Danger ranger likes your dress.
Discussion of warnings on fic is going on again. I am leery of entering this debate -- last time I entered it, I was unclear, unintentionally hurtful, and misunderstood to the point of absurdity -- but I think I can get away with linking and a brief blither.
Link: untappedbeauty's post here, which in turn links to impertinence's very personal and illuminating post.
I really liked that untappedbeauty called out the use of analogies in this discussion. Analogies are extended comparisons, that are used to reveal the underlying reasoning or assumptions someone makes without thinking about them. I find them really useful in the classroom. I often use a rhetorical strategy where I say, "If 'straight' and 'gay' were really sufficient to define sexuality, you'd all be turned on when you're around the ladies in the nursing home." It's a comedic analogy, intended to point out why it's hilarious to assume that our current organization of sexuality is natural or unavoidable. I like what analogies can reveal.
It's important to realize that analogies, however, like metaphors, are descriptive. They illustrate the problem; they don't offer solutions. Even worse, I often see them used in online discussions as a means of distracting from the core of the discussion.
For example: fandom is not the local bookstore; regardless of whether or not warnings should be included in books, your fanporn is not actually a published work, and the context of a fanfiction work is different than the context of a book in a bookstore. This analogy has been used in several places, ostensibly to clarify the lack of responsibility on the part of the author; since, it is implied, a book author is not responsible for their (detached, invisible, temporally/spatially delayed) reader, then the fanfiction author should not be responsible for their reader.
There are a couple of problems with this comparison. First, a book in a bookstore has been read over by editors and publishers; the publishing house chooses to market the book in a particular way, and categorizes it in a certain way. (If you think that books are completely warning-free, you are a n00b to culture and market capitalism. We're affected by extra-textual clues that are placed intentionally.) More to the point: the internet is not a bookstore, and a fanfiction story is not a book. If it were a book you were writing, sure, you wouldn't necessarily have to think about your reader, but it isn't a book. Fanfiction provides a community of like-minded readers who offer feedback, but this direct contact also means that we have to think about those readers far more than we would if our work was published.
As an aside, arsenicjade, whose BBB unfortunately dredged up all this, behaved admirably in this situation. She was asked to warn for something in her story. She did so quickly, quietly, and without fanfare. I want to point that out; she's been unfailingly classy in this, as per usual, and that deserves esteem.
---
I realized today that part of my apathy with and dislike for fandom right now might have to do with stress from my job, which means that I might be better able to deal with it when I'm done with this semester (on Friday). It's certainly also that this journal has felt like a far cry from the space for thinking through things that it used to be -- as I told hetrez on the phone tonight, I only post here when I'm sure already, this space no longer having much room for being incorrect or in-progress -- but at least there's another context to it.
Link: untappedbeauty's post here, which in turn links to impertinence's very personal and illuminating post.
I really liked that untappedbeauty called out the use of analogies in this discussion. Analogies are extended comparisons, that are used to reveal the underlying reasoning or assumptions someone makes without thinking about them. I find them really useful in the classroom. I often use a rhetorical strategy where I say, "If 'straight' and 'gay' were really sufficient to define sexuality, you'd all be turned on when you're around the ladies in the nursing home." It's a comedic analogy, intended to point out why it's hilarious to assume that our current organization of sexuality is natural or unavoidable. I like what analogies can reveal.
It's important to realize that analogies, however, like metaphors, are descriptive. They illustrate the problem; they don't offer solutions. Even worse, I often see them used in online discussions as a means of distracting from the core of the discussion.
For example: fandom is not the local bookstore; regardless of whether or not warnings should be included in books, your fanporn is not actually a published work, and the context of a fanfiction work is different than the context of a book in a bookstore. This analogy has been used in several places, ostensibly to clarify the lack of responsibility on the part of the author; since, it is implied, a book author is not responsible for their (detached, invisible, temporally/spatially delayed) reader, then the fanfiction author should not be responsible for their reader.
There are a couple of problems with this comparison. First, a book in a bookstore has been read over by editors and publishers; the publishing house chooses to market the book in a particular way, and categorizes it in a certain way. (If you think that books are completely warning-free, you are a n00b to culture and market capitalism. We're affected by extra-textual clues that are placed intentionally.) More to the point: the internet is not a bookstore, and a fanfiction story is not a book. If it were a book you were writing, sure, you wouldn't necessarily have to think about your reader, but it isn't a book. Fanfiction provides a community of like-minded readers who offer feedback, but this direct contact also means that we have to think about those readers far more than we would if our work was published.
As an aside, arsenicjade, whose BBB unfortunately dredged up all this, behaved admirably in this situation. She was asked to warn for something in her story. She did so quickly, quietly, and without fanfare. I want to point that out; she's been unfailingly classy in this, as per usual, and that deserves esteem.
---
I realized today that part of my apathy with and dislike for fandom right now might have to do with stress from my job, which means that I might be better able to deal with it when I'm done with this semester (on Friday). It's certainly also that this journal has felt like a far cry from the space for thinking through things that it used to be -- as I told hetrez on the phone tonight, I only post here when I'm sure already, this space no longer having much room for being incorrect or in-progress -- but at least there's another context to it.