What annoys me about fanfic meta about itself

[alias_sqbr]

(separated out as a tangent from Old school fandom: Can we fix it?)

There's a difference between "here are some flaws in X group"/"Here are some awesome things about my group" (both of which are valid) and "Let's think about the differences between X and my group. Well.. X has all these flaws. And my group is awesome. Because we are awesome people, and they are flawed people (apart from the ones who eventually realise how awesome we are and change sides)."

There is a jump from "there is an undertone of misogyny to some slash"/"There is an undertone of homophobia to some non-slashers behaviour" to "slashers are misogynistic"/"non-slashers are homophobic" to "If you really cared you'd write (fem)slash"(*).

One of things which made me feel excluded from fanfic fandom for years was this attitude that "A lot of fanfic works this way"->"This is What Fanfic Is"->"Everything that is not This sucks and is probably written and enjoyed by misogynistic and/or dull men". Yes, a lot of fanfic takes canon characters and puts them into a romance, but that doesn't mean that I'm Missing The Point of fanfic if I take the setting and write gen about some original characters. And the fact that male dominated fandom tends to be sexist and dismissive of fanfic doesn't mean there's a direct correlation between having tastes in line with conventional fandom and being sexist/narrowminded. Acting this way means female fans with "male" tastes get treated badly in both fandoms.

I'm not sure I've ever seen any "Let's compare stuff from fanfic fandom to equivalent stuff made by people outside" meta that didn't spend every second paragraph talking about how much more awesome and creative and feminist and postmodern "our" stuff is.

One of the things about online fandom (especially on lj) is it's much bigger and more finely delineated which makes it easier to avoid really obnoxious people and create your own space but also makes it easy forget that your like-minded friendslist is not all there is to fandom. When I see a comment like Ursula LeGuin fans could demonstrate a little of the progressive social values of Stargate:Atlantis fans I have to wonder if they count all the fans in mainstream male dominated fandom who think Teyla is hot and enjoy the explosions or whatever. And if they don't count, why don't I get to redefine "Ursula LeGuin" fans the same way? (And here I start shading into my next post :))

nb: I realise one of things fanfic meta does is tend to focus exclusively on fanfic (and specifically, boyslash) to the exclusion of other sorts of fannish creativity and I've kind of done that here. I guess I can't break out of the very mindset I'm criticising!

(*)These arguments annoyed me a lot less once I wrote some femslash, since now I'm one irrational-smug-moral-superiority level above the smug m/m slash writers :)

Comments

[http://users.livejournal.com/peasant_/]

Oh I thoroughly agree that fandom is taking part in revolutionary things. The internet is changing vast amounts of human experience in exciting ways, and fandom is undoubtedly part of that and using it. What I'm having a poke at are the type of metafandom commenters who seem to imply that every time a woman sits down and writes a bit of fic she is making some specific social statement rather than just having fun. To me, the word 'feminist' would have to imply a deliberate choice to try to advance the causes and aims of feminism (as opposed to just something that women happen to be doing). Post-modern is a far more difficult term because it can mean almost anything, but it does at the very least seem to imply a reaction against... something, and again I doubt if any serious proportion of fandom are reacting against anything at all. So while I agree that fandom is producing revolutionary things, that is a coincidental by-product of being involved in a revolutionary medium, not an inherent part of fandoms aims, and I do think that distinction is important.

Besides, the 'people telling stories about other people's stories' part of fandom is as old as stories themselves, and since women have always been doing it as well as men, that part at least isn't exactly revolutionary.

I also am incredibly appreciative of the fact that fandom (and the 'net in general--but I live it through fandom) is an international community that feels like a community.
Fandom has some similarities to RL communities, but it also lacks the organisational structures, especially many of the control structures, that we are used to in RL communities. That is one of several reasons, I think, why when stuff on the net goes bad it can go spectacularly bad. It is also one of the reasons it feels so liberating and exciting being on-line - there aren't many equivalent spaces where adults can play safely without much in the way of boundaries or consequences.

When I first came on-line (2001, for the record) I was blown away by the internationalism. Then I gradually became aware that being in ready daily contact with other nationalities can throw up some pretty glaring fault lines and that there are even bigger absences in who we are actually talking to. It has made me aware of what being British means in a way that I had never thought about before, and also about being part of the Anglosphere, the Western hegemony, and so forth. And these days I think of my on-line friends far less as part of an international community than just a group of friends who have some specific cultural things in common. Nothing wrong with that, and its great fun, but it isn't what I would define as truly international beyond the most trivial definition.

Which may mean I'm contradicting myself by holding one standard to one half of this conversation and another to the second half. :rolls eyes at self:

[hlbr.livejournal.com]

I do know that telling stories to each other is old as humanity, but, you know, I don't think the common (wo)man (by a very lax definition of common--I will touch upon this below) had access to distributing those stories to so many people and from so many places and ages before. That's... powerful in itself, to me. It does mean that the power of shaping the stories, the fiction, is more on the hands of the people.

Now, taking on this 'common men' nonsense, of course it isn't yet. The field has widened, but there's still a long way to go.

Oh, the communities I'm in feel very much like RL communities! Stringent laws and changes in powers, and some with more horizontal power schemes than others, but I'm aware that perhaps that's different in lj? That everyone has their own turf here must change things. But I'm only based on lj for a convenience issue. My only friends here are those I know for other means (in dw I'm getting more into the the journaling communities, but not that much).

It doesn't feel very consequences-less or any of that. It felt like that when I lurked, but then I wasn't acting, to have any consequences. When I began to participate, everything came into a sharper relief. Not to get personal nor any of that--but feeling at odds with my online communities felt as bad as it feels being at odds with my family. (I've never been at odds with other RL communities.) Perhaps I'm an oddity and I'm taking everything too seriously--it wouldn't be weird--but that's how I live it.

International wise... I don't know what is the lack you're feeling? I have betaed for Chinese, Indian, American, Chilean, English and Australian people, and been betaed by Polish, American, Belgian, and Spanish people. I read people of all those places (most in English, some in Spanish), and talk with people from all these places. My two best buddies are my own age (exactly to the year!) but one in Portland and the other in Barcelona (I'm in Buenos Aires)--every time we chat together it means two of us are desperately late for their bedtime.

And yes, that the language be English does impose some limits--but what else would you do, with an international community? You need a common language to talk. At some point French was used. I have no problems with that--I have had French in high school and I'm sure I could get it back. Or Chinese, which is the language of the world's majority; I sure would want to learn the language of our** new overlords. I wouldn't mind. But English it is, by history and current politics. It's not even my language, and yes it's deeply problematic that I'm losing proficiency (somewhat) in my own language because I spend so much of my time writing and reading in English, but... I prefer the international community to perfect proficiency in my mother language. Truly.

**Argentina's. A joke.

[http://users.livejournal.com/peasant_/]

I do know that telling stories to each other is old as humanity, but, you know, I don't think the common (wo)man ... had access to distributing those stories to so many people and from so many places and ages before. That's... powerful in itself, to me. It does mean that the power of shaping the stories, the fiction, is more on the hands of the people.
I completely agree. The internet has completely rebuilt the power structure in publishing and hence what stories can be heard, but that of course is not something restricted to fanfic. What fanfic maybe does do is provide a convenient entry point for people who otherwise wouldn't have considered writing and then provides them with a support system and a school for that writing.

the communities I'm in feel very much like RL communities! Stringent laws and changes in powers, and some with more horizontal power schemes than others
My theories about communities and how they relate to online social groupings are complex and I'm not sure I've got space for them here. But in very, very brief summary, the online community has no legal system or police to impose socially agreed upon laws, so the only method of social control is by social pressure (stigmatisation, shouting down, fear and guilt culture, etc.) Those methods work well in small enclosed communities where an individual's well being depends on them joining in the local consensus, but it works very badly in any large community where an individual can simply walk away and find different companionship elsewhere. So in effect the only available means of social control are useless; hence: anarchy. Not that anarchy is necessarily a bad thing, but its certainly not a restful one.

International wise... I don't know what is the lack you're feeling?
Well, obviously each individual has their own experience, but in my fandom (as opposed to on-line generally) I can't bring to mind anyone from any continents other than North America, Europe and Australasia. This doesn't actually surprise me - we are in the fandom (Buffy) because we share an interest in an US TV show and we are using English to talk about it. I'm sure there are plenty of people from other places in Buffy fandom and 'fandom' generally, but they certainly don't exist in sufficient numbers to make their presence strongly felt. If I was to consider 'fandom' truly international I think it would have to feel far closer to the real balance of the world's population. Or at least far closer to the real balance of the world's internet population. But in fact language and cultural barriers keep us pretty fragmented. I've actually met a far wider range of nationalities in feminist/ant-racist discussions than in all my time in fandom itself.

[hlbr.livejournal.com]

About internationalization--perhaps it's a matter of self selection. My circle tend to be pretty international, but then I am 'international' in a sense.

About communities, I don't see any problem with the organization being anarchical? Problem in the sense of an issue in they being communities. Perhaps because I know communities (in RL) that manage to be anarchical communities. Self selection to belong to a community is a pretty good thing, in my opinion, and what used to happen in traditional 'anarchical' communities.*

*I'm the daughter of two anthropologies. Both the cultures they study had (and largely still have) an anarchical organization.

[http://users.livejournal.com/peasant_/]

perhaps it's a matter of self selection
Could be. It's certainly not very conscious on my part but it might still be going on. And it has been pointed out to me that I am so British I practically wear a red coat and a union flag waistcoat, which could well be keeping some people from other nationalities at a distance. Hard to say. Or it could be just that there aren't that many people outside the Anglosphere and certain European countries who are into Buffy. But whatever the mechanism the fact is that there is a mechanism, and my experience of fandom is not a truly international one.

What communities do you know that are anarchical?

[hlbr.livejournal.com]

Tobas, wichí, and pilagás organizational system* would be what I call anarchical. But then perhaps we're using different definitions of the word.

*They are still in place somewhat. It doesn't work so well when you have the country's governement asking for representatives and all that shit. Things do not work out so well now.

[hlbr.livejournal.com]

Ah, and I forgot about fandom!

They may still be there, you know, but not talking much. Not all people who can read in English can write it, and I find that we tend to lurk more. Unless the site is owned by a self proclaimed non-English speaker, and then it's made obvious how many international people are.

I don't think you being English would put people off? I've never heard of it happening, but then Arg. was never a British colony. Uhm. (Though we do have that soccer and war things going on with you all, so perhaps it should put me off ;))

[aquaeri.livejournal.com]

I just want to note I find this comment interesting and thought-provoking, but I'm holding myself back partly because I'm currently trying to avoid getting into metafandom discussions which have spun off RaceFail that aren't about race. I think there's a big overlap in stuff I agree with you and disagree with you about. But not really about race - except as you note that the oh-so "international" fandom net is heavily anglophone and anglophone-nations dominated.