scroll if you think this is a teal deer sighting.
Let me just preface this by saying that these opinions seems to be fairly strident, but the truth of the matter is that I am pretty ambivalent about the whole OTW enterprise. I just come off sounding more emphatic than I am because that's my rhetorical style.
My four major objections to OTW enumerated:
1.Being forcibly outed.
2.Enjoying being an insular community.
3.Why do these people get to speak for me?
4.Possible perceived BNF/Acafen misbehavior
As I said, I'm fairly neutral on the whole project because it's off my radar. But I have been kvetching in a mild sort of way under lock, and I mentioned this to cathexys along w/ my various (sometimes rude) objections to the project. I wasn't going to bore my fl w/ all this, but now I am.
I should probably title this Old Fandom Hag is Annoyed By Uppity Fans Making Choices For Her.
Let's just be totally open here:
I've been in fandom a long time, and I have a relationship w/ fandom that is one sort of stereotype of participatory actors/fandom-I feel I own it to a degree and I feel it owns me back to a degree. Its a symbiotic relationship or a state of equilibrium in that I put in as much as I feel I take out. Not everyone has this sort of relationship with fandom-some people content-provide, some don't, and I have no judgment to make either way there. I am simply stating my own personal approach.
Because I do feel vested in this subculture, I feel very disaffected when I think people are making choices for me I would otherwise not make. This applies to getting linked on fandom_wank or someone telling me how to use icons (this really annoys the fuck out of me, btw) or (to use an historical example) fandom moving en masse to lj and forcing me to do likewise. The root of my issues with OTW stems from this deep-seated feeling of “you can't tell me what to do” that I feel is unresolvable as a character flaw/trait.
I think that OTW is a very misguided enterprise. Mainly, I think it's going to piss off the very people it's purporting to represent. It's like a dictator landed in my backyard and started telling me how benevolent he was and that I better get used to it because it was all inevitable anyway. Yes, it's inevitable because he arrived self-fulfilling the inevitability of it all.
The only reason that fandom being exposed to the larger world is inevitable is because acafen talk about it in public. It's not my job to tell people what to do w/ their lives outside of the very limited space I personally occupy, but I feel saying “we are going to inevitably be exposed to TPTB and the wider world, so let's create an edifice to cope with that” when you are the very ones exposing us seems to sidestep the issue that, basically, what you're doing to sticking your finger in the hole in the dam you created your very self. Thank you for plugging the hole, but why did you knock a hole there to begin with?
Anyway, I didn't make the choice to bring fandom to the blinding light of day, but in the same breath, I'm not ashamed of it. Yes, we are a subculture obsessed with buttsex, incest, noncon, bestiality, and inside jokes. That's the appeal, frankly. The SUBcultural aspect is what unites us. We have secret handshakes and a jargon and whole culture we created to insularize ourselves. This is what acafen are interested in discussing to begin with-the sociological STUFF of a certain subculture. So, why expose it in a way that then degrades the fundamental aspects of that culture. It's similar to an anthropologist who goes native and then exposes their subjects to the wider world who then set up tourist jaunts to see this in situ “traditional” society. (This part hasn't completely happened yet, but you can see the encroachments in the interplay between such brilliant social commentators as Lee Greenberg and the OTW folks.)
We were never a secret society, but we were pretty isolated for the most part, and it's one of the aspects of fandom that was unique and often amusing. We were fauna in a pitch black cave and could flourish unseen in all out perverse ways.
Why did someone decide to turn the lights on? Who are you to make this choice for us all as a community? Why did you do it even against the vocal objections of people in the community you claim to serve? What sort of dialogue are you going to participate in with the community who you claim to serve who wants to hand you your ass? What is your answer to the inevitable claims that this is yet another bnf-related, high-handed maneuver?
As I said to cathexys, I am well aware that fandom is the proverbial always-moving river, always the same and change both at once. I make no claim that fandom remains static and doesn't evolve, but at the same time, evolution is not revolution. OTW has the possibility of exacting revolution on our community, because they plan to take “the fight” to the doorstep of The Man. By choosing to do this, they make a very fundamental choice for us all. Where is my referendum ballot?
God, if there are a lot of typos, it's because my cat was trying to eat my lima beans as I typed /obligatory Crazy Cat Lady portion of fandom ranting.
My four major objections to OTW enumerated:
1.Being forcibly outed.
2.Enjoying being an insular community.
3.Why do these people get to speak for me?
4.Possible perceived BNF/Acafen misbehavior
As I said, I'm fairly neutral on the whole project because it's off my radar. But I have been kvetching in a mild sort of way under lock, and I mentioned this to cathexys along w/ my various (sometimes rude) objections to the project. I wasn't going to bore my fl w/ all this, but now I am.
I should probably title this Old Fandom Hag is Annoyed By Uppity Fans Making Choices For Her.
Let's just be totally open here:
I've been in fandom a long time, and I have a relationship w/ fandom that is one sort of stereotype of participatory actors/fandom-I feel I own it to a degree and I feel it owns me back to a degree. Its a symbiotic relationship or a state of equilibrium in that I put in as much as I feel I take out. Not everyone has this sort of relationship with fandom-some people content-provide, some don't, and I have no judgment to make either way there. I am simply stating my own personal approach.
Because I do feel vested in this subculture, I feel very disaffected when I think people are making choices for me I would otherwise not make. This applies to getting linked on fandom_wank or someone telling me how to use icons (this really annoys the fuck out of me, btw) or (to use an historical example) fandom moving en masse to lj and forcing me to do likewise. The root of my issues with OTW stems from this deep-seated feeling of “you can't tell me what to do” that I feel is unresolvable as a character flaw/trait.
I think that OTW is a very misguided enterprise. Mainly, I think it's going to piss off the very people it's purporting to represent. It's like a dictator landed in my backyard and started telling me how benevolent he was and that I better get used to it because it was all inevitable anyway. Yes, it's inevitable because he arrived self-fulfilling the inevitability of it all.
The only reason that fandom being exposed to the larger world is inevitable is because acafen talk about it in public. It's not my job to tell people what to do w/ their lives outside of the very limited space I personally occupy, but I feel saying “we are going to inevitably be exposed to TPTB and the wider world, so let's create an edifice to cope with that” when you are the very ones exposing us seems to sidestep the issue that, basically, what you're doing to sticking your finger in the hole in the dam you created your very self. Thank you for plugging the hole, but why did you knock a hole there to begin with?
Anyway, I didn't make the choice to bring fandom to the blinding light of day, but in the same breath, I'm not ashamed of it. Yes, we are a subculture obsessed with buttsex, incest, noncon, bestiality, and inside jokes. That's the appeal, frankly. The SUBcultural aspect is what unites us. We have secret handshakes and a jargon and whole culture we created to insularize ourselves. This is what acafen are interested in discussing to begin with-the sociological STUFF of a certain subculture. So, why expose it in a way that then degrades the fundamental aspects of that culture. It's similar to an anthropologist who goes native and then exposes their subjects to the wider world who then set up tourist jaunts to see this in situ “traditional” society. (This part hasn't completely happened yet, but you can see the encroachments in the interplay between such brilliant social commentators as Lee Greenberg and the OTW folks.)
We were never a secret society, but we were pretty isolated for the most part, and it's one of the aspects of fandom that was unique and often amusing. We were fauna in a pitch black cave and could flourish unseen in all out perverse ways.
Why did someone decide to turn the lights on? Who are you to make this choice for us all as a community? Why did you do it even against the vocal objections of people in the community you claim to serve? What sort of dialogue are you going to participate in with the community who you claim to serve who wants to hand you your ass? What is your answer to the inevitable claims that this is yet another bnf-related, high-handed maneuver?
As I said to cathexys, I am well aware that fandom is the proverbial always-moving river, always the same and change both at once. I make no claim that fandom remains static and doesn't evolve, but at the same time, evolution is not revolution. OTW has the possibility of exacting revolution on our community, because they plan to take “the fight” to the doorstep of The Man. By choosing to do this, they make a very fundamental choice for us all. Where is my referendum ballot?
God, if there are a lot of typos, it's because my cat was trying to eat my lima beans as I typed /obligatory Crazy Cat Lady portion of fandom ranting.