on sff fandom
To be quite frank, I grew disillusioned with "SFF fandom" back during Racefail and have never really managed to dip my toes back in. Back when I still had dreams of being "traditionally published" (back when the very phrase "traditionally published" would have probably gotten you blank stares if you brought it up), I cared because I could see that the industry revolved around this strange community with very, very blurry lines between "fan" and "creator", and that like it or not (and perhaps ironically), one would never be able to succeed in that community as an outsider. Racefail coincidentally happened right at the dawn of the self-pub boom though, and so I pretty much stopped caring.
But recently (well, not recently, as I've been nursing these thoughts for a while), I have come to feel that there's just this huge, unsurpassable generation gap present in what I think of as "SFF fandom", one that's probably not helped by the fact that the community I'm thinking of leans very heavily to US voices/perspectives. Also, SFF is no longer the "outsider community" (if it ever really was). SFF has gone mainstream. This was already the case during Racefail, and is all the more so now.
That said... it has been extraordinarily strange to see social mores shifting so drastically over little more than a half-decade. Like, just utterly bizarre that the term "social justice warrior" is even a thing now (practically replacing "feminist" as the new "derogatory" label). And how... significant of a venue Tumblr has become in a way I don't think LJ, even at its height, really managed to match. It really has influenced conversations on the internet in a way that almost disturbs me even though I feel like I should be seeing it in a positive light. Y'all probably know that I've been ambivalent about Tumblr social activism for a long time but was mostly inclined to see it as a good thing. Seeing a lot of the fallout now makes me start to think my ambivalence was justified.
(It's not just Tumblr -- I've been watching Reddit culture morph into a really bizarre state over the last 2-3 years as well.)
I don't really know where I'm going with this post. It's just that I've been thinking a little about the recent Hugo drama (which had not been on my radar at all, due to being preoccupied with Real Life and the fact that as I said, I have almost succeeded in completely tuning out "SFF fandom" ever since Racefail -- but which I'd nonetheless heard the rumblings of and finally decided to look up [despite already having a good idea what to expect]).
And I can't help but feel that -- although at the time I thought Racefail was a good or at least necessary thing -- the repercussions of that have been far-reaching in a way I never expected. And often counterproductive and/or the exact opposite of what I'd vaguely hoped that mess would have achieved or made progress toward.
(Some but not all of this embodied in one particular controversial blogger whose views I actually often agreed with, but also found frighteningly toxic. Particularly frightening maybe because I so often agreed. This blogger's identity was publicly revealed late last year, if you want to dig. [The person was active even before Racefail, but Racefail gave this person a platform, IMO.])
... anyway. I probably shouldn't say this, but I think the established SFF community is beyond saving at this point in the sense that no matter how much internal reform or purging or whatever goes on, nothing constructive will ever come out of it again. I have no place to say this, as an outsider. And I have seen some very long-term participants of the community claim that drama is nothing new to the community (which I believe), but purely as an uninvolved observer -- the drama that's plagued SFF fandom in the past few years has been nasty in a peculiarly disturbing way.
It has nothing to do with me anymore, I guess. But nonetheless, it does bother me.
eta: Random peripherally related link -- http://nonsite.org/feature/django-unchained-or-the-help-how-cultural-politics-is-worse-than-no-politics-at-all-and-why
I'm not quite at the point the writer of this very long piece is yet, but I've certainly found my views evolving in a similar direction. His thoughts on Firefly (scroll waaaay down) in particular are exactly my own initial reactions to the series when I first tried it. (I still haven't tried picking it back up. I still may, someday.)
(I'm also not familiar with every example he touches on, but his criticism is amusing in some cases.)
comments at the original Dreamwidth post
But recently (well, not recently, as I've been nursing these thoughts for a while), I have come to feel that there's just this huge, unsurpassable generation gap present in what I think of as "SFF fandom", one that's probably not helped by the fact that the community I'm thinking of leans very heavily to US voices/perspectives. Also, SFF is no longer the "outsider community" (if it ever really was). SFF has gone mainstream. This was already the case during Racefail, and is all the more so now.
That said... it has been extraordinarily strange to see social mores shifting so drastically over little more than a half-decade. Like, just utterly bizarre that the term "social justice warrior" is even a thing now (practically replacing "feminist" as the new "derogatory" label). And how... significant of a venue Tumblr has become in a way I don't think LJ, even at its height, really managed to match. It really has influenced conversations on the internet in a way that almost disturbs me even though I feel like I should be seeing it in a positive light. Y'all probably know that I've been ambivalent about Tumblr social activism for a long time but was mostly inclined to see it as a good thing. Seeing a lot of the fallout now makes me start to think my ambivalence was justified.
(It's not just Tumblr -- I've been watching Reddit culture morph into a really bizarre state over the last 2-3 years as well.)
I don't really know where I'm going with this post. It's just that I've been thinking a little about the recent Hugo drama (which had not been on my radar at all, due to being preoccupied with Real Life and the fact that as I said, I have almost succeeded in completely tuning out "SFF fandom" ever since Racefail -- but which I'd nonetheless heard the rumblings of and finally decided to look up [despite already having a good idea what to expect]).
And I can't help but feel that -- although at the time I thought Racefail was a good or at least necessary thing -- the repercussions of that have been far-reaching in a way I never expected. And often counterproductive and/or the exact opposite of what I'd vaguely hoped that mess would have achieved or made progress toward.
(Some but not all of this embodied in one particular controversial blogger whose views I actually often agreed with, but also found frighteningly toxic. Particularly frightening maybe because I so often agreed. This blogger's identity was publicly revealed late last year, if you want to dig. [The person was active even before Racefail, but Racefail gave this person a platform, IMO.])
... anyway. I probably shouldn't say this, but I think the established SFF community is beyond saving at this point in the sense that no matter how much internal reform or purging or whatever goes on, nothing constructive will ever come out of it again. I have no place to say this, as an outsider. And I have seen some very long-term participants of the community claim that drama is nothing new to the community (which I believe), but purely as an uninvolved observer -- the drama that's plagued SFF fandom in the past few years has been nasty in a peculiarly disturbing way.
It has nothing to do with me anymore, I guess. But nonetheless, it does bother me.
eta: Random peripherally related link -- http://nonsite.org/feature/django-unchained-or-the-help-how-cultural-politics-is-worse-than-no-politics-at-all-and-why
I'm not quite at the point the writer of this very long piece is yet, but I've certainly found my views evolving in a similar direction. His thoughts on Firefly (scroll waaaay down) in particular are exactly my own initial reactions to the series when I first tried it. (I still haven't tried picking it back up. I still may, someday.)
(I'm also not familiar with every example he touches on, but his criticism is amusing in some cases.)
comments at the original Dreamwidth post