help_pakistan meta #2: Critical Discussion is for Everyone
rheasilvia won my defense of one of her preferred fannish positions. Happily for both of us, I hold this position, too!
(Again, my apologies for delivering this after the deadline.)
Resolved: Discussion of fanwork by and for consumers of the fanwork is valuable, without regard to the discussion's effect on the creator.
Talking with one another about artistic works is one of the most basic activities of the communal fan. (As opposed to the solitary fan, who consumes their media in isolation.)
We talk about works, whether on the wide scale of the series or the small scale of the scene, for many and varied reasons. Some of these are:
1) To announce our affiliations
2) To influence the consumption of our fellow fen
3) To influence the responses (artistic, prose, behavioral) of our fellow fen
4) To ponder aesthetic questions
5) To ponder the moral, philosophical, poltical, social, scientific (hey, we could use more science-fiction in our fanfiction), or other questions raised in or by the work
6) To prolong our enjoyment of the work, by reveling in its awesome or ritualistically bemoaning its failures
In these cases, we are members of the audience talking to other (potential) members of the audience.
Any of these reasons are good and sufficient when talking about professional work. But there is disagreement that these are good and sufficient causes for talking about fan work.
Because fan work is created by a fellow fan, some fen insist that we should react to their fan work differently than we would to pro work. The argument is two-fold: (a) we are in a personal relationship with a fan creator, by virtue of being on equal footing on the Internet and (b) negative discussion of their work causes fan creators to stop creating.
Fandom (i.e. journaling-based media fandom) is a great place to meet people and make friends. Most of the friends I've made since college have been from fandom. Everyone I've slept with in the past ten years I met through fandom, either media fandom or SF fandom. Fandom is a way of life and a social scene, this is true.
But being a fan doesn't automatically make someone not a stranger to me. There are plenty of fans who have beliefs and practices I find reprehensible, and I know I have outraged other fans with my own beliefs and practices. Even in those cases where our disagreements are much less fundamental, it is quite possible to have people like the same thing for different reasons - I like CSI: Miami because it is so farcical, my father likes CSI: Miami because of the action - or dislike different things about it - I dislike Stargate Atlantis because I feel like the moral orientation of the protagonists was, in practice, villanous; other people dislike it because the military behavior was so unrealistic.
Further, it is no longer true that we the fans are on the internet and they the professionals are not. It's never been true in SF book fandom, because the pros' got to the Internet first, in many cases. But TV and film professionals, both in front of and behind the camera, tweet and blog and vanity Google all the time. Music and sports figures do the same. The only thing stopping Alex Loughlin from knowing I think he's the least promising aspect of Hawaii 5-0 is that he's really busy. But if I comment on a professional media person's blog, which has occasionally happened, I could get boingboinged or slashdotted. Improbable, but not impossible.
And I don't actually owe Alex Loughlin less consideration as a human being than I owe
examplefan.
As for whether or not criticism drives creators out of fandom, I know it can. I'm sure it has. But I have to ask why we assume that FanOne's vid is inherently more valuable to the community as a whole than FanTwo's discussion of why it wasn't funny.
There are, very broadly speaking, three answers to "Why I am in fandom?" (Of course, people have other reasons, and none of these three are exclusive.) But many people enjoy The Thing, Our Workings, or The Community.
By The Thing, I mean that some people enter communal fandom spaces purely to extend their enjoyment of the Fannish Object. This is someone who loved a TV show so much they had to find others with whom to discuss it, or who felt there was much more story to be considered in that movie, or who wants to read this particular book along with other people, or wants to join a big puppy pile of people watching the videos from that one band. Whatever The Thing is, there's not enough from official sources, so this fan has turned to fandom as an amateur methadone clinic.
By Our Workings, I mean a fan who enjoys the fanworks fandom produces. This is the person who likes the fannish objects of production, or the story genres and tropes prevalent in fandom, or the way that fandom, collectively, evaluates and discusses tv shows. They like the stories and the vids and the icons and the conventions and the filk as media unto themselves, and not merely as extensions of any one Beloved Fannish Object.
By The Community, I mean a fan who enjoys fandom for the relationships with other fen. Either specific friendships or the social scene in the general case are what this fan enjoys. They are here because this is where they can find the sort of people they want to be around.
All of these interests can be furthered by discussing fanworks, as well as pro works.
People who are interested in The Thing may well discuss fan works in the context of how well or poorly they reflect a shared understanding of the professional work, how accurately they capture the feeling of the professional work, and how their quality compares to the professional work.
People who are interested in Our Workings may discuss how a fanwork reflects the current fannish zeitgeist, if it is an example they wish other fan producers would take as a model, and how it compares to other fannish works already produced, and whether the fanwork itself might be fruitfully transformed or extended by some other work.
there's also a very real need for those who are creating Our Workings to read and participate in discussion of how fanworks are made, to dissect them to understand how the works are put together, to view other work as a model of what can be done, should be done, and how different techniques are likely to be understood by the audience.
People who are interested in The Community are enacting their desired social interaction in their discussion of fanworks, by engaging with the ideas and emotions of their fellow fans.
All of these activities can occur, and all of these communal benefits can be reaped, when people discuss fan activities without directly engaging the original fan creator. If a fan wishes to talk about the way fandom does or does not develop science-fiction premises, they may wish to reference an assortment of specific fanfiction stories, in order to provide people with examples of their points. This would not necessarily mean they wanted to speak with any of the authors about their conlang inclinations. If a fan wishes to convey to their circle that they do not like icons with text too small to be read, while that statement may serve as the basis for fine criticism (in the sense of a critical discussion of the work) it is rather useless as feedback. Apparently the creator of an icon with extremely tiny text does like that style of iconnage, and it is of no use for them to learn that other people don't, even if the fan commenter's circle will now be able to make gift icons that the fan commenter will actually appreciate.
It's quite true that a fan creator might have their feelings hurt by the discussion someone makes of their work. If enough people are consistent over time about the ways in which they don't appreciate some fan creator's works, a fan creator may, in time, decide to take their creativity to some non-fannish sphere.
That's their choice.
But it's also their choice to expose themselves to discussion of their work that is not aimed at them. If one is the sort of person who doesn't take well to people responding critically to one's work, a note in the metadata of a work is generally a sufficient signal for people to not direct such criticism toward you. And discussion not directed at the fan creator is discussion the fan creator can choose to avoid. If a fan critic is reviewing rather than recommending it, one can scroll past the entry as soon as one realizes that it concerns one's own work.
If one is the sort of person who is compulsively unable to avoid reading about oneself and one's endeavors, one could, theoretically, eventually, find that media fandom is not the creative community in which one wishes to participate.
But media fandom has a vibrant and thriving community of fan creators. While it's certainly preferable to have more people making fannish things than fewer, the making of fannish work does not seem to be an endangered activity.
What we don't currently have is a culture that comfortably includes critique of fannish work in its sphere of public activities. I think that we are poorer, as fans of the fanworks, for not having this discussion. I think that the works themselves are of lesser quality, that the community as a whole has fewer cultivated aesthetic theories, and that people are not making the personal associations with those of similar (or interestingly dissimilar) critical approaches to fanwork.
I also think that, because this sort of critical discussion is not publicly modelled, it is difficult for people to learn how to talk about the structure and forms and theme of a work, all information that a fan creator might like to have discussed with them at the beta stage. And it's quite difficult to discover if someone's way of thinking about fanwork is compatible with the beta one would like to have made of one's own work, if everyone's critical thoughts about fanwork are kept locked away from the broader view of fandom.
The cost to the community, as I weigh it, is that fan creators would have to learn if they are the sorts of creators who enjoy reading critical discussion of their work, and then learn to avoid such discussion if they don't, whether by refraining from reading it or by refraining from creating work which might be discussed. Since no single fan creator will commonly find themself the subject of universal fannish consideration, the burden to any one creator is fleeting. The benefits are, as I outlined above, spread over many fans who engage in multiple fannish modes.
I hope that I have encouraged some of you to engage both textually and publicly with some of the fanworks which have provoked the most thought in you, and I look forward to seeing these engagements on my reading page.
Original post at Dreamwidth. Read (
) comments or reply there using Open ID.
(Again, my apologies for delivering this after the deadline.)
Resolved: Discussion of fanwork by and for consumers of the fanwork is valuable, without regard to the discussion's effect on the creator.
Talking with one another about artistic works is one of the most basic activities of the communal fan. (As opposed to the solitary fan, who consumes their media in isolation.)
We talk about works, whether on the wide scale of the series or the small scale of the scene, for many and varied reasons. Some of these are:
1) To announce our affiliations
2) To influence the consumption of our fellow fen
3) To influence the responses (artistic, prose, behavioral) of our fellow fen
4) To ponder aesthetic questions
5) To ponder the moral, philosophical, poltical, social, scientific (hey, we could use more science-fiction in our fanfiction), or other questions raised in or by the work
6) To prolong our enjoyment of the work, by reveling in its awesome or ritualistically bemoaning its failures
In these cases, we are members of the audience talking to other (potential) members of the audience.
Any of these reasons are good and sufficient when talking about professional work. But there is disagreement that these are good and sufficient causes for talking about fan work.
Because fan work is created by a fellow fan, some fen insist that we should react to their fan work differently than we would to pro work. The argument is two-fold: (a) we are in a personal relationship with a fan creator, by virtue of being on equal footing on the Internet and (b) negative discussion of their work causes fan creators to stop creating.
Fandom (i.e. journaling-based media fandom) is a great place to meet people and make friends. Most of the friends I've made since college have been from fandom. Everyone I've slept with in the past ten years I met through fandom, either media fandom or SF fandom. Fandom is a way of life and a social scene, this is true.
But being a fan doesn't automatically make someone not a stranger to me. There are plenty of fans who have beliefs and practices I find reprehensible, and I know I have outraged other fans with my own beliefs and practices. Even in those cases where our disagreements are much less fundamental, it is quite possible to have people like the same thing for different reasons - I like CSI: Miami because it is so farcical, my father likes CSI: Miami because of the action - or dislike different things about it - I dislike Stargate Atlantis because I feel like the moral orientation of the protagonists was, in practice, villanous; other people dislike it because the military behavior was so unrealistic.
Further, it is no longer true that we the fans are on the internet and they the professionals are not. It's never been true in SF book fandom, because the pros' got to the Internet first, in many cases. But TV and film professionals, both in front of and behind the camera, tweet and blog and vanity Google all the time. Music and sports figures do the same. The only thing stopping Alex Loughlin from knowing I think he's the least promising aspect of Hawaii 5-0 is that he's really busy. But if I comment on a professional media person's blog, which has occasionally happened, I could get boingboinged or slashdotted. Improbable, but not impossible.
And I don't actually owe Alex Loughlin less consideration as a human being than I owe
examplefan.
As for whether or not criticism drives creators out of fandom, I know it can. I'm sure it has. But I have to ask why we assume that FanOne's vid is inherently more valuable to the community as a whole than FanTwo's discussion of why it wasn't funny.
There are, very broadly speaking, three answers to "Why I am in fandom?" (Of course, people have other reasons, and none of these three are exclusive.) But many people enjoy The Thing, Our Workings, or The Community.
By The Thing, I mean that some people enter communal fandom spaces purely to extend their enjoyment of the Fannish Object. This is someone who loved a TV show so much they had to find others with whom to discuss it, or who felt there was much more story to be considered in that movie, or who wants to read this particular book along with other people, or wants to join a big puppy pile of people watching the videos from that one band. Whatever The Thing is, there's not enough from official sources, so this fan has turned to fandom as an amateur methadone clinic.
By Our Workings, I mean a fan who enjoys the fanworks fandom produces. This is the person who likes the fannish objects of production, or the story genres and tropes prevalent in fandom, or the way that fandom, collectively, evaluates and discusses tv shows. They like the stories and the vids and the icons and the conventions and the filk as media unto themselves, and not merely as extensions of any one Beloved Fannish Object.
By The Community, I mean a fan who enjoys fandom for the relationships with other fen. Either specific friendships or the social scene in the general case are what this fan enjoys. They are here because this is where they can find the sort of people they want to be around.
All of these interests can be furthered by discussing fanworks, as well as pro works.
People who are interested in The Thing may well discuss fan works in the context of how well or poorly they reflect a shared understanding of the professional work, how accurately they capture the feeling of the professional work, and how their quality compares to the professional work.
People who are interested in Our Workings may discuss how a fanwork reflects the current fannish zeitgeist, if it is an example they wish other fan producers would take as a model, and how it compares to other fannish works already produced, and whether the fanwork itself might be fruitfully transformed or extended by some other work.
there's also a very real need for those who are creating Our Workings to read and participate in discussion of how fanworks are made, to dissect them to understand how the works are put together, to view other work as a model of what can be done, should be done, and how different techniques are likely to be understood by the audience.
People who are interested in The Community are enacting their desired social interaction in their discussion of fanworks, by engaging with the ideas and emotions of their fellow fans.
All of these activities can occur, and all of these communal benefits can be reaped, when people discuss fan activities without directly engaging the original fan creator. If a fan wishes to talk about the way fandom does or does not develop science-fiction premises, they may wish to reference an assortment of specific fanfiction stories, in order to provide people with examples of their points. This would not necessarily mean they wanted to speak with any of the authors about their conlang inclinations. If a fan wishes to convey to their circle that they do not like icons with text too small to be read, while that statement may serve as the basis for fine criticism (in the sense of a critical discussion of the work) it is rather useless as feedback. Apparently the creator of an icon with extremely tiny text does like that style of iconnage, and it is of no use for them to learn that other people don't, even if the fan commenter's circle will now be able to make gift icons that the fan commenter will actually appreciate.
It's quite true that a fan creator might have their feelings hurt by the discussion someone makes of their work. If enough people are consistent over time about the ways in which they don't appreciate some fan creator's works, a fan creator may, in time, decide to take their creativity to some non-fannish sphere.
That's their choice.
But it's also their choice to expose themselves to discussion of their work that is not aimed at them. If one is the sort of person who doesn't take well to people responding critically to one's work, a note in the metadata of a work is generally a sufficient signal for people to not direct such criticism toward you. And discussion not directed at the fan creator is discussion the fan creator can choose to avoid. If a fan critic is reviewing rather than recommending it, one can scroll past the entry as soon as one realizes that it concerns one's own work.
If one is the sort of person who is compulsively unable to avoid reading about oneself and one's endeavors, one could, theoretically, eventually, find that media fandom is not the creative community in which one wishes to participate.
But media fandom has a vibrant and thriving community of fan creators. While it's certainly preferable to have more people making fannish things than fewer, the making of fannish work does not seem to be an endangered activity.
What we don't currently have is a culture that comfortably includes critique of fannish work in its sphere of public activities. I think that we are poorer, as fans of the fanworks, for not having this discussion. I think that the works themselves are of lesser quality, that the community as a whole has fewer cultivated aesthetic theories, and that people are not making the personal associations with those of similar (or interestingly dissimilar) critical approaches to fanwork.
I also think that, because this sort of critical discussion is not publicly modelled, it is difficult for people to learn how to talk about the structure and forms and theme of a work, all information that a fan creator might like to have discussed with them at the beta stage. And it's quite difficult to discover if someone's way of thinking about fanwork is compatible with the beta one would like to have made of one's own work, if everyone's critical thoughts about fanwork are kept locked away from the broader view of fandom.
The cost to the community, as I weigh it, is that fan creators would have to learn if they are the sorts of creators who enjoy reading critical discussion of their work, and then learn to avoid such discussion if they don't, whether by refraining from reading it or by refraining from creating work which might be discussed. Since no single fan creator will commonly find themself the subject of universal fannish consideration, the burden to any one creator is fleeting. The benefits are, as I outlined above, spread over many fans who engage in multiple fannish modes.
I hope that I have encouraged some of you to engage both textually and publicly with some of the fanworks which have provoked the most thought in you, and I look forward to seeing these engagements on my reading page.
Original post at Dreamwidth. Read (
) comments or reply there using Open ID.