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davemerrillThere was a twitter discussion recently that went pretty wide in connection to a really convoluted online rant about how members of one fandom kind of behave badly and this leads others to stereotype and to condemn, and how the fandom circles the wagons and cries "persecution". And there aren't any winners in these sorts of discussions because there are a-holes in all fandoms of everything everywhere. And we SHOULD call out and condemn a-hole behavior, but we should NOT pretend we're being victims when we aren't, or disparage everybody who likes a certain TV show about magic ponies just because certain members of that fandom are obnoxious, poorly socialized jagoffs with serious entitlement issues.
No, what concerned me was, during the discussion a statement was made, and the statement is this: "People are fans because they're damaged in some way."
I've heard this statement before, and it never fails to push my buttons. First off, it's patently untrue. More importantly, it's used over and over to excuse bad behavior. It's used to keep people from developing as human beings, to stop people from learning how to interact with the rest of the world, to tell the dysfunctional and the obnoxious and the smelly that it's OK to stink or holler or behave like a toddler, because "you're fan who is a damaged, special person, and you can't be expected to follow the rules of civilized society."
It's a statement used by users who never work a decent job, never buy a con badge or pay their share of a hotel room or a meal, cheat others on commissioned artwork or promised services, never clean up after a gathering, who don't want to stand in line with everybody else, who insist others worry about their special diets or their fear of balloons. It's used by people out for a free ride. it gets picked up by others who might be watching and trying to figure out how to behave themselves. And as somebody who has done a good share of the work over the years, it grinds my gears seeing these users abuse our work. It GRINDS MY F-ING GEARS.
There are damaged people everywhere; learning disabilities, physical challenges, serious medical conditions, missing limbs or eyes or mobility. They're everywhere, even in the fan world. Most of them are getting along in the world like the rest of us, taking care of business. Not careening through crowds behaving like jerks and expecting a free pass because DAMAGED. Compared to being in a wheelchair or dying of lung failure, getting picked on in high school seems like small potatoes. Because it is. EVERYBODY got picked on in high school.
And that's the truth, that being a fan doesn't make you special. Most of what you really like is corporate-owned mass media produced and consumed by millions and millions and millions of people. Nothing special about that. What you watch or read or play doesn't make you special, and getting picked on in school doesn't make you special. It makes you a human being on the planet Earth down here in the cage with the rest of us monkeys.
Liking something a lot doesn't give you license to harass strangers, to holler indoors, to menace others with your play-fighting, to threaten, to stalk, or to whine. Here in the real world you're expected to act like a grownup no matter what TV show you watch or what role playing game you play. You might have to wear a shirt with a collar some time, you might have to engage in conversations with people who don't care who Spock's parents were, you might have to endure a ball game on TV at some point. You might have to wait in line quietly for a panel or wait your turn to ask a question or play well with others in groups like your average 6-year old. I know, right? This is hard!
We are at the point now where fandom as a whole needs to grow the hell up and quit being repulsive antisocial trolls. We need to quit harassing women, for one thing. We need to remind each other that rape threats are not acceptable discourse any time, any where, for any reason. We need to show others what respect and friendship and courtesy mean, because they learn from us what's acceptable.
For WAY TOO LONG fans have put up with ugly behavior because we don't want to be the bad guy, we don't want to become our parents or our bosses or the people in high school who asked us why our T-shirts were so weird. We wanted to be inclusive and welcoming and non-judgmental. And that's great, when people don't abuse your hospitality. Well, our hospitality is being abused and it needs to stop 'cause it's grindin' my gears.
So the next time somebody starts acting like a jerk, don't be afraid to call 'em out and say "Hey buddy, use your indoor voice please." or "Dial it back there a notch, no need to threaten death on someone over a TV show." or the kind of basic socialization we might use with a elementary school student. Wouldn't it be nice to live in a better world? This is where the real challenge begins, treating others with respect. Even if you're a fan. Nobody gets a pass on civilization.
No, what concerned me was, during the discussion a statement was made, and the statement is this: "People are fans because they're damaged in some way."
I've heard this statement before, and it never fails to push my buttons. First off, it's patently untrue. More importantly, it's used over and over to excuse bad behavior. It's used to keep people from developing as human beings, to stop people from learning how to interact with the rest of the world, to tell the dysfunctional and the obnoxious and the smelly that it's OK to stink or holler or behave like a toddler, because "you're fan who is a damaged, special person, and you can't be expected to follow the rules of civilized society."
It's a statement used by users who never work a decent job, never buy a con badge or pay their share of a hotel room or a meal, cheat others on commissioned artwork or promised services, never clean up after a gathering, who don't want to stand in line with everybody else, who insist others worry about their special diets or their fear of balloons. It's used by people out for a free ride. it gets picked up by others who might be watching and trying to figure out how to behave themselves. And as somebody who has done a good share of the work over the years, it grinds my gears seeing these users abuse our work. It GRINDS MY F-ING GEARS.
There are damaged people everywhere; learning disabilities, physical challenges, serious medical conditions, missing limbs or eyes or mobility. They're everywhere, even in the fan world. Most of them are getting along in the world like the rest of us, taking care of business. Not careening through crowds behaving like jerks and expecting a free pass because DAMAGED. Compared to being in a wheelchair or dying of lung failure, getting picked on in high school seems like small potatoes. Because it is. EVERYBODY got picked on in high school.
And that's the truth, that being a fan doesn't make you special. Most of what you really like is corporate-owned mass media produced and consumed by millions and millions and millions of people. Nothing special about that. What you watch or read or play doesn't make you special, and getting picked on in school doesn't make you special. It makes you a human being on the planet Earth down here in the cage with the rest of us monkeys.
Liking something a lot doesn't give you license to harass strangers, to holler indoors, to menace others with your play-fighting, to threaten, to stalk, or to whine. Here in the real world you're expected to act like a grownup no matter what TV show you watch or what role playing game you play. You might have to wear a shirt with a collar some time, you might have to engage in conversations with people who don't care who Spock's parents were, you might have to endure a ball game on TV at some point. You might have to wait in line quietly for a panel or wait your turn to ask a question or play well with others in groups like your average 6-year old. I know, right? This is hard!
We are at the point now where fandom as a whole needs to grow the hell up and quit being repulsive antisocial trolls. We need to quit harassing women, for one thing. We need to remind each other that rape threats are not acceptable discourse any time, any where, for any reason. We need to show others what respect and friendship and courtesy mean, because they learn from us what's acceptable.
For WAY TOO LONG fans have put up with ugly behavior because we don't want to be the bad guy, we don't want to become our parents or our bosses or the people in high school who asked us why our T-shirts were so weird. We wanted to be inclusive and welcoming and non-judgmental. And that's great, when people don't abuse your hospitality. Well, our hospitality is being abused and it needs to stop 'cause it's grindin' my gears.
So the next time somebody starts acting like a jerk, don't be afraid to call 'em out and say "Hey buddy, use your indoor voice please." or "Dial it back there a notch, no need to threaten death on someone over a TV show." or the kind of basic socialization we might use with a elementary school student. Wouldn't it be nice to live in a better world? This is where the real challenge begins, treating others with respect. Even if you're a fan. Nobody gets a pass on civilization.
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no subject
Date: 2014-04-28 12:38 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-04-28 02:36 am (UTC)I don't ever recall anyone, ANYONE ever using this self-acknowledgement (or self labeling) of otherness as a defense for bad manners, poor judgement or outright 'shoulda known better' behaviour.
And THAT, if some are indeed claiming that 'fannish leanings is a defect so don't blame me for doing s**t', THAT I firmly blame on Facebook and Twitter. Because those have so increased the 'pay attention to ME' tendency, the drama queen aspects of fandom it's day and night.
Back in the pre-internet days, someone pulls some crap, you didn't even HEAR about it unless it was asshattedness of major import, so people didn't copycat. Nowadays, someone instagrams a photo which explodes on the Twitter until someone talks about it on Facebook and suddenly others are doing it too because it's officially a 'thing'.
Remember when 'will hug for (c)' signs started, then exploded? Remember Glomping?
And here's the larger problem. You call for "see something, say something" (which you know I agree with, I hope) but you know what happens when you actually do it? You are now a bully. That's what's going to be tweeted. "I wuz just doin stuff and this old dude called me on it and made me feel bad so I was hurt".
I don't have an answer. I try to do what I can to push back on this age of incivility and I look pretty stupid, pushing carts out of the parking spaces near me into the corral, picking up trash from the floor, making sure I don't block the aisle when I shop and being watchful of people on their DAMN CELL PHONES IN THE F**KING SUPERMARKET not looking where they're going...
It's the death of a thousand cuts, Dave. Barbarians at the gates. Do what you can, lead by example, watch your back.
no subject
Date: 2014-04-28 08:19 pm (UTC)It was used by Guy Brownlee, who stated flat out that fandom is a "safe space" where fans can shelter, protected from the harsh outside mundane world. That this is what fandom is for, to be that safe space (this was via email, but it was the 1990s). Which, hey, it's great that that happens sometimes, but that *isn't* what it's for. (kinda like the guy on the AWA message board who said it was AWA's job to deliver cutting-edge Japanese electronic dance music, which it is most def. not.)
My personal experience has been that guys like Al Rainwater were able to move through fandom, unhindered by anything more than passive-aggressive shunning and mean but hilarious pranks, until he finally was able to molest a child and the state stepped in. Fandom did nothing to keep this predator out. In fact, fandom invited him into their home so he could molest their child. Nobody called him out publicly, nobody was direct about his inappropriate behavior, because hey, we're all fans, we're all messed up in some way, right? Who are we to judge?
Not that this is anything new: fandom first turned its back on the Walter Breen/Marion Zimmer Bradley sexual molestation scandals in the 1960s - he continued to molest children for two decades. A good part of fandom defended Ed Kramer for years.
Fans feel like a special tribe and they close ranks when their special tribe is threatened. And that's BS. Fandom isn't a special tribe, it's people who share an interest. Get over yourselves, Fandom.
You will be happy to know that Twitter and Tumblr and Facebook have my back on this; it's been signal-boosted and repeated many times and so far the comments have been really positive.
I've been "the bad guy" for a while. I've been pretty vocal about bad behavior for years, and so far all it's gotten me is the undying enmity of some complete douchebags who are the laughingstock of fandom. Maybe I've learned to be more diplomatic about my actions, but so far the blowback has been negligible.
no subject
Date: 2014-04-29 01:36 am (UTC)Might I risk being on the 'outs' by suggesting your circle would agree with you because it's your circle? I mean, on average. Like minded and stuff.
I'm not disagreeing about the whole 'damaged' nonsense. All I can tell you, since 1976, I had NEVER heard that. That we fans are different, special, outside, yeah, that was everywhere.
I don't even know what all problems Guy had, but if he self-labeled himself as a damaged person, that's on him.
And I don't doubt 'damaged' would be as attracted to fandom as ANY OTHER OUTCAST CLASS. But today, we celebrate being broken. We are allowed to express great joy in someone's self-destruction, mostly if they're famous. (Lohan, Miley Cyrus, etc). Being broken means 'Pay attention to me' and lordy isn't that what Youtube, Instagram, Twitter, Facebook is all about for the majority of users?
Am I damaged? Well, by this point I'm sure as hell dysfunctional by most standards, but I don't consider myself that way.
Let me put one thing out there. It may make you hate me.
The reaction you're having to this revelation seems much more personal than usual. It's almost like you were a 6th grader in the playground and an 8th grader came up and called you a retard because you were playing Ultraman on the jungle gym equipment. It's a word, it has nothing to do with you, I know you're sure as f**k not damaged, but it comes across as exceedingly personal. Have I completely mis-read the tone of your original post?
I mean, yeah, there's also a bunch of "damn kids on my lawn" stuff too, but we do that thing all the time.
OK, I await the hate speech from the social media pundits.
no subject
Date: 2014-04-29 02:55 am (UTC)I'm having a revelation that I was the 14 year old at the SCA meeting that Al Rainwater was attempting to groom with his dirty fanart, in a room full of adults, none of whom spoke up or put a stop to it. Wait, I knew that all the time.
I'm also having the revelation that most of the people who push the idea of "fandom as family of huddled-together survivors" are people looking to work an angle. The loudest proponents of "Fandom family" are low-level All-American-Squad con guests looking for free meals and airline tix and for the convention to give them free meeting space so they can hold their private members only parties (email us for an invite, you can join our special club for only $20). Or who want private time with the teenage girl cosplayers for private photo sessions, why would you think that was inappropriate, we're all one big family here.
Because it all depends on somebody else doing all the work and paying all the bills so these users can have their little ego trips or whatever, and they can't be expected to pitch in because DAMAGED.
Somebody I don't know on Tumblr put it thusly: "when you make it a safe space for creeps, you make it an unsafe space for everybody else."
Creeps, users, whatever - whether it's calling out somebody for showing pron to minors or calling somebody out for hollering in a crowd, they gettin' called out.
no subject
Date: 2014-04-29 03:29 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-04-29 02:54 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-04-29 06:04 pm (UTC)