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icarusThere's Nothing Wrong With Fandom That Getting Rid Of All The People Won't Fix
Every now and then I read about a major wank, or I hear a loud declaration that fandom is all screwed up. That once upon a time fandom was warm and welcoming, filled with love and roses... but no more. Newcomers have changed it.
Or else, once upon a time we entered into a fandom with open hearts and then had our souls crushed by the [fill in the pet peeve of choice]. Now that we know better the kinds of people we'll meet in fandom, we're going to [put on our magic ring and depart like Bilbo / choose only the people we deem worthy of ourselves and f-lock mightily / other more imaginative exit designed to make our point that fandom is fucked and we are right about this].
Honestly, the only problem with fandom is that we bring ourselves to it.
Fandom is like a Rorschach test. It's a map of our own personal issues whether we're aware of them or not. Have a hair-trigger temper? Oddly enough, something in fandom will set it off. Have a lingering issue with relationships? How dare all those people talk about marriage as if it's a good thing! As it happens, Yoda was right: What's in fandom? "Only what you bring with you."
It takes a lot of self-honesty to negotiate fandom. These are personal journals where many people (unless it's their tendency to be shy)... write journals. Let it all hang out. Personal stuff, tough questions, issues, opinions and politics. At the same time, there's a quasi-anonymity that allows us to project ourselves or our own issues onto these blank slates more easily than if we saw a person and a face. I had somebody come by and make a political comment and I was quick to make an assumption that turned out to be wrong. What was that? Well, it had nothing to do with the commenter, it was my own frustration with WG's Bush-supporting family..
Now we humor our BNFs and many people believe "oh, well this BNF is surrounded by fawning fans that let them get away with appalling behavior."
Well. Not really.
You see, there's a central office located about four blocks north of Queen Street in Toronto, Ontario,* that is dedicated to BNF-management. The moment a BNF has a meltdown they get a call, "Oh, hell. How many WIPs are at risk? And a Fic-A-Thon assignment -- plus an archive? Shit. We'll get right on it."
They then dispatch professional "soothers" whose job it is to ensure the steady flow of fiction. After all, we're not paying the BNF to write. They are producing massive amounts of work for us, for free. The work of the OBNFMT (Ontario BNF Management Team, Ltd.) is a pragmatic side of the gift economy. It's not a job I could do, but I'd like to thank the soothers of OBNFMT from the bottom of my heart.
It's up to the BNF, like any other star, to be honest with themselves and recognize when they're being handled. Not that being handled isn't very nice. The palanquin alone is worth the price of admission.
* What? You're suprised it's a Canadian firm?
Every now and then I read about a major wank, or I hear a loud declaration that fandom is all screwed up. That once upon a time fandom was warm and welcoming, filled with love and roses... but no more. Newcomers have changed it.
Or else, once upon a time we entered into a fandom with open hearts and then had our souls crushed by the [fill in the pet peeve of choice]. Now that we know better the kinds of people we'll meet in fandom, we're going to [put on our magic ring and depart like Bilbo / choose only the people we deem worthy of ourselves and f-lock mightily / other more imaginative exit designed to make our point that fandom is fucked and we are right about this].
Honestly, the only problem with fandom is that we bring ourselves to it.
Fandom is like a Rorschach test. It's a map of our own personal issues whether we're aware of them or not. Have a hair-trigger temper? Oddly enough, something in fandom will set it off. Have a lingering issue with relationships? How dare all those people talk about marriage as if it's a good thing! As it happens, Yoda was right: What's in fandom? "Only what you bring with you."
It takes a lot of self-honesty to negotiate fandom. These are personal journals where many people (unless it's their tendency to be shy)... write journals. Let it all hang out. Personal stuff, tough questions, issues, opinions and politics. At the same time, there's a quasi-anonymity that allows us to project ourselves or our own issues onto these blank slates more easily than if we saw a person and a face. I had somebody come by and make a political comment and I was quick to make an assumption that turned out to be wrong. What was that? Well, it had nothing to do with the commenter, it was my own frustration with WG's Bush-supporting family..
Now we humor our BNFs and many people believe "oh, well this BNF is surrounded by fawning fans that let them get away with appalling behavior."
Well. Not really.
You see, there's a central office located about four blocks north of Queen Street in Toronto, Ontario,* that is dedicated to BNF-management. The moment a BNF has a meltdown they get a call, "Oh, hell. How many WIPs are at risk? And a Fic-A-Thon assignment -- plus an archive? Shit. We'll get right on it."
They then dispatch professional "soothers" whose job it is to ensure the steady flow of fiction. After all, we're not paying the BNF to write. They are producing massive amounts of work for us, for free. The work of the OBNFMT (Ontario BNF Management Team, Ltd.) is a pragmatic side of the gift economy. It's not a job I could do, but I'd like to thank the soothers of OBNFMT from the bottom of my heart.
It's up to the BNF, like any other star, to be honest with themselves and recognize when they're being handled. Not that being handled isn't very nice. The palanquin alone is worth the price of admission.
* What? You're suprised it's a Canadian firm?
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no subject
Date: 2006-07-11 06:41 pm (UTC)Someone for example said that "I can't imagine a woman [that can't relate to what's happening to Rodney] who hasn't be pushed into sex by a man." (paraphrased) There's a level of projection there that's blink-worthy.
- Rodney isn't a woman.
- There's an assumption that the author is a woman (correct in this case).
- Then there's the (incorrect) assumption that women don't push men into sex.
- Then there's the projection of a dominant-male/submissive-female paradigm onto a male/male relationship (which is not only inappropriate for m/m relationships, it's a paradigm I don't really buy).
- Then there's identification with (male) Rodney as a(female) self-insert.
- And then there's a glossing over of any responsibility Rodney might have for his own decisions/actions to visualize him as the (female) victim.
- This gloss then misses the subtlties of miscommunication within the relationship, and John and Rodney are recast in a good guy/bad guy dichotomy -- with John as the bad guy. A dichotomy that doesn't exist in the story.
- Then I'm accused of mischaracterizing John as a bad guy.
o.O It's hard to know even where to begin except, okay, someone's not reading the same story I wrote. But that happens. All you have to do is receive some fan-art to realize how differently people perceive a story.
To the more general topic at hand: A poli-sci honors student told me that the internet isn't really bringing people together all over the world, but instead bifurcating society. Because over the internet we can choose to only relate to those we find pleasing, so we don't learn tolerance or negotiation with people who are different. She may be right about that.
Icarus
no subject
Date: 2006-07-12 01:45 am (UTC)That's actually quite disconcerting. I mean I realize you've gotta have some sort of connection to the characters or story to even be interested enough to continue reading, but that's a bit much.
The poli-sci student has a point, but I do think the internet brings people together, however, I've never held to the belief that they check their personality/beliefs/annoying habbits/psychological disorders at the door. Couple this with John Gabriel's Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory (http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2004/03/19), and you've got yourself "Lulz Intranets".