OK Fandom apparently we need to have another little chat

[puppetmaker]

And this is not about the hate tweets that caused a couple of actors to decide to leave twitter because they decided that enough was enough and they don’t have to deal with this. Good on them because what they did for their health ties into what I want to say.

I am putting it behind a cut for those who do not wish to read it. I will warn for talk about triggers, mental health, personal choice, strong language, and the off button.



I ran across an essay on Tumblr entitled Fandom is not your safe space which seems to come out of the great Sherlock debate that started at a convention and then spread to the Internet like a plague. It is a little harsh but it speaks about topics that need to be talked about in a rational way not in a Burn Everything way.

But it is already being talked about in a Burn Everything way, which is muddying up the message that is in the last paragraph.

Fandom is not your safe space. Tumblr is not your safe space. AO3 sure as fuck isn’t your safe space. People will post things you don’t like in all three spaces, which they have every right to do. Get over it, grow the fuck up, take responsibility for your own mental health, and stop confusing your oversized sense of entitlement with “social justice.”

Peter has been saying this for years not in such harsh language. He and I are both firm believers in personal responsibility probably more than our belief in the first amendment.

Neil Gaiman caught a lot of flack for his short story collection entitled Trigger Warning. How dare he make light of such a thing! Came the cry. He is trying to mansplain things. He is taking our words away from us!

Personally I thought it was clever way to cover his bases and cause a little controversy.

I know what I like to read might not be what you like to read. What I like to write might not be what you like to read. And all that is fine. We are not the same people.

However when someone tells me that I cannot read or write things that I like to, we have a problem.

The only person, beside myself, that I have any censorship capabilities at all is my daughter because she is my minor child and I am responsible for her wellbeing. I don’t need outside forces telling me what I can and cannot show my daughter. I know her. I know her likes and dislikes. I know what scares her. I know her level of understanding on many subjects. I am the one that gets to have the sex talk with her and help her understand what is going on with her body at this point. I am the one that gets to say nope can’t see that it is too violent for you or I know this will give you nightmares.

But once she is 18 then she gets to make those decisions and if I raised her right, they will be good ones.

And this sense of fan entitlement has gotten to the point of absurd. They are tweeting and yelling at the creators of a show that they are doing it wrong. That they are not addressing X issue (which is not part of the show at all and never has been). They don’t have enough Y to keep the fans happy. They don’t know what they are doing and they are destroying the thing that the fans love.

Nope. They are not. It is their sandbox and their toys that someone pays them money to play with in public.

I think the best version of this was the creator who said, “We write the show FOR you not WITH you.” Which of course set off a lot of social media hate wrapped in the guise of social justice towards the creator.

Peter has said in public that if he gave the fans what they say they wanted, they will then say that’s not what we meant what we really wanted.

For the record, Peter did this once and gave the fans exactly what they had been shouting about and they informed him that they didn’t like it at all. Since then his attitude is that he is here to entertain his audience not fulfill their every whim.

You know what I do when I run across something that isn’t my cup of tea? The off button or the back button or I just close the book or stop reading the article. I don’t keep going when it is going places that aren’t comfortable to me. But that is my choice and I should have that choice.

There are times that I just step away from the Internet because I know I am going to say something that is going to be misconstrued or misquoted and I decide I don’t need the agita. I avoid places that I know are just going to cause my stomach to go into knots because, honestly, I have better things to do.

I am grateful for people who do take personal responsibility for their Internet wanderings.

Comments

[bleodswean.livejournal.com]

THIS, m'dear, is a BRILLIANT op-ed piece of thinking and writing!

[puppetmaker40.livejournal.com]

Thank you very much. It has been boiling around in my brain for a while and the other essay really clarified a number of points for me.

[scarlettina.livejournal.com]

This. Yes.

I think that people got the idea that fandom is supposed to be safe from the idea that fandom is supposed to be all-accepting of the geeks and the nerds and the, shall we say, differently socialized. Which jest ain't true. While I have found fandom to be welcoming, it is fractious and contrarian and full of divides. And I don't know where anyone got the idea that they're entitled to have their widdle feelings or their delicate sensibilities protected. This makes me crazy. It's the ultimate expression of immaturity. People have to learn to live in the world--which isn't a safe place, and never will be.

With regard to fans being unhappy with how creators develop properties, I think one phrase sums it up pretty succinctly: the creators aren't the fans' b*tches. If fans think creators are doing it wrong, they should go create something themselves and see what it's like.

[puppetmaker40.livejournal.com]

I so agree.

Let fans try to do all the hoops you have to jump through to create something.

[wookiemonster.livejournal.com]

Nicely said. :)

[puppetmaker40.livejournal.com]

Thank you.

[wherdafux-d-cat.livejournal.com]

Amen to that on all counts. Overall, my fan-brained friends are pretty sane people. Only had one 'now wait a minute' conversation with one and she was rather young (well, compared to me, heh). She was getting herself spun up about 'they aren't doing it right' so I said, 'When you send them their next paycheck, include a note explaining that.'

'What?'

'Well, since they're supposed to be doing it the way you want them to, you're the one paying them to do it, right?'

'Of course not.'

'Exactly. So you don't get to make their decisions. You don't have to like those decisions, of course, but they aren't doing this to make you happy. Thousands of others do like what they're doing and evidently the people writing those paychecks like what they're doing. So your decision is simple: keep following along and accept that they're doing it differently or find something else to watch instead.'

'Dammit. Leave it to you to screw up a perfectly good rant!' She was annoyed for a but bit did wind up laughing at herself for getting so torqued up about something like that. :)

[puppetmaker40.livejournal.com]

Oooooo that's good. I love that line of reasoning.

[wherdafux-d-cat.livejournal.com]

Thanks! I have to admit I was impressed with myself for pulling it out of thin air at the moment. :)

[veronica-rich.livejournal.com]

I've been wondering if this the past few years is why I've liked to write less and less. I used to love to write, going back to when I was 12 years old, but around 39 or 40 it just dried up. (In fact, Peter was one of those authors who made me want to write when I was a teenager and in my 20s.) I hadn't consciously considered why it's become a problem; I just figured it was chemical depression and hectic work life - but my life used to be more hectic and I still found time to write. Good food for thought I will have to chew on here.

P.S. Would it be all right if I linked to this on LJ and/or Tumblr or would you rather be left out of such things? (Or would you be OK with one platform but not the other?)

[puppetmaker40.livejournal.com]

Link where ever you like. One of the reasons I leave this blog for the most part public is so people will feel free to share.

My suggestion about the writing is something that both Peter and Neil have said to me which is just write. Write for yourself. Write. Whatever comes to mind. Don't worry about it. Or to paraphrase a song...Let it flow

Agreed

[(Anonymous)]

That whole entitlement thing irks me no end. I just had lunch with a fan-based group this past weekend & discussed fans who think they deserve something specific from an actor or a show &, happily, we agreed that is ridiculous! If you don't like the way a story is playing out, go elsewhere! No one is stopping you! & BTW - don't let the screen door hit you on the way out.

Re: Agreed

[puppetmaker40.livejournal.com]

Yep. I so agree

Re: Agreed

[veronica-rich.livejournal.com]

I don't think a fan has to passively accept everything a creator/writer throws at them as Good and Logical, but there's a medium ground that a very vocal negative small group does not adhere to and spoils the experience for everyone.

If a writer/creator is on social media, I would think they WANT to hear from fans/consumers (even if it's an assistant handling the account for them - it's still the creator's account). So I think it's all right to tell someone you are less than thrilled with a plot point or character ... but the "tone argument" thing has been twisted out of context into this "DON'T TELL ME HOW TO EXPRESS MYSELF, YOU'RE CENSORING ME" bludgeon, IMO.

If someone is going to say "I didn't like this," maybe preface it with what they do like (c'mon, if you're watching/reading it, you DO like something about it), and then say "however, regarding XXX action that XXX character did, it felt a little out of character for how they've been acting."

Also, I feel like too many fans, in giving feedback like this, do set up language that they expect to be catered to specifically. There ought to be more "I feel this way, but I largely enjoy what you create and thanks for reading my comment." I feel like that leaves it to the writer to either decide what they did was right and they'll keep on, without feeling threatened; or they can ponder it over and see if THEY want to make a change in reexamination. (That's the key, IMO, for the writer to want to change something on their own and it make sense. In this way feedback CAN be helpful.)

So true

[sulky-girl.livejournal.com]

Neil literally warned them by naming it "Trigger Warning" how much more could he do? if they still read it it's their fault. When i see "Spoiler Alert" i don't continue reading then say "Hey, i wasn't caught up on that yet!!!".

I read a lot of Sci Fi and it's supposed to help you grow, expand, expose you to ideas you may never have thought before...if we wanted it to be safe it would be a much more boring ride.

Re: So true

[puppetmaker40.livejournal.com]

Yep, that Neil got flack for putting the words on the cover makes me shake my head entirely too hard.

And I do read things that I might be a bit uncomfortable with for whatever reason just because i want the knowledge or the story which can be really good.

Then there is the creator has ideas I don't agree with so everyone must not read this author carp that really grinds my gears.

[kazeno-taka.livejournal.com]

Thank you. When the social justice movement first emerged on the internet, I mostly was in support, because it began as a voice saying things like, "hey, naked models covered in warpaint and wearing war bonnets is kind of insensitive and irreverent to native culture and beliefs". But gradually it ballooned into complete intolerance towards gender, race, and sexual identity under the guise of 'social justice'.

I had a friend who was basically bullied off Tumblr because of a mask she made, which featured a coyote, and feather and turquoise imagery. All three of these symbolize something personal to her, but someone on Tumblr saw it, immediately assumed it was cultural appropriation, and a whole group of her friends attacked my friend until she closed her Tumblr account. How is that helping anyone? How does bullying helping stop oppression?

I am sick to death of people saying that Show A or Book B or Game C is 'bad' because it doesn't feature a female lead, or because there's a rape scene, or because it offended some group of people. FICTION EXISTS TO INDULGE IN FANTASY. If you don't like a certain subject, then you're free to read/watch/play something else. Don't try to censor to push fictional content in your favor.

I saw this comic once saying how 'justice' was taking things away from men to give to women, to equal things out. I completely disagree - fiction is NOT a limited resource. You don't have to 'take away' a movie that features a male lead to make a movie that features a female lead. Make more movies with women! You don't have to take away the male-lead shoot-em-up movies and games where he has a sexy girlfriend. Get in there and make your own movies and games with strong female characters! But don't condemn media that features 'privileged' groups, or contains subject matter you dislike or are triggered by. There is so much out there and so many possibilities that to try to limit what is being produced is completely juvenile.

You're basically saying "I don't like the color of your ball so I'll pop it" instead of "I don't like the color of your ball, so I'll go find a ball that I like."

[puppetmaker40.livejournal.com]

I love the ball metaphor. That works for so many things.

Yep, as someone else said "Don't like it? Write your own."

[lindadee.livejournal.com]

Once upon a long time ago, fandom might have been a safe space. But it hasn't been that way for many years now, and as you said brilliantly, you have to be responsible for your own actions and know when to use the off switch.

[puppetmaker40.livejournal.com]

I love that summation.