Comments | that_khyber: RPF - just stop doing it.

that_khyber

RPF - just stop doing it.

Feb 18, 2009 19:06

Edit: And this is why I wasn't gonna do this. Comments have been locked, I didn't mean to make previous comments invisible, though. If someone can tell me how to lock comments while still showing existing ones please do ( Read more... )

Comments 30

mushfromnewsies February 19 2009, 01:05:15 UTC

Uh, yeah. Amen. Props to you for posting this.

I admit to a fascination with DD and GA's relationship, without any sex or romance or crap. But I'm ashamed of this fascination, especially when it's manifested in (other people's) fic.

I think one of the greatest things about XF fandom is that RPF was anathema for so long. Unfortunately I think that time has passed.

ETA: maybe I haven't absorbed enough Noughties celebrity culture to allow myself to dehumanize and abstract another human being into a projection surface simply because they have a public identity

This is the key for me. Of course, I'm young enough that this is my culture. But on the other hand, I am both conservative and intolerant, so there you have it.

wendelah1 February 19 2009, 21:02:28 UTC

I would just like to point out that you are currently a member of homeby_five, a community that was created in part for the purpose of having somewhere for people to post and read RPF about David and Gillian. I just checked the profile. If you are so opposed to it, why are you still a member? This seems very--contradictory to me.

leucocrystal February 19 2009, 01:34:38 UTC

If you write good RPF I'm sure you could write better fanfic, stories that wouldn't devalue human identity and incidentally wouldn't creep me out so very, very much.
Thank you. THANK YOU. This has been the crux of my argument against it (and discussions have been going 'round and 'round like hell lately), and no one has yet to come back with a satisfactory rebuttal. What is the appeal of fictionalizing reality? Where is the respect for privacy when you "play" with the life, imagined or otherwise, of a real person? Why, oh why, are the fictional characters they gave us not enough? I'm not sure I'll ever understand it; all I know is that it squicks me out to no end.

And for the record, I'm quite young and on the rather liberal side, but it's definitely not just you. There's been a surge of more and more RPF lately, and I really wish I could escape it. I'm just glad to be reminded that I'm not alone in that.

frey_at_last February 19 2009, 07:26:34 UTC

The rebuttal is essentially "we all have completely subjective tastes or squicks or limits, and they are ultimately arbitrary and inexplicably inconsistent." Nope.

leucocrystal February 19 2009, 07:28:30 UTC

Yeah, and that's really more a commentary on fan culture rather than a real defense of the practice, isn't it?

frey_at_last February 19 2009, 07:44:37 UTC

It seems to *me* like a total denial of what "fan meta" is supposed to be - that is, looking at unexamined problems and figuring out what they are, what reasoning or motive stands behind them, and whether it is acceptable by some consistent standard. Meta that only involves looking at oneself and saying, "huh, okay, now I see what is going on here and I accept it," is purely masturbatory, pardon the pun!

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jenrose1 February 19 2009, 04:27:07 UTC

ITA. Thank you. I'm not conservative, I just think it's an invasion.

frey_at_last February 19 2009, 07:24:34 UTC

Thank you.

maybe I haven't absorbed enough Noughties celebrity culture to allow myself to dehumanize and abstract another human being into a projection surface simply because they have a public identity.

whoops that_khyber February 19 2009, 10:30:01 UTC

I should specify that I'm not American, and that in my world "conservative" is not a purely political word that exists only in apposition to "liberal," and by applying "conservative" to any of my beliefs I do not intend to imply that I'm a brain-damaged barrel-sucking truck-driving manchild who is capable of astonishing feats of cognitive dissonance, whose entire self-concept is built around fear, and who believes anything that other angry white liars tell me. I'm only conservative in a fanfic sense.

May not have been the best choice of words for most people reading this

Re: whoops estella_c February 19 2009, 11:57:31 UTC

Thank you, Khyber. You used the word "dehumanize," which is one I've used myself on this subject.

Though I'm politically liberal, which I don't perceive as the bad word people now claim that it is, I do admit to a conservative streak. When people ask what kind of conservative I could possibly be, I say, "aesthetic." It saves time and puzzles them in a gratifying way.

Re: whoops leucocrystal February 19 2009, 14:41:08 UTC

"Dehumanize" is definitely a fitting term to attach to the RPF that I've seen, and I think I'm going to have to latch onto it, because it's more descriptive than other terms I've used in the past. I guess the line I'm just never willing to cross, as a writer or a reader, is the assumption that because someone out there has a public persona, this means they're automatically free to be toyed with in such a way. Then again (and I've made this comparison before), I don't like to read gossip rags either, which are fond of a similar practice, they just get to charge for it.

Re: whoops that_khyber February 19 2009, 18:29:24 UTC

I am now and forever referring to myself as an 'aesthetic conservative."

I think I basically just make posts so estella_c can stunt in the comment section.

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