulting company and a corporate datacenter. For a while, I did the technical work for healthcare corporate acquisitions and new facility openings in a big physician services company, then managed a team doing that.
These days, I work for a company that sells proprietary healthcare hardware and software. There's just enough infrastructure and programming work that I'm still relevant, with some system design, facility architecture, interfaces, and data structures thrown in. It's cool technology, but the niche is small enough that I'd be disclosing more than I should if I go into more detail.
Michigan gang!!!! :D Your lab looks awesome, I'm jealous!
Thank you! Are you into electronics as well?
OOh, I just skimmed through your recent past posts and saw you're into IT / self-hosting / Linux. And did I see something there about Magic: The Gathering? I play MTG too!
Hail and well met fellow duly-accredited Michigander Nerd!
I have self-hosting on my to-do list! I've got a Dell Precision 7910 tower, dual-Xeon / 256GB RAM / 4x WD 14TB SAS drives for a RAID array, planning on setting it up with Docker and running containerized services on it (starting off with NAS duty for local file-server functions and considering Plex for a local media server role).
In all honesty about that last bit - I've been sitting on that hardware for... more than half a year now? OH. Wow. I just checked my eBay records..... I've been sitting on that project for a year and a half now. Jeez. Well, I did just start on ADHD meds so maybe I'll actually start finishing all those partial backlogged projects I have.
I love electronics!! I almost considered a career in electrical engineering and was trying to build out a lab in highschool, before I decided on teaching. That is awesome though that you play mtg too!! You've got like the perfect setup for what you want with self hosting, you should totally take the leap!! Feel free to PM if you have any questions! (but probably worth mentioning again that I'm no pro, just a hobby I love!)
Late 30’s/M/Massachusetts, US - I’m a signal processing engineer at a startup, which generally means I’m a weird mix of software/electrical engineer/mechanical engineer.
I feel like I mostly translate / teach stuff from one specialist to another. I love geeking out with people about what they do!
Also, former home appliance engineer. I will forever know too much about clothes washers and dryers, but a fair amount about the other appliances too.
18/F/Cali38/M/Virginia (US). Single and ready to mingle...Bi myself, anyway. IT specialist (supposedly) with the US federal government. Midwesterner at heart. Gamer. Terminally online Internet addict. Enjoyer of naps and travel; sometimes even napping on travels -- I'm knocked out before the plane even pushes back from the gate! I have a cat who's currently getting cat hair all over my clean clothes that I'm too lazy to put away. Thanks, Lux. Real cool.
EDIT: Resident F1 watcher and race weekend thread poster.
47/M/Oregon. Freshly single after an 11-year relationship and finally came out as bi. I'm the lead roaster at a decently-sized coffee company in Portland. I have a chiweenie.
I live in the Northern Hemisphere, somewhere a marginal distance above the equatorial line. My age is at least one-fourth of a century. I don't feel comfortable giving out any further information than that.
I think you(and I) are the only ones who wouldn’t feel comfortable sharing too much.
An anonymous poll/survey would work much better, I’d think.
That being said I expected the tildes community to be more international, seeing the posts made here.
Hm. Are you me? :-)
Though I've been open about other things in my life here (and probably have revealed too much / overshared already in other threads, so forgive my hypocrisy), revealing demographic data in a centralized thread about the topic on a site where some are at least semi-anonymous, feels like an exercise in reducing some operational security/privacy, so I suppose I'll remain vague. I guess it's up to people to reveal whatever they feel comfortable with- but maybe something like this entices people to overshare, idk. I'm probably overthinking this as I do many things, and (unnecessarily?) out loud.
But, demographic data often feels so "cold / descriptive / statistical" rather than something that makes for useful conversation- unless something about those demographics is brought into a specific relevant discussion about something else where it has a bearing on those experiences.
Early 40s, Eastern US. In between employment, previously have done mostly customer service, help desk, desktop support, and systems administration. No idea what I'm doing next but probably ultimately not tech (and certainly never never anything that even touches generative AI if I can help it, doing so would be a massive personal failure for me). If it is something I've done before it will be temporary. In a weird mid-life limbo atm.
In the meantime, reading, 3D Printing, making music, among many other things
Baby millennial gal from central KY (US). Single. I work for a non profit that supports music in schools. I love playing in the local community band, making artsy/crafty things, playing video games, and yoyoing. No pets at the moment (small apartment), but I love fishtanks and cats
I'm 24 in Michigan (state in USAmerica, the one that is mitten shaped :3). I'm NB but trying to become F (u can work backwards from there :D) and I am a social studies teacher! Currently teaching mostly seventh graders (save me 😭). That being said though I really like computers (nixOS all the way!!!) so I pretty literate though by all means not a developer! :)
It warms my heart knowing at least some of our seventh graders are being educated by a nixOS user. They need all the help they can get.
Millennial (mid-range) South Asian male in the UK. I'm in the IT/software development industry.
Single, read a lot, game less. Bought my house 2 years ago. No pets (sadly - working on clearing down the mortgage to a sensible level). Like to do paint by numbers.
29/NB(transmasc)/Currently Berlin but moving back to Ohio over the course of the next couple months. I've got a linguistics background academically and worked as a data scientist for 4 years, but I'm currently unemployed. I own two lovely kitties, who I'm currently conniving a plan for how to get them to the States with me while I move.
Late Gen-X, food scientist, western US. We own some goats, sheep, ducks, and geese. And a couple cats. And joint-custody of a dog.
We have another food scientist on Tildes! They commented on another discussion about powered meal replacements, and another about custom caffeinated foods and shared some nuisance about how big the particulates should be and how it's important to monitor if all the nutrients/caffeine gets unevenly distributed.
About your many animals, are you looking forward to more offspring or are you guys done and not looking for more? :) we also have geese, Emdens
We aren't really breeding any of the animals. The goats are for fiber, and they and the sheep help manage brush and pasture. The ducks were for wife's egg business, but we're scaling back now. Geese are pasture guardians / alarm systems and grass mowers. shrug
34/M/Ohio (US). Software engineering manager, dad of 2.
Gen X (half a year and I would be a millenial), M, Ukraine.
Mostly software dev/engineer, father of two. Decided to stay in Ukraine with my wife when all this "kerfuffle" with russia started... so far its ok, I suppose.
30/M/San Francisco
42/M/New Jersey (USA). Dad of 2 under 10. Database Dude (I want that as my official job title). Love making bad art, mediocre political commentary, and good home upgrades. Atheist, but always a fan of seeing karma in action.
Cory Doctorow is my spirit animal.
40/M/Louisiana musician from South Louisiana. I've been playing music for 29 years but really only properly for 25. I'm not going to share anything although I could because I'm just in the last year feeling I can truly write and play things I love. So that has yet to be captured lol.
33/M/Massachusetts. I am a microbiologist in biotech/pharmaceuticals.
Early thirties, man, Dutch, software engineer with physics degree.
Mid 30s, Indian male. Currently in South Africa.
Don't think I can call myself a developer anymore and in a few days I'll be a former "administrative manager".
Career changes this year?
I know it's not the smartest time to do it with the current economy, but in November this office went from just another shit office to an actual concern for my safety. The hostile response to my resignation letter pretty much sealed the deal and I'm keeping a low profile until I'm out on the 21st.
Aye! That's great, be safe, get out and good luck with your next venture
Missed being a boomer by a year. Asian, female, by practical terms retired, former database dev.
Gen Z/Late Millennial F Massachusetts (US)
30s, Male, US, I work in the creative industry but I have close ties to software development and project management and integrate both into my career.
Late Gen X (Xennial if you will) Lead Dev and all around tech/eng person. Father of three in the US. I lived in Florida for most of my life, but finally moved the family to MN when it got too crazy and right-wing.
40/M/Denmark working in tech.
Gen X (M), US West Coast. In tech, but laid off a few months ago.
Late 20s/NB/South Africa
Software developer mostly developing customizations form Microsoft's Dynamics 365 ERP platform.
Would kinda like to get assigned to some other projects for variety, but I've been handling this one fairly well for around 2 and a half years while my coworkers usually don't last 1 year. Not sure why, this project is definitely way less organized than even our other D365 projects, but that also means there's no one breathing down your neck asking for updates every 15 minutes (unless you're working on a production incident)
Recently 42/M Tech Fitness Sales Manager from Ontario, Canada.
Other bits: Married, no kids and no desire for kids. Two dogs, two cats. Own a freehold house from the 30s/40s.
Elder M millennial in western Canada
Why?
Like really, why?
I really don't understand how knowing basic aggregate data changes anything.
Curiosity?
I never said it did?
Sorry, I, realise my comment came out as combative. Not my intention.
I agree, you did not say it did, my mistake.
I was trying to formulate something I've been trying to ask (and get answered) for decades...
I am curious to understand why you are curious about general demographic data because satisfying that curiosity that I have will make it easier for me to interact with people around me that seem to share that same curiosity you have.
For me, your curiosity is baffling, and for you (and many others) it seems completely normal. This is interesting to me, but I also understand if it isn't for you, so no need to dive into it here if you don't want to.
I'm a little too privacy minded to share much on here, but this thread piqued my curiosity because it's interesting to see how much of a diverse base we have.
I sometimes feel like I'm chatting with a diverse, global cohort of people with expertise in everything from geopolitical law to interpretive dance. Other times it feels like I'm sitting in the waiting room of the most stereotypical tech startup in the silicon valley. The answers are kind of validating that feeling - some diversity but mostly late 20s-early 40s in tech.
I think it's neat on a survey level but posts like this are very Facebook-y to me. You can get to know folks here in different ways with more meaningful questions IMO.
Yes, agreed, and there is something about this kind of question that I just don't understand.
In one way it looks like a conversation starter, but on the other it very seldom seems to serve that function, so it has to provide something else that I just don't understand.
Mid 30s. Mexico. Software developer but currently unemployed.
37/M/Pennsylvania, US. I am a frontend software engineer in ad tech and I fucking hate every second of it (and I don't mean the programming part)
20M from Iran. Studying nursing and do quite a bit of programming, with an interest in 3d arts
Late Gen Z, in the Southern Hemisphere. Been in the workforce for 5 years now.
I'm also a Canadian dude in his 30s who works in software development (though its light-manufacturing, not really application or "product" development). I'm also a dad.
Early 20s. Student. Western Canada.
I enjoy reading Tildes on the transit, lol.
30s / M / NY Tri-State Area.
Late Gen Z, from Southeast Asia. Still a student. Straight male.
Early 30s. Unemployed due to a cocktail of physical and mental health issues, working on the issues and hoping to re-enter the workforce when I can. Europe. Single, always been. Mixed ancestry.
We used to have a census.
I'm a Brazilian male, 43 years old.