[fandom] No, I'm Cool. You're Fine.
Aug. 7th, 2010 07:11 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
stopitsomemore posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
fangasmicSo. Are you guys still in SGA fandom? Of course you aren't. Nobody is.
Except apparently for some asshats!
The mods of sga_kinkmeme apparently decided "fetishizing identities" did not constitute an acceptable kink, and promptly began freezing threads that they deemed offensive to certain groups (most notably a chubby-chasing prompt that mods admitted bothered some of their overweight members). While this has led to the usual round of resigning and sweeping of things under rugs — note that some of the evidence of this kerfluffle has been deleted for posterity unless it hits fandom_wank — it's spawned what looks like the beginnings of a proper round of fandom bukkake.
In addition to being passionate about porn, FG is passionate about fandom being filled with horseshit, and overly convinced of its own superiority. Theres's just no other explanation for the last few months worth of self-righteous cockfaced behavior exhibited across the board — beginning with the tsunami of ableism wank and expanding outward in ripples until it washed up in a gentle lapping of semen on the face of the sga_kinkmeme now.
Fandom's obsession with [insert random ass thing here]!fail and policing itself is starting to go too far.
Before we can get into it on any larger cosmic level, obviously we have to give our annual Ur Doin It Wrong award to the sga_kinkmeme mods, who apparently discovered the idea and term kink meme in some sort of spontaneous fannish shibboleth without any actual cultural context for what the fuck it is. The whole premise of kink memes, and part of the reason why the vast majority of them are encouraged to be anonymous, is it's supposed to be a zero shame zone. You might find my desperate need to read fanfiction where John Sheppard lays down a tarp and pisses on Teyla objectionable, but fuck you anyway, nobody's forcing you to read it. Similarly, if you're going to mod a community that's fandom's answer to a phone sex hotline or a dodgy peep show, you can't begin arbitrarily killing prompts or locking shit down because it offends you — the fact that word on the street says that all of this started because someone had a chubby for fat chicks is what makes this even more farcical. Are you fucking kidding me? Did you seriously misunderstand the entire point of a kink meme? If you're too delicate to handle people who like more cushion for the pushin and who enjoy their sex partners built for comfort and not speed I loathe to think about the poor SGA fan who just really needs some scat in their life.
More than that, this is a terrible dark sign of the times in fandom. For a group of well-educated, open-minded people who are supposedly engaged in subversion of the cultural standard, we seem to really enjoy collectively oppressing the fuck out of each other for doing things that require our peers to be open-minded, well-educated, or accept subversion of the cultural standard.
Fandom's always been a minefield; it's a cultural melting pot that spawned the word "butthurt" for a reason. But still, it's gone from a place with a fairly elastic tolerance — depending on what circles and community standards your particular corner of fandom accepted — to a fucking mob of people waving flaming -isms who have started to legislate by groupthink the products of their peers. We're not suggesting that fandom should accept bullshit racism and misogny in its works, but neither should we accept shaming each others kinks as a natural extension of the former. Did we learn nothing from Ferris Bueller's distrust of isms? To recap, this is the quote:
"Not that I condone fascism, or any -ism for that matter. -Ism's in my opinion are not good. A person should not believe in an -ism, he should believe in himself. "
And it's a good one, because a major, loathsome trend that's emerged of late isn't a turn for the better, where, suddenly enlightened, we no longer tolerate shitty behavior on the part of our peers — fandom's always had a fairly effective litmus test to weed out the trolls. No, the latest turn is something that seems positive on the outset but can be insidious in practice, where we sort through the products of fandom and find something we find objectionable that we as a collective didn't know that we should object to, and we launch a thousand shipfuls of meta about how we're all assholes over the topic.
The validity of fandom's recent revelations over access issues and ableism aside — it's our hypersensitivity that's beginning to engender this fucked up sense that we have a right to judge people for what triggers a pleasure response in their head. If we, as a community, have the right to legislate everybody's uses of certain words, certain descriptors, set off seismic digital Maoist self-flagellations, then obviously it's no big deal to take another two inches of give and begin cordoning off desires and marking them as unacceptable. You know who else did that? Psychologists, when they labeled homosexuality as a mental disorder for a thousand fucking years.
Pathologizing desire sucks, but pathologizing desire in the name of social justice is a complicated, slippery slope that fandom will not be served by treading.
In the end, our position is the harder one to hold, not because we're not being backed up by rational human thought, but because it sounds so awful on paper. We're writing from the corner of people who use what's perceived as hatespeech and probably request some really tremendously terrible things on kinkmemes that have sent more than one of the FG staff clawing at their own eyes in the middle of the night. (You, clownfucking girl, we see what you did there. It's okay. We are sure you are a good person otherwise.) But it's still something important that needs to be said.
Too often people who hold the position of, "JESUS CHRIST EVERYBODY, CHILL THE FUCK OUT ABOUT THIS SHIT," are shamed into silence because it's also become wrong, lately, for fandom just to be a place where you have fun, a place that's an easy escape. To participate in fandom is to, increasingly, necessarily have some sort of opinion on something you've probably never thought about, to admit to some sort of original sin for your cultural biases, your subtle linguistic racism, and hell, at its foundations, who knows, maybe all that shit is valid. I've read good arguments that have been convincing, if obnoxious, on the subject. But that's not what a lot of people signed up for.
There are people who will make the argument that they're doing good work, that by kicking up this dirt and naming names and giving things terrifying -isms, that they're teaching you to examine yourself. Great. Fantastic. But there's a difference between prompting people to examine themselves and leading a witch hunt or participating in social censorship. There's a line, and you don't need nine justices to tell you that you'll know it when you see it, but that it can't be articulated, that it's a case-by-case issue.
This is fandom. This isn't your freshman year social justice project. Disdain what you want to disdain but do it with the same dignity and graciousness you're protesting other people don't have. You don't have a right to tell people what to say, to strike the word "retarded" out of their vocabulary, to dictate their actions, just the same as they can't make you think they're right, force you to use that horrendous, ableist term, or to force you to accept their flaws.
Don't be that asshole. Stop freezing kink meme prompts. And for God's sake, chill the fuck out.
Except apparently for some asshats!
The mods of sga_kinkmeme apparently decided "fetishizing identities" did not constitute an acceptable kink, and promptly began freezing threads that they deemed offensive to certain groups (most notably a chubby-chasing prompt that mods admitted bothered some of their overweight members). While this has led to the usual round of resigning and sweeping of things under rugs — note that some of the evidence of this kerfluffle has been deleted for posterity unless it hits fandom_wank — it's spawned what looks like the beginnings of a proper round of fandom bukkake.
In addition to being passionate about porn, FG is passionate about fandom being filled with horseshit, and overly convinced of its own superiority. Theres's just no other explanation for the last few months worth of self-righteous cockfaced behavior exhibited across the board — beginning with the tsunami of ableism wank and expanding outward in ripples until it washed up in a gentle lapping of semen on the face of the sga_kinkmeme now.
Fandom's obsession with [insert random ass thing here]!fail and policing itself is starting to go too far.
Before we can get into it on any larger cosmic level, obviously we have to give our annual Ur Doin It Wrong award to the sga_kinkmeme mods, who apparently discovered the idea and term kink meme in some sort of spontaneous fannish shibboleth without any actual cultural context for what the fuck it is. The whole premise of kink memes, and part of the reason why the vast majority of them are encouraged to be anonymous, is it's supposed to be a zero shame zone. You might find my desperate need to read fanfiction where John Sheppard lays down a tarp and pisses on Teyla objectionable, but fuck you anyway, nobody's forcing you to read it. Similarly, if you're going to mod a community that's fandom's answer to a phone sex hotline or a dodgy peep show, you can't begin arbitrarily killing prompts or locking shit down because it offends you — the fact that word on the street says that all of this started because someone had a chubby for fat chicks is what makes this even more farcical. Are you fucking kidding me? Did you seriously misunderstand the entire point of a kink meme? If you're too delicate to handle people who like more cushion for the pushin and who enjoy their sex partners built for comfort and not speed I loathe to think about the poor SGA fan who just really needs some scat in their life.
More than that, this is a terrible dark sign of the times in fandom. For a group of well-educated, open-minded people who are supposedly engaged in subversion of the cultural standard, we seem to really enjoy collectively oppressing the fuck out of each other for doing things that require our peers to be open-minded, well-educated, or accept subversion of the cultural standard.
Fandom's always been a minefield; it's a cultural melting pot that spawned the word "butthurt" for a reason. But still, it's gone from a place with a fairly elastic tolerance — depending on what circles and community standards your particular corner of fandom accepted — to a fucking mob of people waving flaming -isms who have started to legislate by groupthink the products of their peers. We're not suggesting that fandom should accept bullshit racism and misogny in its works, but neither should we accept shaming each others kinks as a natural extension of the former. Did we learn nothing from Ferris Bueller's distrust of isms? To recap, this is the quote:
"Not that I condone fascism, or any -ism for that matter. -Ism's in my opinion are not good. A person should not believe in an -ism, he should believe in himself. "
And it's a good one, because a major, loathsome trend that's emerged of late isn't a turn for the better, where, suddenly enlightened, we no longer tolerate shitty behavior on the part of our peers — fandom's always had a fairly effective litmus test to weed out the trolls. No, the latest turn is something that seems positive on the outset but can be insidious in practice, where we sort through the products of fandom and find something we find objectionable that we as a collective didn't know that we should object to, and we launch a thousand shipfuls of meta about how we're all assholes over the topic.
The validity of fandom's recent revelations over access issues and ableism aside — it's our hypersensitivity that's beginning to engender this fucked up sense that we have a right to judge people for what triggers a pleasure response in their head. If we, as a community, have the right to legislate everybody's uses of certain words, certain descriptors, set off seismic digital Maoist self-flagellations, then obviously it's no big deal to take another two inches of give and begin cordoning off desires and marking them as unacceptable. You know who else did that? Psychologists, when they labeled homosexuality as a mental disorder for a thousand fucking years.
Pathologizing desire sucks, but pathologizing desire in the name of social justice is a complicated, slippery slope that fandom will not be served by treading.
In the end, our position is the harder one to hold, not because we're not being backed up by rational human thought, but because it sounds so awful on paper. We're writing from the corner of people who use what's perceived as hatespeech and probably request some really tremendously terrible things on kinkmemes that have sent more than one of the FG staff clawing at their own eyes in the middle of the night. (You, clownfucking girl, we see what you did there. It's okay. We are sure you are a good person otherwise.) But it's still something important that needs to be said.
Too often people who hold the position of, "JESUS CHRIST EVERYBODY, CHILL THE FUCK OUT ABOUT THIS SHIT," are shamed into silence because it's also become wrong, lately, for fandom just to be a place where you have fun, a place that's an easy escape. To participate in fandom is to, increasingly, necessarily have some sort of opinion on something you've probably never thought about, to admit to some sort of original sin for your cultural biases, your subtle linguistic racism, and hell, at its foundations, who knows, maybe all that shit is valid. I've read good arguments that have been convincing, if obnoxious, on the subject. But that's not what a lot of people signed up for.
There are people who will make the argument that they're doing good work, that by kicking up this dirt and naming names and giving things terrifying -isms, that they're teaching you to examine yourself. Great. Fantastic. But there's a difference between prompting people to examine themselves and leading a witch hunt or participating in social censorship. There's a line, and you don't need nine justices to tell you that you'll know it when you see it, but that it can't be articulated, that it's a case-by-case issue.
This is fandom. This isn't your freshman year social justice project. Disdain what you want to disdain but do it with the same dignity and graciousness you're protesting other people don't have. You don't have a right to tell people what to say, to strike the word "retarded" out of their vocabulary, to dictate their actions, just the same as they can't make you think they're right, force you to use that horrendous, ableist term, or to force you to accept their flaws.
Don't be that asshole. Stop freezing kink meme prompts. And for God's sake, chill the fuck out.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-08-08 02:49 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-08-09 03:09 am (UTC)Though, to add to what seems to be the majority of opinion, why go to or run a kink meme in hoping "no one" will be "offended"? Because, really? How the FUCK is that possible in any way shape or form? If I didn't want to possibly be offended, I'd stay the fuck out of fandom. Between the idea of "domestic discipline" or what I see as a "fetish" for putting certain characters in noncon/dubcon situations, I'd be offended right and left. So, I skip it, move on, and don't get involved because even if I'm offended and have what I feel as legitimate reasons to be offended, others might not for whatever reason, and fandom isn't here to make the world better or more accepting. It's here for us to show our love for something and say what we want to within that world and within in ours to a degree.
Not to mention, I am chubby. And the idea that "chubby chaser" is offensive is silly to me. BUT, I see how to some it might be, but I believe you have to look at the intent behind the use of that term, which in this case WAS NOT to offend.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-08-09 02:06 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-08-10 06:27 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-08-14 05:54 am (UTC)I mean, there's a reason my DW is looking empty these days.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-08-11 07:08 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-08-12 12:02 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-08-12 07:23 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-08-14 04:48 pm (UTC)Isn't the whole point of a kink narrowing a situation down to certain specific aspects?
I mean, when I'm reading any kind of erotic fic, d'you think I'm seeing the characters as whole people? Does anyone?
Granted, I'm not exactly a huge fan of the porn industry, but the way things are labelled says a lot about the human psyche, IMHO. Things like "Older Ladies In A Lime Jelly Filled Swimming Pool With Korean Guys Named Mark". Objectification is a natural part of sexuality, as far as I can tell.
Also, I don't think the author of the post is against keeping an eye out for objectionable stuff. Just, when it's policed to such a ridiculous degree. I mean "chubby chaser", really?
(no subject)
Date: 2010-08-12 04:03 pm (UTC)But I'm bothered by some of what you say later in the post. Specifically, by the audience you assume in statements like this:
it's also become wrong, lately, for fandom just to be a place where you have fun, a place that's an easy escape. To participate in fandom is to, increasingly, necessarily have some sort of opinion on something you've probably never thought about, to admit to some sort of original sin for your cultural biases, your subtle linguistic racism
Who is the "you" here? It's apparently not a minority person or a person of color, because for most of those people, fandom never was an "easy escape." They're the ones who had to bear the brunt of the "cultural biases" and "subtle linguistic racism" for years. Now the privileged people are having to think about what they say, and that might make their fannish experience less fun, but doesn't it balance out? Because for every privileged person who learns to think before saying something hurtful, there's a less privileged person who will have more fun in fandom, because she'll have one less bit of "subtle linguistic racism" to tarnish her day.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-08-14 02:59 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-08-14 06:34 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-08-14 07:04 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-08-15 04:46 pm (UTC)Thank you for saying this.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-08-16 12:57 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-08-14 07:16 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-08-19 01:48 am (UTC)People promoting awareness of bias and privilege always seem to assume that the privileged will become conscious of their privilege and careful in their language if only they were made aware of the ways in which society favours them. This is not always the case. Some do not care.
Sometimes people are even going one step further by deliberately avoiding all discussion on privilege because they see the it as a source of boredom, judgement and hostility.
Sometimes people in fandom are not American and have no desire to become acquainted with the historical treatment of minorities in America.
Sometimes people genuinely feel the subject is completely irrelevant to their lives. I suspect many will disagree, citing the unconscious benefits of inescapable privilege, but, as I said, people have a right to spend their time online however they wish. If they have no desire to be pulled into discussions about misogyny, racism or ableism, they are free to avoid them.
Educate those who wish to be educated and respect the ignorance of the rest. If only the Jesuit Order had followed this advice 450 years ago.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-08-13 05:25 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-08-14 01:31 pm (UTC)Just because we all had something in common didn't mean that we agreed at all, and there was a group who always thought we should spend less time planning dance parties and more time doing things that mattered in the real world, and another group who wanted to have fun with their fellow queers and queer allies and who felt judged for being more politically apathetic than their counterparts.
And then there was another group (that I fell into) that thought we could do both, even if that meant we didn't have the biggest Coming Out Day campaign or the most over the top Drag Ball. Ultimately we tried to find a balance, but we were never ever ever able to make everyone happy.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-08-16 02:54 am (UTC)But that'd make me go all ranty in the comments.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-08-16 05:04 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-08-21 01:50 pm (UTC)Thank you for that.
I'm grateful for all the ways I've been educated by fandom (fandom practically raised me). But quite plainly, I'm risking my emotional and mental wellbeing if I try to be actively involved in these kind of volatile discussions.
The only -ism I can afford Fandom to be is escapism.