#but I don't think we're going to dramatically change internet behavior at large just to be clear XD

[destinationtoast]

Thanks so much, @fansplaining, for engaging so deeply with my thoughts! I really valued hearing your discussion. And now I'm going to jump into further musings and nuance, and demonstrate some of my famed bolding and bullet pointing you mentioned in the podcast. ;)

I think my letter makes me sound a bit more pie-in-the-sky than I really am about the potential to change fandom culture in any online spaces. (Followers of my writing may not be shocked to hear that I actually edited down the letter I sent you from something that was at least twice as long and contained more nuance, ahaha. 😅 ) But while I do think that there are big challenges to improving our online culture, I've also been very inspired by a lot of things fandom has done together, including:

Welcome redditors to Tumblr in helpful and seemingly productive ways, and also write genuinely helpful and detailed guides for one another on how to do all sorts of things (migrate fanworks from one platform to another, learn to use various online tools, etc).

Fundraise a lot of money for charities through fandom auctions/events (e.g., FTH)

Organize group action (e.g., #EndOTWRacism, fans4wga, and Zero Comment Challenge, to name three very different examples)

Build AO3 (!!!) and work on new platforms like Bobaboard

...So I also don't want to prematurely write off the ability of fans who want to improve things!

I certainly don't think we can by any means completely solve bad takes, pile-ons, flame wars, or the like. But I wonder whether it is possible to give fandom noobs in particular more helpful pointers & guideposts, or help nudge people who care about having better fandom spaces in good directions. I think it's not obvious to everyone that, say, engaging with a hot take can amplify something that only a few people believe into something that looks much bigger and scarier. And my other meme ideas all also came from things that are reminders I myself could sometimes have benefitted from. XD

In the longer (unsent) version of my letter, I also had other ideas brainstorming besides memes (which are certainly too short to capture nuance), including these ideas:

Some kind of "fandom court" podcast, kind of like Judge John Hodgman but possibly also including some more serious online arguments, where people bring their fandom disputes and talk them through in detail. (This was a bit of a wacky idea, but I was trying to think of something that allows a bit more of a deep dive/nuanced understanding by both parties, and that reminds us all that the people on the other side of the screen are real people. Because I really admire those aspects of Dylan's podcasts a lot.)

A "What I wish I'd known as a fandom noob" netiquette guide, maybe even with data attached about how many fans who responded to a survey believe that you should follow certain practices when commenting on AO3, or when writing/tagging a tumblr post, or when starting a new fandom discord server, or etc. (This faces trickiness of how to do good data collection, of course, but of course I fantasize about attaching data! XD )

Some kind of recommendations about how to be a good ally to someone who is getting unreasonably piled on, and recommendations about how to best engage/not engage with online disputes (for people who actually care about trying to build good fandom spaces and don't just like fanning the flames).

Would everyone/most people read with and follow such advice? No. Would enough people to make any difference? I truly don't know.

Anyway, even with all that nuance, I may still be too pie-in-the-sky here. :) But I'm curious to hear the thoughts of anyone who has any thoughts or has seen any successful attempts to shift fandom culture in any online spaces.

Episode 208: What Fans Owe Each Other

In Episode 208, “What Fans Owe Each Other,” Flourish and Elizabeth share a letter from longtime friend-of-the-pod @destinationtoast about whether we can make fandom culture kinder and more nuanced (spoiler: they take a far more pessimistic stance than Toast!). Topics discussed include good old-fashioned “netiquette,” whether we’re at the end of big social media, the dangers of toxic positivity, and systemic versus individual change. They also share and respond to a pair of listener comments on the recent “Fanfluencers” episode, and the way fans’ comments online connect back to the WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes.

Click through to our site to listen or read a full transcript!

[toastystats]

This isn't fandom stats, but I'm sharing it over here too, because I think a bunch of @fansplaining fans and other potentially interested folks probably follow me over here. Saving my tags from my main post:

#i've spent a long time thinking it's too pie-in-the-sky to try to change anything #and right now I'm trying to overcome that idea for the moment #and ask what we might change #because fandom does do a bunch of cool stuff #in spite of a lot of difficulty! #but I don't think we're going to dramatically change internet behavior at large just to be clear XD

Episode 208: What Fans Owe Each Other

In Episode 208, “What Fans Owe Each Other,” Flourish and Elizabeth share a letter from longtime friend-of-the-pod @destinationtoast about whether we can make fandom culture kinder and more nuanced (spoiler: they take a far more pessimistic stance than Toast!). Topics discussed include good old-fashioned “netiquette,” whether we’re at the end of big social media, the dangers of toxic positivity, and systemic versus individual change. They also share and respond to a pair of listener comments on the recent “Fanfluencers” episode, and the way fans’ comments online connect back to the WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes.

Click through to our site to listen or read a full transcript!