(no subject)
Flist, I'm having an ethical dilemma.
Okay, so long story short: if you've hung around this journal for long enough, you probably know that I really like writing academic papers about pop culture and internet culture, although to date I've avoided delving too thoroughly into fanfic, etc. - sticking to some of the shallower aspects of fandom.
The deal is that I have to write a final paper for one of my anthro classes about transgressions and limitations in some form or another. (I have a lot of choices on whether I want it to be more theoretical or more ethnographic, based on real communities.) My main ideas were: slut-shaming (linguistically punishing women for going beyond their approved boundaries); anonymity on the internet (in the sense that it lets you say things you wouldn't say if your face were attached, but also in the expectations attached to online personas and the fact that outing is seen as a major crime); online piracy (as theft vs progress); and certain aspects of fandom (the way it's something we tend to keep to ourselves, the taboo against showing it to the creators of the source material, and the way it often gets reduced by non-fandom people who stumble into it, including reduction along the lines of "oh, those silly fangirls writing their silly porn," etc).
My professor seemed most interested in the anonymous thing and the fandom thing - especially the fandom thing - but after our meeting I realized that, well. I'm going to have to present this shit in front of my class, and turn it in to a professor who has no real understanding of fandom. Am I just opening fandom up to the same kind of (potentially negative) scrutiny that we try so hard to avoid? Should I just choose something else and avoid outing myself as a ficcer?
Okay, so long story short: if you've hung around this journal for long enough, you probably know that I really like writing academic papers about pop culture and internet culture, although to date I've avoided delving too thoroughly into fanfic, etc. - sticking to some of the shallower aspects of fandom.
The deal is that I have to write a final paper for one of my anthro classes about transgressions and limitations in some form or another. (I have a lot of choices on whether I want it to be more theoretical or more ethnographic, based on real communities.) My main ideas were: slut-shaming (linguistically punishing women for going beyond their approved boundaries); anonymity on the internet (in the sense that it lets you say things you wouldn't say if your face were attached, but also in the expectations attached to online personas and the fact that outing is seen as a major crime); online piracy (as theft vs progress); and certain aspects of fandom (the way it's something we tend to keep to ourselves, the taboo against showing it to the creators of the source material, and the way it often gets reduced by non-fandom people who stumble into it, including reduction along the lines of "oh, those silly fangirls writing their silly porn," etc).
My professor seemed most interested in the anonymous thing and the fandom thing - especially the fandom thing - but after our meeting I realized that, well. I'm going to have to present this shit in front of my class, and turn it in to a professor who has no real understanding of fandom. Am I just opening fandom up to the same kind of (potentially negative) scrutiny that we try so hard to avoid? Should I just choose something else and avoid outing myself as a ficcer?