Fandom Survey; a cautionary post

[midnightbex]

There is a link to survey going around which is purporting to be about connecting fanfiction and neuroscience. DO NOT TAKE IT.

The first post I saw connecting to the survey was published by the mods of crack_van which, besides containing a somewhat obnoxious banner and bad coding, had this to say about the survey:

Last month the neuroscientists who

Comments

[jamethiel_bane]

Yeah. I hated the graphics and didn't click, but their whole assumptions about gender and power dynamics were just *shudders*

And then they say that they're not interested in fan culture and fandom en masse tried to explain that really, you need to know about the culture to be able to frame meaningful questions. Or, UR DOIN IT WRONG.

They're complete morons

[midnightbex]

They really are morons. I understand they're interested in brain make up, but that's not really something you can learn from a survey anyway.

Taking something as large and diverse as fandom and trying to simplify it to fit into a pre-decided gender based mold is not only going to fail to represent the actual people in fandom, but completely missing the point of fandom. Especially when there are whole sections of fandom that are about subverting genres, cliches, and gender roles.

[bloodygoodgirl]

I hadn't even seen the survey but good to know. That's always the problem with outside organizations trying to study fandom, or really any subculture.

[midnightbex]

There is always a problem with outsider perspectives on fandom, but these people are sort of epic on the idiot scale.

[elfwreck]

This post has been included in a linkspam roundup.