[mod post] A community by any other name...

[whyareyoulikethis]

Who would have thought the least controversial part of us launching this community would turn out to be the biggest sticking point? We agonized about the site layout; we tortured ourselves over our editorial mission, our style guide, the type of content we wanted, our identity as a project. The title? An offhand decision. What were we? Fans who spaz and are fantastic. A hideous portmanteau was born and we moved onto larger issues, such as rock-paper-scissors on who had to make our Twitter account.

Anyway, since Dreamwidth support requests are apparently totally public (ha, who knew?), as you maybe have already heard, SPOILER ALERT: we're changing the name of this community/project.

One thing I'm going to admit upfront is that this was not a wholly unanimous decision. We tried to find a solution that would both address this issue respectfully and not compromise some of the reasons why we started this community in the first place. As you can see from stopitsomemore's thoughts below, I don't know if we quite made it (or if that was even possible). We did talk a lot about this; we talked about whether we should even include stopitsomemore's dissenting opinion in this post along with mine, considering the possible wank it might well engender. However, in deference to both transparency and the strong feelings of our Editor-in-Chief, I've decided to post it. I don't expect everyone to agree with this post and how we handled this, but I do think in the end it serves us all better to put our cards on the fandom table.

So, without futher ado, a side-by-side reasoning of our thoughts on the issue are below, like some sort of fandom episode of Crossfire, only where stopitsomemore and I have actually been fairly amicable about all this and neither one of us wears a bow-tie:

In looking at the feedback to Fanspastic- and by "looking" I mean "obsessively stalking the internet to the degree normally reserved for bitter people whose exes just got engaged one month after they dumped you"- the criticism that came up a few times- and in one direct email to us- was the name of the comm, because "spastic" and "spaz" are ableist terms. I was actually the person who came up with the name Fanspastic. It was at least partially a case of American cultural bias at work-- it never occurred to me that "spastic" was an ableist word, and furthermore a much more loaded and offensive term in the UK and elsewhere. Our use of it was, to badly paraphrase Shakespeare, a case of negligence and not intent. That said, ignorance is no excuse, and the last thing we want to do is hurt folks. We don't want to make this a place where some fans feel inherently uncomfortable. We don't want to be the kind of people who can't admit they're wrong. We also don't want to be remembered as the community that would have been really cool if only it hadn't been run by a bunch of privileged ableist toolbags who followed Amanda Palmer directly to Fandom Wank (do not pass Go, do not collect $200). We thought it best to address this as soon as possible, so we'd like to apologize to anyone who was offended, hurt or otherwise pissed by the name Fanspastic. Furthermore, we are indeed changing the name of the community. (We are not, however, going back and obliterating all mention of the old name from previous posts; that seems like a disingenuous sweeping of things under the rug.) We also have to thank the folks at Dreamwidth for letting us rename the comm and fix this mistake with a minimum of hassle when they didn't have to. To that end, you can now refer to this place to Fangasmic. (Please correct me if I'm wrong, but only thing I can think of that's offensive about orgasms is like if someone comes in your eye. I've been told by stopitsomemore that shit burns.) — whyareyoulikethis

I've never considered myself to be a particularly politically incorrect or a socially tone deaf person, but the dispute over the titling of our site hit me out of left field. Long before the project went public we soft-opened, recruited amongst friends, sampled it out to people whose opinions we trusted and solicited their thoughts and suggestions. At no point during the month-long process of building infrastructure did anyone who was read in on the project pause and say, "Hey, that site name might be offensive." In fact, I'd bet that for a lot of the people reading this post right now, the fact that "fanspastic" might be offensive will be as surprising to them as it was to us. (See whyareyoulikethis's note on further discussion for that.) The question of whether or not intent in fact colors the reality of a term can be argued until the end of time, and I'm hardly qualified to talk intelligently on the subject. I do know that the desire to sidestep every potential landmine can cross the line into the absurd. Ignorance of the law is not an excuse, but the impossible task of trying to offend no one is neither a law nor is it feasible. At heart, the issue can be summed by saying I'm less concerned with offending people, and if I'm going to do a good job managing the content on the site, I have to be. At the same time, my job isn't to decide what the title of the site is, nor to look out for what will make it most accessible, most serviceable, most popular and well-regarded among readers. That's whyareyoulikethis, and that's why we're renaming the project. To say I hated this decision would be putting it lightly. I resisted this move because it feels like we are betraying one of the fundamental reasons we wanted to launch this project to begin with; fandom is so preoccupied with never offending anybody that attempts to have a discussion oftentimes are smothered from lack of oxygen or blow up; I wanted us to be different. If we were going to give in on something as basic as our site name, what was next? But I also understand why we're making this move. You can ask me about this in a year, I may still be pissed we did this, but I will also be grateful if in a year, our site is around, and flourishing, and you are reading it because it wasn't lost in a dust-up right out the gate. — stopitsomemore

Please note, we're still in the process of changing the name and the other assets of the community, hopefully we should be fully transitioned by the end of the week.

Comments

[lim]

Haha, no I'm with stopitsomemore. Call your community whatever you like. You're free to do so and I'm free to think you are foolish, parochial arseholes, hiding behind your fake journals, wringing your hands all OH NOES SOMEONE IS JUDGING ME ON THE INTERNET RUN HIDE FANDOM WANK MIGHT EAT ME.

I'm TOTALLY unsurprised that all your friends have no problem with your shitty name. Colour me ASTONISHED. My friends all like Star Trek.

You didn't OFFEND me like I'm crying in the corner. Spare me your paternalistic bullshittery. I don't need you to tiptoe around my feelings. Call your community whatever you like. This shit is ridiculous. You still THINK it, so why not just fucking SAY IT. It's not the collection of SYLLABLES.

Jesus Christ in panto, you craven, wittering ninnies, I wish you used your real fandom names so I could fucking know to avoid the SHIT OUT OF YOU PEOPLE.

Honestly, it's okay for people to reject you. I reject you and look: I didn't die! I have enough friends! It's fine! You can have this corner of the internet to whinny about how dorked you are. Honestly! Please! Take this corner! Stay here.

[zanzando]

So. I've just come across your site again.

I had previously passed by (one of the very early posts was linked in an aggregator, I believe), but closed the tab immediately out of a pretty negative visceral reaction to the name.

I can understand quite easily that you have not come across anyone in a limited circle who found the name offensive. There aren't that many visible PWDs (people/person with disabilities) on the internet.
Since the only thing you see of me, for example, are the words I'm typing right now, and you can't see into my brain, nor see me walk, nor see the way I occasionally hold my left hand. You can't really know that I'm a person with a disability.
I saw controversy about this comm's name left and right, but hey, I get around in the disability activist blogosphere.
Let me ask you sincerely: how many of your friends have disabilities?

If, to draw a comparison that is somewhat lacking, a white person writes a novel about PoCs and then asks hir friends, all of whom are maybe white, whether there is anything racist about it, ze might not get an accurate representation of the truth out of that sample.
One step further is saying: But my friend [who is a PoC/PWD] said ze wasn't offended! Why are you?


Furthermore: Being offended is not the same as being hurt. I was slightly offended. I was disappointed, but resigned. Kind of "Eh, not gonna needlessly surround myself with carelessly ableist people."

I'm pretty sure you meant "spastic" in the way it is usually used in fandom, as being mentally and/or physically excited, insofar as that it's uncontrollable.
The problem for many is that

1) Cerebral palsy, the condition from which the term stems (well technically the Greek σπαστικός, which goes further back itself, I digress), is a very serious medical condition.

2) Spastic or spaz are meant to connote something negative, usually things such as clumsy or inept.

To quote from Wikipedia:
Most Americans were surprised when they learned about the controversy. In fact, at least one American dictionary (Merriam Webster's) makes no reference to cerebral palsy in its definition or word origins. It simply defines "spaz" as a shortening of the word "spastic" and "one who is inept".

The thing is: we don't want to be your go-to demographic for terms to use with regard to things that suck.
To quote Mandolin over at Alas, a Blog:
But people’s constant defenses of I! Should! Be! Able! To! Use! The! Word! Lame! kept coming thick, fast, and with ever-more-desperate indignation.
[...]
But a lot of the arguers [...] just really, really, really wanted to be able to use the word lame. It’s fun, after all. And colorful. And also ACCURATE!

It’s not okay to call a coward a pussy, or a bad thing gay, they argue, because there’s nothing bad about having a vagina or being homosexual. But there IS something bad about not being mobile! In fact, it’s no fun at all, just totally miserable. All other things held equal, isn’t it better to be not-lame than lame?
[Explanation of how having "less" functional legs is not as good as having functional, "normal" legs.]
But even accepting that impairment to mobility is itself a sucky thing, MAYBE DISABLED PEOPLE DO NOT APPRECIATE BEING THE CULTURAL GO-TO FOR THINGS THAT SUCK.

And maybe — since people have been historically all-too-willing to relieve disabled people of the burden of having to live through all that suckiness — just maybe disability activists know what the fuck they’re talking about when they say that the constant condensation of visible disability with “suckiness” as a metaphorical cultural touchstone has real, concrete, and evil ramifications on the lives of people with disabilities.

Just maybe.



I'm not trying to shut down discussion. I'm in fact openly asking for it.

[kiwisue]

Hi!

I saw controversy about this comm's name left and right, but hey, I get around in the disability activist blogosphere.

Could you link me? I posted my own gut reaction to the name, then googled around a bit but didn't find too much.

Comm mods: thank you for the name change.

[zanzando]

Hey, sure. Insofar as I can still find them, I have to admit that it was mostly in comments when someone else linked to the Broccoli Test thing, and *your* reaction post over on LJ.
I know that ratcreature said something in a comment to seperis' post.
I'm fairly sure everysecondtuesday said something in a comment ... someplace else? I'm sorry, I can't seem to find it now. She did comment positively on the name change.
I personally talked about it with curse_of_avalon, but that was in meatspace when we met for her birthday; also in chat with a few other friends who have wildly different fandoms to what is relevant around here.


Sorry not to be of more help. I'll keep an eye out.

[damned_colonial]

I just wanted to say, thanks for the name change. For whatever it's worth, I appreciate it.

[scrollgirl]

I visited your Broccoli Test post long before it ever got linked to metafandom and started to get comments. I read the post, liked it, surfed around a bit more, but soon left your comm because I was offended by the name. FWIW, I'm very glad you've changed it.

[quinara]

I saw your comm originally linked from metafandom, but couldn't read the post because the comm name made my skin crawl (and that's as an able-bodied person who has never had any ablist abuse thrown their way; I can only imagine how other people felt when the name appeared on their reading lists). I'm impressed to see how quickly you remedied the situation and look forward to popping in in the future!

If we were going to give in on something as basic as our site name, what was next?

Oh, the apocalypse I'm sure. (Seriously though, surely you recognise how very not basic your name is? It's what represents you pretty much everywhere: it's on every page of your site, it's in every link address, it's what people see at the start of every tab they open to you - people are going to remember that word next to your little globe long before they take in your profile page and the the rhythm of your posts. It sums up what your comm stands for, whether you like it or not. If you want to make it a slur, make it a slur, but that slur is going to define you more than any comment you make about how it's 'not important'.)