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dragonlady7via http://ift.tt/2eqke72:
galadhir:
IDK, I’m fed up of the fandom thought police. OTOH you’ve got the antis who forget that one of the reasons fiction exists at all is so you can use it to think about things you wouldn’t want to encounter in reality. And they’re loudly shouting that you can’t write entire pairings without them being inherently abusive, racist, fetishistic, misogynistic, whatever. Basically if you paid attention to everything they said there wouldn’t be a fandom at all because nobody could write or enjoy anything.
And then on the other hand you’ve got the people who are all “if you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all.” So if you love a particular fandom but there’s a specific thing that bothers you, you’re told that if you say anything about it at all you’re policing the fandom. You’re supposed to either praise or say nothing.
But that means that we can’t even talk about the things that might be affecting us in real life. It means fans from marginalized groups can’t talk about why [whatever thing in canon/fandom] bothered them. It silences the voices of all the people who are already silenced by mainstream society, and that takes away one of the whole points of fandom - which was to be able to create content in which we see ourselves.
Back in LJ days, there was a community called Metafandom, which collected fan meta about canon. And a lot of it was talk about why [whatever thing] bothered that particular fan because it intersected with the particular way society oppressed that particular section of the fandom.
Sometimes, for a white fan who used to pass so well for a heterosexual woman I used to think I was one, it was an uncomfortable experience reading that meta. I found out all kinds of things I used to think were totally OK were actually upsetting and annoying to my fellow fans because they replicated micro-aggressions they suffered from in real life every day. And yes, there were times I had to stop reading because I was overwhelmed by a feeling that it was impossible to get anything right.
But I never thought that those people ought to be told that they should shut up so the fandom could carry on doing whatever it liked without even thinking about it.
I am grateful for the education Metafandom gave me. If I see well thought out meta that explains why a thing is upsetting to someone, I don’t see that as policing, I see it as education and valuable insight. This should be a place where we can talk about what bothers us and ask our fellow fans to consider what they’re doing and to maybe try not to trample us. We should, as decent human beings, not want to do things that replicate oppressions our fellow fans face on the outside.
I am totally against sending people hate, bullying, name-calling and all the other tactics the antis use to try to drive people away. But I’m also against the idea that we’re not even allowed to voice our own opinions or preferences and back them up with evidence/arguments. A place where you cannot talk about what upsets you is a place where you are not safe. And that’s not the kind of place fandom ought to be.
galadhir:
IDK, I’m fed up of the fandom thought police. OTOH you’ve got the antis who forget that one of the reasons fiction exists at all is so you can use it to think about things you wouldn’t want to encounter in reality. And they’re loudly shouting that you can’t write entire pairings without them being inherently abusive, racist, fetishistic, misogynistic, whatever. Basically if you paid attention to everything they said there wouldn’t be a fandom at all because nobody could write or enjoy anything.
And then on the other hand you’ve got the people who are all “if you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all.” So if you love a particular fandom but there’s a specific thing that bothers you, you’re told that if you say anything about it at all you’re policing the fandom. You’re supposed to either praise or say nothing.
But that means that we can’t even talk about the things that might be affecting us in real life. It means fans from marginalized groups can’t talk about why [whatever thing in canon/fandom] bothered them. It silences the voices of all the people who are already silenced by mainstream society, and that takes away one of the whole points of fandom - which was to be able to create content in which we see ourselves.
Back in LJ days, there was a community called Metafandom, which collected fan meta about canon. And a lot of it was talk about why [whatever thing] bothered that particular fan because it intersected with the particular way society oppressed that particular section of the fandom.
Sometimes, for a white fan who used to pass so well for a heterosexual woman I used to think I was one, it was an uncomfortable experience reading that meta. I found out all kinds of things I used to think were totally OK were actually upsetting and annoying to my fellow fans because they replicated micro-aggressions they suffered from in real life every day. And yes, there were times I had to stop reading because I was overwhelmed by a feeling that it was impossible to get anything right.
But I never thought that those people ought to be told that they should shut up so the fandom could carry on doing whatever it liked without even thinking about it.
I am grateful for the education Metafandom gave me. If I see well thought out meta that explains why a thing is upsetting to someone, I don’t see that as policing, I see it as education and valuable insight. This should be a place where we can talk about what bothers us and ask our fellow fans to consider what they’re doing and to maybe try not to trample us. We should, as decent human beings, not want to do things that replicate oppressions our fellow fans face on the outside.
I am totally against sending people hate, bullying, name-calling and all the other tactics the antis use to try to drive people away. But I’m also against the idea that we’re not even allowed to voice our own opinions or preferences and back them up with evidence/arguments. A place where you cannot talk about what upsets you is a place where you are not safe. And that’s not the kind of place fandom ought to be.
