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Sometimes, I really hate fandom
Aug. 21st, 2006 12:56 pmIt always seems as if I have this period of "OMG, I love fandom" that's immediately followed by one of those crashing "OMG, I hate fandom" periods that depress me so much I think about leaving entirely. I left for a while a long time ago, and of course, like a dumbass, came back. No matter how hard I try not to be, I'm a fan; I just wish it didn't have to involve, you know, fandom sometimes.
Two things today on my flist have depressed me so much I can't even find the energy to finish the VVC reports and premieres show review. The first was something I saw on morgan dawn's LJ, that everyone in vidding was agreeing that any song for vidding had to be cut and should clock in at a certain short time. I don't know who everyone in vidding comprises, as I'm in vidding and I don't say that, but whatthefuckever. Blanket statements like that just enrage me, especially when it's sets of people within fandom trying to dictate what everyone should be doing -- and by extension, those who step outside the dictatorial boundaries are lame, or worse. Song length and the specificities of a fandom, the appropriateness of tone and story... those are all individual things for individual vidders, but I guess it must not matter if all the right people believe that's not important. Screw you if you don't edit your song -- you're too lame to vid!
Never mind that this is a matter of opinion. Never mind that this is dismissive of all the work created back in the days when people couldn't even edit songs so they were frequently a lot longer than we may have wished for. If you're not of the opinion that all songs should be under a certain length, then you're just... wrong. If you haven't done this for your vids, then I guess you're just a perfect example of What's Wrong With Vidding.
I don't understand this and it depresses me to hear that (at least, in some place I don't play or from someone I don't read on a list or on LJ) this is the way you must behave if you are even considering your audience's comfort or interests. If you don't edit a song the way people think it should be edited, then you're, what, a failure as a vidder, even if the vid is brilliant? I don't get it.
And then worse, over on cathexys' LJ, there's a discussion about some remix or challenge thing that everyone's all huffy about, and of course, those of us who don't like remixes or don't want to have our stories touched (thank god, again, that I'm not in this psycho fandom and that remix mania hasn't hit my fandoms by and large) are, and I'm not making this up myself, insane, deluded, arrogant, hypocrites, and anti-slash bitches. Yup. If you would prefer not to have one of your stories redone or fixed by someone else who thinks they need to apply their hack touch to your stuff, you're insane. Officially. Because someone who shares a different opinion told you so.
It doesn't seem to matter to anyone who's all over the "everyone who doesn't like remixes sux" that it's a matter of opinion. They keep trotting out the same tired old argument that the folks who steal edits from good vidders use, that since we're creating derivative works ourselves, we deserve to have all our hard work taken by someone else and used for their purposes. It's the same thing, and if you don't agree with that, you're more than wrong, you're stupid and insane and a hypocrite. There are a lot of reasons both for and against that belief -- I'm very aware of what I'm doing when I write fanfic or create fanvids. I'm also very lucky in that I've participated in fandoms where TPTB actively encourage fan works of art off their stuff. It's not a black and white situation, but if you are the kind of person who believes that, and has feelings contrary to the popular belief these days, you're... insane. Or worse. And you're also a bitch, so there.
Differences of opinion don't matter. Because if you don't toe the line, then everyone has to tell you how mind-bogglingly stupid you are. Agree with us, or else! You're creating derivitave works, you haven't got a leg to stand on, you hypocrite! And I don't understand this -- if we feel differently about it, why are we stupid delusional hypocrites? Why, if we feel we've done something original (yes, believe it or not, within the context of using someone else's fictional characters, you can actually create original ideas or themes or plots; I'm sure the writers of novelizations of series-based characters would like to think so, at least) with characters, carefully crafted a story to be just so, are we ev0l if we'd rather not have someone mess with what we've done? Because we used someone else's characters, we've abnegated any right not to have other people tinker with something that might be quite original or unique within the context of utilizing those characters? I don't understand that thinking, anymore than the people who are calling us insane understand our way of thinking.
But the biggest difference is that I'm not calling them names. If they want to remix and find people who are okay with having their plots changed, or having their themes altered to fit someone else's concepts, then that's their fun time. But that doesn't mean that if I don't like it myself, I'm a hypocrite and a moron. Reasons for what I believe have been articulated by much better people than I for decades in fandom; I don't need to get into explaining them because they're out there, and have been, for years. But many of the people on this thread on cathexys's LJ are disturbing to me because not only do they ignore all these arguments that have been articulated, they treat people who believe differently like they are sinister and arrogant, deluded and hypocritical. I don't believe having a different opinion merits this sort of generalization and attack.
There's also the assertion that anyone who objects to this challenge thing because they don't want their het/gen story slashed is... of course, ev0l. God forbid, you shouldn't like slash. As someone who's bifanual, I understand how reactionary slash fans can be, but dudes, someone who doesn't necessarily want to see their own original concept perhaps taken and made into a slash story has a right to that opinion. A show's creator has a right to that opinion, as well -- in Mag 7, that was an overriding factor for the slash archive sites being member restricted. It doesn't necessarily mean people have to follow or agree with the opinion, but they do still have the freaking right to have that opinion. Christ, some people don't like coffee, or rhubarb, or cigarette smoke. And it's their right to not drink lattes, or eat strawberry-rhubarb pie, or to make snotty remarks when they're stuck behind a car with a smoker holding their cigarette out the window and letting it blow into their car. Not everyone who doesn't like slash is an ev0l homophobic. I don't like gen stories most of the time, but that's because I'm heavily relationship focused, not because I hate people who don't have sex.
I'm sure there have been lots of people who've made more than their fair share of snide comments about the slashers in response to this challenge. Does that make it better if the people who like remixes and this sort of challenge respond by hurling all kinds of nasty allegations at them? I'd always believed, back in the beginning of my media fandom experience, that we were all in this together in some way. That as many differences as we had, there was one overriding concept that kept us respectful of others, kept us mindful of the wishes of individual fans, and created the fannish etiquette that people talk about all the time but pretty much never practice these days -- we were outside the mainstream, we were to most people freaks who acted as if TV and movie characters were real. We didn't just watch programs, we analyzed and talked about and wrote fiction around these made-up people. We were the weirdos everyone made fun of. But we stuck together, for the most part, because we were the "other" in the rest of the world, we were brothers and sisters in this wider family of freaks.
Part of that sense of a wider family was in acknowledging that people had different opinions or reactions to things, and the least you could do for someone else in this world of ours was very simple -- ask, and respect their wishes. It doesn't seem that hard, but apparently, if you're not on board with the whole remaking concept, you won't get that slack. You're just mind-bogglingly stupid.
And if you don't edit your songs, you're just a bad vidder, apparently. Gosh, I think that about 95.5% of the vidders out there shouldn't be vidding because they're crappy, but I'm not about to try to make a quorum of people to dictate that they should all stop. It wouldn't occur to me, though, to start calling them all names and lumping them in with edit thieves or anti-slashers or whatever. They are just people I don't think do good work, and fortunately, most of the time, them and me? We don't have to agree at all, because there's room here for both of us.
Or at least until today, I thought that there was room for both of us.
Two things today on my flist have depressed me so much I can't even find the energy to finish the VVC reports and premieres show review. The first was something I saw on morgan dawn's LJ, that everyone in vidding was agreeing that any song for vidding had to be cut and should clock in at a certain short time. I don't know who everyone in vidding comprises, as I'm in vidding and I don't say that, but whatthefuckever. Blanket statements like that just enrage me, especially when it's sets of people within fandom trying to dictate what everyone should be doing -- and by extension, those who step outside the dictatorial boundaries are lame, or worse. Song length and the specificities of a fandom, the appropriateness of tone and story... those are all individual things for individual vidders, but I guess it must not matter if all the right people believe that's not important. Screw you if you don't edit your song -- you're too lame to vid!
Never mind that this is a matter of opinion. Never mind that this is dismissive of all the work created back in the days when people couldn't even edit songs so they were frequently a lot longer than we may have wished for. If you're not of the opinion that all songs should be under a certain length, then you're just... wrong. If you haven't done this for your vids, then I guess you're just a perfect example of What's Wrong With Vidding.
I don't understand this and it depresses me to hear that (at least, in some place I don't play or from someone I don't read on a list or on LJ) this is the way you must behave if you are even considering your audience's comfort or interests. If you don't edit a song the way people think it should be edited, then you're, what, a failure as a vidder, even if the vid is brilliant? I don't get it.
And then worse, over on cathexys' LJ, there's a discussion about some remix or challenge thing that everyone's all huffy about, and of course, those of us who don't like remixes or don't want to have our stories touched (thank god, again, that I'm not in this psycho fandom and that remix mania hasn't hit my fandoms by and large) are, and I'm not making this up myself, insane, deluded, arrogant, hypocrites, and anti-slash bitches. Yup. If you would prefer not to have one of your stories redone or fixed by someone else who thinks they need to apply their hack touch to your stuff, you're insane. Officially. Because someone who shares a different opinion told you so.
It doesn't seem to matter to anyone who's all over the "everyone who doesn't like remixes sux" that it's a matter of opinion. They keep trotting out the same tired old argument that the folks who steal edits from good vidders use, that since we're creating derivative works ourselves, we deserve to have all our hard work taken by someone else and used for their purposes. It's the same thing, and if you don't agree with that, you're more than wrong, you're stupid and insane and a hypocrite. There are a lot of reasons both for and against that belief -- I'm very aware of what I'm doing when I write fanfic or create fanvids. I'm also very lucky in that I've participated in fandoms where TPTB actively encourage fan works of art off their stuff. It's not a black and white situation, but if you are the kind of person who believes that, and has feelings contrary to the popular belief these days, you're... insane. Or worse. And you're also a bitch, so there.
Differences of opinion don't matter. Because if you don't toe the line, then everyone has to tell you how mind-bogglingly stupid you are. Agree with us, or else! You're creating derivitave works, you haven't got a leg to stand on, you hypocrite! And I don't understand this -- if we feel differently about it, why are we stupid delusional hypocrites? Why, if we feel we've done something original (yes, believe it or not, within the context of using someone else's fictional characters, you can actually create original ideas or themes or plots; I'm sure the writers of novelizations of series-based characters would like to think so, at least) with characters, carefully crafted a story to be just so, are we ev0l if we'd rather not have someone mess with what we've done? Because we used someone else's characters, we've abnegated any right not to have other people tinker with something that might be quite original or unique within the context of utilizing those characters? I don't understand that thinking, anymore than the people who are calling us insane understand our way of thinking.
But the biggest difference is that I'm not calling them names. If they want to remix and find people who are okay with having their plots changed, or having their themes altered to fit someone else's concepts, then that's their fun time. But that doesn't mean that if I don't like it myself, I'm a hypocrite and a moron. Reasons for what I believe have been articulated by much better people than I for decades in fandom; I don't need to get into explaining them because they're out there, and have been, for years. But many of the people on this thread on cathexys's LJ are disturbing to me because not only do they ignore all these arguments that have been articulated, they treat people who believe differently like they are sinister and arrogant, deluded and hypocritical. I don't believe having a different opinion merits this sort of generalization and attack.
There's also the assertion that anyone who objects to this challenge thing because they don't want their het/gen story slashed is... of course, ev0l. God forbid, you shouldn't like slash. As someone who's bifanual, I understand how reactionary slash fans can be, but dudes, someone who doesn't necessarily want to see their own original concept perhaps taken and made into a slash story has a right to that opinion. A show's creator has a right to that opinion, as well -- in Mag 7, that was an overriding factor for the slash archive sites being member restricted. It doesn't necessarily mean people have to follow or agree with the opinion, but they do still have the freaking right to have that opinion. Christ, some people don't like coffee, or rhubarb, or cigarette smoke. And it's their right to not drink lattes, or eat strawberry-rhubarb pie, or to make snotty remarks when they're stuck behind a car with a smoker holding their cigarette out the window and letting it blow into their car. Not everyone who doesn't like slash is an ev0l homophobic. I don't like gen stories most of the time, but that's because I'm heavily relationship focused, not because I hate people who don't have sex.
I'm sure there have been lots of people who've made more than their fair share of snide comments about the slashers in response to this challenge. Does that make it better if the people who like remixes and this sort of challenge respond by hurling all kinds of nasty allegations at them? I'd always believed, back in the beginning of my media fandom experience, that we were all in this together in some way. That as many differences as we had, there was one overriding concept that kept us respectful of others, kept us mindful of the wishes of individual fans, and created the fannish etiquette that people talk about all the time but pretty much never practice these days -- we were outside the mainstream, we were to most people freaks who acted as if TV and movie characters were real. We didn't just watch programs, we analyzed and talked about and wrote fiction around these made-up people. We were the weirdos everyone made fun of. But we stuck together, for the most part, because we were the "other" in the rest of the world, we were brothers and sisters in this wider family of freaks.
Part of that sense of a wider family was in acknowledging that people had different opinions or reactions to things, and the least you could do for someone else in this world of ours was very simple -- ask, and respect their wishes. It doesn't seem that hard, but apparently, if you're not on board with the whole remaking concept, you won't get that slack. You're just mind-bogglingly stupid.
And if you don't edit your songs, you're just a bad vidder, apparently. Gosh, I think that about 95.5% of the vidders out there shouldn't be vidding because they're crappy, but I'm not about to try to make a quorum of people to dictate that they should all stop. It wouldn't occur to me, though, to start calling them all names and lumping them in with edit thieves or anti-slashers or whatever. They are just people I don't think do good work, and fortunately, most of the time, them and me? We don't have to agree at all, because there's room here for both of us.
Or at least until today, I thought that there was room for both of us.
