Fandom Meta

wetdryvac - Interesting. So, just learned that there's such a thing as a hate meme - got pointed at commentary on the topic by a friend, and the whole social dynamic of it caught my eye. Asking about generally, "Have you heard of this stuff? Where? What's your take on it?" And more specifically asking one of the pro-hate-meme commentary posters if I might include their take and recommendations on good/bad meme methods and so on. Probably I'll blow this up into an essay of sorts - hopefully without seriously pissing anyone off - but I'm always curious to see where lines form up between injury and hate (literal hatred) and injury in satire.

vaznetti - Blame and Praise But what I saw in that post that made me want to write about it was the notion that hate memes are for the "little people" in fandom and that they have to be anonymous because otherwise the awful BNFs will come along and oppress the "little people" who will then find themselves run out of fandom on a rail. To which all I can say is: // You have got to be kidding me.

amireal - Hey look! It's a face. This is what it boils down to. Using the word hate encourages bad behavior. ... It's about where you start. It's about the very word you use to define your space. I made a post a few days ago about the titles of LJ communities and how no matter the intention of the creators, the name itself will give some people an automatic reaction into the negative. // Finally, the places where these things happened didn't have people who wanted to talk, or debate or express thought out opinions on the usual fannish tropes. They wanted to hate. Take that as you will.

fabu - ::is angry in a pretentious way with like, rhetoric and shit:: If you want to "own your hate" don't couch it as something that you're forced to do by the social inequities of fandom or as something that everyone else really wants to do, but is too dishonest to admit. Don't paint your cruelty and cowardice as a virtue.

thelastgoodname - Anonymity, Again. Once more, I'm vastly more interested in the anonymity than in the hate: why are things that people would like to say in public, but for whatever reason feel they cannot? And should we give them a space to say it? ... Or, perhaps more to the point, what are the barriers to people feeling they can't say stuff they want to say, and is that something that should change?

liz_marcs - The Problem with Anonymous Memes... I guess my issue is this: if you're a person who ends up being discussed in an anonymous meme, it's hard to defend yourself. You know nothing about the person or persons commenting, you can't figure out their point of view, you can't even discern their real opinions. It's hard to respond in any manner that doesn't make you look childish, because you're forced to make assumptions about the other person or persons that may not be fair or correct. At least if someone uses their LJ name, you can at least visit their LJ and figure out their point of view so you can respond in a reasonable and sane manner.

sanj - I didn't even want to weigh in on this. I'm all for freedom of speech and freedom of criticism. And here's the thing -- most of the writers attacked by these memes are mature enough in their art and their internet savvy that they could damn well take haters down in a flamewar, and handle criticism ably and nobly. That's WHY these anonymous hate memes start up... because the trolls know perfectly well that if they signed their name, or even a sockpuppet pseudonym, to their opinions, they would be met with the equanimity, poise, and righteous smacking around that their (perfectly acceptable) literary criticism or their (entirely unacceptable) messages of personal hatred deserved.

theantimodel - a question of feedback What do you guys think? Does anyone think a blanketed thank you is a poor response to feedback? Do you not leave feedback if the author doesn't say thanks? Do you get annoyed seeing an author saying a standard thank you to every comment left for them? Do you not care and leave feedback regardless of the author's actions? And, because I know there are several authors on my friendslist, do you guys all respond to your feedback? Do you feel like you have to? Or that it's a waste of time when all you can really say is "thanks" 40 times?


alexia75 - On blogs Isn't it funny how blogging habits change? // My blogging so far has gone into four stages:

ciaan - On textual interpretation The author of the text has no idea what the actual text really says, because the author is the one person in the world who is completely incapable of ever reading the text. The author cannot see the words on the page through the mental haze of ideas, intentions, hopes, discarded concepts, imagination, plans, and process. The author knows what they meant to say. The author knows what they tried to say. The author knows what they wanted to say.

quiet__tiger - Warnings So, I've been following this nice Bruce/Dick series on the batslash Yahoo group. // It's a nice, normal relationship story, big on the comfort, low on the angst. // And then, all of a sudden, it turned into an mpreg fic. ...the hell?

sexonastick - Cup o' Fandom (with noodles!) Fandom isn't too unlike soccer, when you think about it. ... The United States is femslash: Nobody takes it seriously and the people who support it exclusively give the rest of the world the impression of a kind of fanaticism. Anyone who's being realistic has to admit that it's not going to have as much of an impact as it would like. Almost as proof of that, even if they're playing for your team (ahem) and you almost wish you could care, you probably don't even know the players' names. Unless you've heard the jokes about Landon Donovan, of course, and then you know just enough to know you hate him.

On Reading and Writing

lozenger8 - I think I should cannonball canon... Is there such a thing as too much canon? // Or rather; Is there such a thing as using too much canonical material in a story?

penknife - On fact-checking in fanfic, or, why Google is your friend We have at our fingertips a wonderful technological device that lets us access huge amounts of information instantaneously. Sometimes I want to go around poking people to use it to check facts in their stories before they post them. Technological dinosaur moment: This is so much easier than it used to be! You used to have to go to the library to look at maps! You used to have to use encyclopedias! The volumes were heavy! Sometimes you got paper cuts!

cjandre - Summer, Summer, Summer - Yay! Do you agree or disagree with the idea that there are elements of the writing craft that can't be learned in in writing fanfic? // Do you think that there are elements that are more difficult to learn through fanfic writing rather than other types of writing?

telesilla - Revisiting Karl So I have to ask you, which characters in your fandom do you think need revisiting? Is there someone who is always a top in fic where you think he would make a great bottom? Someone who is always written as a bit of an airhead that you think might have more to them? [lotrips]