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sansanficrec · 6 years ago

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Q&A with ladytp

Grab a glass of wine and get to know @ladytp!

How long have you been writing fanfiction?

I actually went back to the folder of my first posted fanfic, and it was almost 6.5 years ago, September 2012… That was my first ever creative work I wrote as well, as I started quite late – being already adult, established professional and all that. So never too late to start, one doesn’t have to have grown up writing!

Did you write before that?

No I didn't - unless scientific publications are counted as 'creative' writing (well, to be honest, sometimes there was an element of creativity when trying to make one's data make sense, LOL!)

How long ago did you join Tumblr?

To be precise (as I like to be!) I joined March 1st 2013 – so almost six years ago… But it took me four months to make my first post (an awesome music video about ASOIAF and GoT), being initially a ‘lurker’ to observe and learn. I migrated there from Livejournal when things started to quiet down there – like a moth I was drawn to bright lights, moving images, and more of my fandom content!

What is the meaning behind your username?

My username is from the Livejournal times as well, as when I joined it, I didn’t grasp the significance of one’s url or username and just picked the first one that came to mind when filling in the details: “lady” and my initials. D’oh! Luckily I have been able to successfully have the same name in other platforms as well, which is great – it is easier than have many different names. I am also glad that it is not fandom specific, as my interests are many and varied…

What was your first fandom? First pairing?

Definitively ASOIAF – that was my introduction to the whole cultural phenomenon of ‘fandom’, devouring fics and joining communities (yeah, I am so far behind of everyone else – I used to have a life, LOL!). Sansan was my first ship, but I also had a brief period when I was very interested in Daenerys and Jorah (this was before I saw the show). Even though the show had a big negative impact on Sansan experience for me (not due to Rory, I hasten to add – but the storylines), it has still stayed my OTP in a sense that I feel most comfortable about writing them and their dynamic still fascinates me above anything else.

How/when did you first notice (or start to ship) Sansan?

My story is very typical; first reading their interactions after the Hand’s Tourney, then the scene of the Battle of the Blackwater – and I was hooked. Googling and finding fics, Livejournal communities and all the metas…no getting back from there! I mean; it is so blatantly obvious that I wonder who can read the books and NOT get the vibes??

Is there a SanSan fic you’re particularly proud of? Chapter? Paragraph? Plot?

Hmmm…’Which one of your children you love the best?’, in other words – always a difficult question! I guess I am still the proudest of “The Triangle” It was one of my early fics, it was a long-fic, and it was about the subject I had been fascinated with for years and years; the complicated Arthurian relationship between 3 people who loved each other for different reasons (Arthur, Guinevere and Lancelot in the original, Sandor, Sansa and Jaime in the fic). Chapter-wise I am very happy with the last chapter of the “Kiss of the Blade”, as hard as it may be for some due to the character death implied. It has melancholy but also beauty, I thought when I wrote it. Plot-wise I am excited and happy about my current WIP “This Time, We’ll Do Better”, as although it has some common trope elements, I think they have somewhat cool applications and it is nice to write something more plot-orientated for a change!

Any comments you’ve received that stick out, even now?

I have to admit that again, “The Triangle” inspired some absolutely wonderful comments, probably because of its unusual premise. Towards the end, and especially with people who had read it in one go long after it had been completed, there were some wonderful convos going back and forth. I especially enjoyed the ones where people either told that they had had some reservations starting it, but then ended up really enjoying the fic, or the ones where they might have had some queries and doubts and questions, leading to a mutually fruitful and eye-opening discussions on both sides. Those conversations really blew my mind!

Do you use a beta?

I have had the privilege of working with two wonderful betas, of which I am eternally grateful. The first one was wildskysheri / wildsky, whom I “met” via Livejournal, and who betaed for me for “The Triangle”, “A Chance Encounter” and “A Premediated Reunion”. She taught me – a non-native English speaker/writer – so much about writing and what to pay attention to and what to look out for. I owe her so much! After our ways parted amicably as she moved on to other things, I was without beta for a long time, not really actively looking for one, but when my path crossed with the lovely @hardlyfatal, I have once again had the pleasure of getting my words scrutinised by someone knowledgeable, making them better on “This Time, We’ll Do Better”. I honestly can’t speak highly enough for a beta who can make any writer and fic so much better!

Are there tropes/styles/genres you struggle with? Any that are almost too easy?

I do struggle a bit writing babies and children, and hence haven’t written much about them… I don’t generally care for modern AUs either and would struggle to write a full story in a modern times – although who knows, maybe in a right setting, replicating the high stakes situation of the canon, it could work. Haven’t tried so can’t say for sure! Very fluffy genre is also something I don’t feel particularly comfortable with, nor anything where the characters are very young. And porn without plot is neither a genre I relish. The most comfortable genres for me are the slow-burns, where mature people interact with each other in a mature way (whatever that means…). First realisations of feelings, hesitancy, and all that. I also do like plot-driven stories that have a start, middle and ending. I am all open for fake marriage, bed-sharing, ‘there was only one room at the inn’ kind of genres – any kind of ‘forced’ situations where the characters are obliged to spend time together!

When you start a fic, do you know where it will end? Or do you figure it out along the way?

There have been fics along both scenarios – some were started at the spur of the moment, with only vague ideas of where and how far they would go (”The Prophecy” comes to mind, which I started as a random holiday scribbling – and repeatedly apologised and updated my chapter number as it grew and grew and grew…). And there were the ones where even at the end I couldn’t decide what the ending should be, so I wrote two (for example “Past Was Such A Long Time Ago“). But for most I would have some idea about the ending at the start, and for some I would gain it somewhere early along the way. So yeah, it varies!

Do you have any rituals/conditions for ‘getting in the mood’ to write?

I mostly write over the weekends when I have more time, after getting up and having breakfast, reading my emails and checking on Tumblr and doing all the routine stuff one does – and then I open my doc and start writing… With my internet radio blasting on the background on some jazz or lounge or classic channel. I find it hard to write during the weeks after getting back from work and being distracted by mundane home things and TV and such.

Have you ever had writer’s block? Any tips for overcoming it?

I did have a period well over a year ago when I felt I had ‘lost my mojo’. It was largely to do with the way the Game of Thrones show had progressed and changed the characters so much that I couldn’t recognise them anymore, and my initial inspiration of writing about them consequently suffered. Especially as the show canon started to take over the original book canon so strongly in many platforms, including fics. The way I got over it was to distance myself from the show and partly, unfortunately, also from the fandom (so largely focused on show). I had a nice break, didn’t read many fics, focused on books and generally took a step back. Then I challenged myself to write a new type of story, a plot-focused ‘action & adventure’ story instead of romance focused only. That inspired me to write again, and I have been riding on that inspirational wave ever since with my latest long-fic WIP!

Aspirations of publishing one day?

No, not really. It is a tough world out there, especially as writing has become more reachable to many people who previously might not have even considered it (yay, fanfic and other forms of creative writing and platforms encouraging it!), and publishing world is awash with submissions and self-published stories alike. Although I don’t know for sure, I suspect that wanting to become published would take much more effort and determination and will than what I have for now, as for me this is a lovely hobby, nothing more.

What are your other hobbies?

My absolutely biggest hobbies are food and wine. I have loved cooking, eating and learning about food and wine for most of my life and it’s really important for me. Cooking meals ‘from the scratch’ from their base ingredient is what I love, as well as learning to master new techniques, new cuisines and difficult recipes. When I travel, food is one of the main drivers for that too, and holidays are largely built around restaurants, regions, cuisines and wineries. Holidaying in wine regions and wine tasting is the favourite kind of holiday! Yet I also love everyday cooking – the beauty of this as a hobby is that I get to do it every day and can challenge myself, be inspired by it and practice it all the time!

As for other hobbies…not really… I follow the transformative artform that is WWE, especially Dean Ambrose, and love visiting historical sites and reading about history, but that can hardly be called an active hobby… I also make some photo and video edits for fun, but lately my writing has taken much of the time I used to dedicate to that. Yet I feel that what I have is enough – I have no desires for an active life with lots of different hobbies and activities.

Any tips for writers looking to post their first (or second, or twentieth) fic?

I hope this doesn’t sound too harsh, but it would be really cool if even those who write only for ‘shits and giggles’ would do some basic formatting and language checks… Things like how to indicate dialogue, spacing between paragraphs and when to apply them, and of course, basic grammar. There are nowadays so many websites advising about those things, as well as free tools (for example Grammarly), that they are accessible to every person with access to sites posting their stuff – and a simple Google search is your best friend. I recommend this because ignoring those things may easily drown even the most amazing story in these times of fic over-abundance.

Other than that, write the stories you would like to read yourself, and the scenarios you would like to see in the canon. Study the writing style of the writers whose stories you admire and see if you could pick up a trick or two from them (but not plagiarizing, naturally). And if you can, get a beta – it is not absolutely necessary, but would give you a second opinion and advice from a trusted person. Oh, and give yourself a break between writing and final editing – ideally have a buffer of chapters in a draft phase before starting to post, so whenever you write something new, you can afford to let it rest for a while before getting back to it with fresh eyes. And have fun!

Anything you’d like to say to writers in general?

Don’t get hung up on statistics or comparisons. Think why you are writing – is it because everyone does it and you feel you should too, or because you truly enjoy it, or because of the stories themselves, or because you have an internal urge to do it, or it is part of your social networking activities… all are valid reasons, but once you define what they are for you, the easier it is to focus on it and the satisfaction it gives to you.

Anything you’d like to say to readers in general?

If you like a fic, don’t be shy about commenting, as it truly means so much to the writers… Even simplest comment is gratefully received. If you feel like wanting to pass on constructive criticism, first ensure the writer welcomes it, then formulate it in the politest possible way with positivism thrown in as well (and of course, make sure it is actually constructive). Marvel the choices and abundance of fic availability and acknowledge what a joy it is to live in this time and age when all that is possible. Enjoy!

Anything you’d like to say to the SanSan fandom in general?

Do not give up hope – Game of Thrones is over soon and we can get back to canon content, hopefully soon with The Winds of Winter. Whatever the further story of Sandor and Sansa is there, we know how important it has been already and nothing can take that away!

Read LadyTP’s SanSan here!

Read LadyTP’s full library here!

#sansan fic recs #Q&A #ladytp #sansan

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fff777 · 2 months ago

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I was going to put my comments in the tags but it got super long so I shall write it under the cut.

I think Exo's Tumblr fandom slowing down is due to a number of reasons.

Exo as a group is not releasing as much music and videos as they used to, and definitely not as much as the rest of the kpop industry, so there's not as many current events to drive discussion. Part of it is due to branching into solo work and part of it is enlistment.

As Exo branches out into solo activities, some fans may only have time to follow their faves (myself included 😔).

People move on. I got into Exo near the beginning of the pandemic and admittedly my interest in them has fizzled a bit. I used to be heavily interested in reading and writing fic, but I've kind of exhausted my thoughts on them, and in relation to #1, there hasn't been anything new (content or discussion) to challenge my thoughts or to get my brain juices flowing. (And I must admit that my attention has recently been taken by more active groups that are constantly bombarding us with content 😔) Nowadays, my participation in Exo fandom is mostly just checking out the music, checking out the update blogs on Tumblr, and sometimes watching their video content. Side note: I do appreciate the update blogs immensely because life gets busy and I don't have time to check out multiple sources...so I really do appreciate the aggregator blogs.

I suspect some other fans might have followed the same timeline as me, where I got into Exo near the beginning of the pandemic and was hit with a whole new world of music to listen to and stuff to watch. Now that it's been a few years, I've kind of caught up with most things so there's only new stuff to catch up on and back to #1, it's not so often now.

The fanbase is older. I think another comment mentioned that this age demographic may have other priorities and admittedly that's why I've slowed down too. I used to do more reaction posts but I've kind of stopped because they do take a bit of time 😅 It is a bit tiresome to constantly pause and screencap/react when watching, when I can just watch their videos once through and not have to pause and break up the pace.

I don't think Tumblr is as popular of a platform as it used to be. A few years ago, many fans left for Twitter, but since the decline of Twitter, I don't think a lot of people are coming back to Tumblr. But even if they are, I think people haven't gotten used to how to communicate with each other on Tumblr (different interface, different communication culture, etc). And I think people are definitely a bit shier now to send asks or DMs to other blogs here.

Unfortunately I'm not the kind of person who normally participates in fan fests so I can't really shed light on whether that would boost life into the fandom. (But it could definitely work! I do know some people who are more active on Twitter who still regularly sign up for events and such.)

I do think that conversations is the best way to boost activity and engagement though. It's way more fun talking to a person about fandom than just reacting to a photo.

I think another comment mentioned the Tumblr Community function. I'm not super familiar with how to use it yet but I think it functions a bit like Livejournal communities where you post directly to a board that is focused on a topic. I think that would be a great way to encourage people to discuss :3

To OP, I appreciate you putting out this message. Even when I started getting into Exo fandom, the Tumblr community wasn't too active (because most people had already moved on to Twitter) and I was often sifting through posts that were years old. But hopefully some ideas will be floated out there and this will encourage people to not be afraid to reach out to other fans.

So I can't be the only one who's noticed the decline in fanmade exo content here on Tumblr. We've gone from a fandom who's new posts could be measured in hours to a fandom who's posts have days....to weeks....to months....to even years for some specific tags.

We have had 6 solo album comebacks this year, 3 fancon tours, 2 solo concert tours, a myriad of festival concert appearances, youtube videos, magazine shoots, instalives, etc. Yet if you go to the exo tag it's mainly populated by archive blogs. And the nude bots, which....that's a whole other problem on its own. I digress. My point being, the tags, at least from what I've seen (I admit I haven't looked into the shipping tags) are being filled by the same handful of blogs yet given the high amount of source material, no one seems to be doing anything with it beyond archiving it.

Again this could just be because I didn't delve too deep or too far back, but it does have me wondering if part of the reason participation this year was down was simply because there's hardly anyone left.

There's been instances in the past where others have attempted to inject new life into the fandom so to speak, with....varying...level of success. The exo revival project being the first and most successful that comes to mind. I'm wondering what everyone else's thoughts are on the matter and if holding new fandom events might be a way to involve more people year round because I really do want to continue holding this event next year but if things keep going the way they have been there won't be anyone signing up.

Let me know what you think, ideas you might have, reblog this and tag your mutuals to get them involved in the discussion. I have a few ideas that I've pilfered from other fandoms, watch alongs. Fic bingo. Theres valentines exchanges. Fandom sleepovers. Heck I'd set up a Tumblr based scavenger hunt if I thought people would play. Like....we dont have to be monoliths in a placid sea of we don't want to. Fandom can be fun. It should be fun.

#exo #tumblr

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farfromsugafanfic · 6 years ago

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Sammy Interview

Before we get started, do you mind introducing yourself and telling a bit about yourself?

My name is Sammy. I’m 34 years old, a college graduate with a background in cultural anthropology as well as women, gender, and sexuality studies. I’m particularly interested in queer and feminist methodologies. I live with my partner of some 15 years, who is also a fanfiction writer.

Q1: So, you told me that you’ve been writing fan fiction for 20+ years which is awesome! How did it all get started and what kind of fan fiction have you written in that time?

A1: Like a lot of fangirls of my generation, anime was my introduction to fanfiction. I grew up watching Sailor Moon when it first aired on American network television. It was love at first sight. There was nothing else like it on TV. At my local Blockbuster I discovered anime. It wasn’t as readily available then as it is now. Because the english dubs were so limited I ended up watching the same OVA rentals over and over - Ranma ½, RG Veda, Vampire Princess Miyu. First I wrote stories in my head, then I started writing them down. When I recieved my own computer and constant access to the internet, I went searching for fansites. Secreted behind unassuming links I found small clutches of fanfiction. This was before fanfiction.net first took off, and An Archive of Our Own was well over a decade away. Fansites had webrings, which took me to the next fansite, and so on. It really was a matter of finding the right webring for a given show and following the thread.

I began with writing Sailor Moon fanfiction, and as Cartoon Network’s late night block of programming (Toonami) expanded, the more I wrote. Gundam Wing fandom introduced me to shipping and it blew my mind.

I moved away from anime when the Harry Potter movies happened. A lot of us made the transition to book and movie based fandoms when someone discovered Harry/Draco. After that I found DC comics, and then became very active in the Star Trek reboot fandom. I’ve written for Stargate: Atlantis, BBC Sherlock and Hannibal and so, so many other shows/books/video games. I’ve been an active participant in Yuletide, which is an anonymous holiday fanfic exchange, and multiple Big Bangs -another fanfic/fanart exchange- as well as a kinkmeme prompt filler for years.

Q2: What pushed you to begin sharing your fan fiction?

A2: The mailing lists. In the early days of fandom private yahoo groups and message boards were the main venue for posting and reading fanfiction. Most mailing lists were fandom based and created for specific content - like Gundam Wing Slash, GundamWingGEN and CRACKSHIP. These became high volume, tight knit communities. It wasn’t unusual to have your mail box refreshing on the left side of the monitor, while you chatted with members on AIM on the right side. There was a lot of encouragement, experimentation, and collaboration. You posted your fanfiction to the list, or board, and people cheered. It was all so exciting. It’s hard to describe now how close we all were, and just how much fellow-feeling fueled hundreds of emails a day. This was my online family, my community. I didn’t need a push or moment of courage to post my early fanfiction - I was delighted to share, invited to share. It was an electrifying thing to be part of.

Q3: Were you scared to post it online?

A3: Not at all. I didn’t need to be scared - none of us did. No one outside these early lists and boards knew what we were doing. I really can’t emphasize enough how guarded the early fanfiction community was. We were incredibly insulated. Our families didn’t know, our teachers and co-workers were oblivious, popular culture wasn’t shitting on fanfiction writers because it didn’t know we were writing. I wasn’t scared to press ‘send’, but it did feel dangerous, a little rebellious. There was a sense of getting away with something.

Q4: Has writing fan fiction taught you anything? About writing? Reading? Something else?

A4: On a basic level, fanfiction taught me how to write. Structure, pace, dialogue - I was taught those things in a classroom, but I learned them by writing fanfiction. We all taught ourselves to write by writing for each other. We created an entire literary movement without an MA in literature, or a structured pedagogy. Fanfiction writers generated new narrative traditions, like the Five Things + 1 format (a breakaway from the three-act story), Hurt/Comfort, and a language of tagging that defies classical genre rules - all because we were messing around.

Writing fanfiction has taught me the value of questioning western literary rules and conventions, that writing for myself and my own pleasure is valid. It’s also taught me that I don’t like to write alone. One of the things that makes fanfiction so special for me is that so much of it happens in conversation with other writers and readers. My best writing experiences have been in simpatico with total strangers, on AIM, in livejournal comment threads, gchat. I’m not writing “original fiction” because I lack imagination; it’s just too lonely.

Q5: Do you ever want to be published in a professional capacity one day?

A5: I do, though I feel like this is a bit of a fraught subject for fanfiction writers. There’s an compulsion to say yes, of course I plan to publish one day, as if that end goal legitimates the fanfiction I write. I don’t want to contribute to the idea of fanfiction as a lesser form of literature- a stepping stone to Real Writing - but yes. I started writing creative nonfiction in community college. That writing comes from a very different place than fanfiction. It satisfies another hunger.

Q6: How you feel about the stigma surrounding fan fiction and fan fiction writers? Or, do you not feel any stigma at all?

A6: I think the stigma towards fanfiction is pushback from multiple sociological and institutional sources.

In the beginning we had the sense that fanfiction - slash fanfiction - wasn’t something to bring up outside of those digital spaces we made for ourselves. We knew it would be considered an auteur kink at best, or downright perverted plagiarism at worst (I think this is largely still the case). Before the community found the language to discuss slash and fanfiction as transformative works - as deconstructions of conventional media, gender roles, and sexuality - there was an ethos of compartmentalization to the whole thing.

Q7: Do you think that stigma is warranted? (Whether or not you have personally experience it?)

A7: No.

I touched on this earlier, but I believe the stigma and hostility towards fanfiction is firmly rooted in gender and non-normative sexuality. The writing we do is generally characterized as a feminine endeavour, which immediately marks it as inferior to a literary canon that values the masculine so highly. The perception that fanfiction is a plagiarism of male authored source material makes it all the more egregious.

Equally as foundational, is the reduction of fanfiction to gay porn written by straight cis women for straight cis women - fanfiction is not only shit writing, it’s perverted and weird.

I’ve never been ashamed of the fanfiction I write, or read. Embarrassed maybe, of those first earnest attempts at writing. But fanfiction does not have a monopoly on bad writing. I can just as easily find the same trash in Barnes & Noble. So, quality is not and never has been a valid criticism.

Q8: What’s your favorite piece of fan fiction you’ve ever written? Why?

A8: A gen fic I wrote for Star Trek (AOS). I’m a leisurely writer, and stories don’t just hit me whole and complete in one go. But this one did. It took three hours to write and I didn’t have to think about where I was going after finishing a paragraph, the next was already there, I just had to type it out. It’s never come that easy before or since. It’s not my most popular piece of fanfiction, but I can go back and read it and not feel like I need to change anything.

Q10: Do you write outside of fan fiction?

A10: I do - until recently I was writing up lesson plans for classes I was co-facilitating. Generally, when I’m not writing fanfiction I’m working on creative non-fiction. I use the frame of gender analysis and sexuality studies (among others) to write about my life.

Q11: What site do you prefer to write and post your fan fiction on?

A11: An Archive of Our Own (AO3). The tagging system is superior and the site is far more user friendly than ff.net, which is an absolute dumpster fire.

Q12: What’s something you want people outside the fan fiction community to know about the fan fiction community?

We’re not a monolith. Teenage girls are the cultural face of fanfiction, but so many of us are in our 30s and 40s, old fandom queens from those first private mailing lists, boards, and LiveJournal accounts. We have soul sucking jobs. We have degrees in STEM. We teach college, have kids and debt, and friendships that have lasted decades.. We are not, and never have been a homogenous group of straight cis women. Asexuality and gender fluidity abounds. Plenty of us experience disability and chronic illness. And we aren’t a small group of weirdos obsessed with Johnlock. We’re an enormous and diverse group of weirdos who have created a literary movement.

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thesaltminers · 7 years ago

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The Curious Case of Megan Derr

Megan Derr is the co-owner of Less Than Three Press, an indie LGBTQ publishing house--and she’s also their most prolific author. Before LT3’s founding, Megan posted her slash fiction on LiveJournal and Fictionpress, epicenters of older wank that unfortunately went unrecorded.

Over the years, Megan has been embroiled in several dramas, none of which impeded LT3’s growth. When juxtaposed with similar controversies, this lack of fallout becomes curious.

Was she just Not That Bad, comparatively? Did people not care? Or had Megan's navigation of the drama de-escalate any chance at a larger blow up? We investigate.

Why does Megan matter?

As visible co-owner of a successful and award-winning LGBTQ press, Megan is officially a gatekeeper. Her personal opinions matter and her voice reflects on her business… theoretically. Of course, in the past Megan has implied she was a martyr for the community, working so hard for them, whilst neatly minimising that her profit also comes from that same community

Nonetheless, she has a direct hand in what gets published, which is her right as co-owner. LT3 proactively publishes trans, bi, ace, and other less-exposed areas of the queer spectrum.

While this is obviously wonderful in a lot of ways, LT3's prominence in this particular publishing sphere becomes concerning when you realize that Megan Derr's personal beliefs and ethics drive the majority of the publishing decisions, and thus, what representation is produced. Given her avowed dislike of #OwnVoices (which will be expanded upon further in this report) and her insistence that the subject of a genre is not the audience for that genre, the implications are troubling.

We posit that Megan skirts the line of actionable offences, but works to "poison the well" or create a toxic environment. This is more ephemeral than other infamous instances of wank, but it is a long-running pattern of behavior with real consequences for both individuals and the community as a whole.

Social Media Climate

Recently, we compiled reports on Santino Hassell and Riptide Press, the latter of whom is still attracting attention for bad decisions.

Social media is primed for another explosion. The match was lit when the Bi Book Award finalists were announced and several Twitter users took umbrage with the two competing publishers of the year: Riptide Publishing and Less Than Three Press.

The current call out

Twitter user BrookieRayWrite reacted to the Bi Award announcement with a threaded post, which included screenshots of Megan's past behaviour. They referenced two incidents: Megan’s dislike of #OwnVoices—a movement in publishing to uplift authentic minority experiences so that people could find content they felt connected to—and her blog post declaring M/M is for women.

However, this was not the first time someone tried to call out Megan. Heidi Belleau, an author LGBTQ romance, posted a comprehensive thread in 2016.

The rest of which, can be found here.

Nothing came from this Twitter call out. But now Heidi has resurfaced with her complaints about Megan, and with her comes an old wank standby to defend Megan--Aleksandr Voinov.

Yep. He called her crazy. In case you missed it, Heidi Belleau takes on this moniker to analyze its silencing and delegitimizing function. In short, Voinov is not only being ableist, he is actively working to create a hostile landscape to voices critical of Megan Derr.

Moments of Note

“No Gay Aces”

In an incident that went unrecorded, but that we witnessed at the time, an author published a book with a character who identified as “gay ace.” Incensed, Megan declared that there was no such thing. This conflict is worthy of note because its exemplifies Megan’s confidence in her own rightness and her refusal to ever back down from a position, a character trait that shines through in following events.

However, perhaps it also showcases Megan’s reaction when she knows she’s incorrect—as of now, the conflict seems to have been scrubbed from GoodReads. We hesitate to include unsupported facts, but feel it is important in Megan Derr's case to establish her pattern of behavior, in order to examine her tactics and strategy.

“Rose Lemberg”

At the height of #OwnVoices, Megan was becoming increasingly irritated over what she interpreted as a movement to outlaw people writing outside of their identity. She replied to a Tweet by Rose Lemberg—

Apparently Megan needed a reaction, because she Tweeted at Rose twice.

Megan's interpretation of “you are not doing us a favor,” as “don’t do this,” has the unfortunate implication that she believes writing outside of her identity is doing someone a favor.

When Rose removed themself from the conversation, Megan reacted thusly:

She steamrolls over Rose's "no spoons" comment, a clear signal in the disabled community that further engagement would be literally damaging to the respondent. The fact that she ignores that signal is incredibly ableist—and if she's ignorant about that, it just shows how unprepared she is to write disabled characters, thus proving Rose's point.

After confronting Rose, and not getting the response she wanted, Megan unfollowed.

Megan apologized for misgendering Rose, and we do not believe she would intentionally misgender someone. However, it does illustrate her "shoot first" nature.

“M/M Is for Women”

Turnabout is fair play, in a sense, because Megan had her own opportunity to open a discussion and then immediately block responses to it.

Megan lobbed quite the cannonball across the community’s bow with this fascinating retort against white cis gay men, prompted by a gay man who had called out the M/M genre for its fetishism of its subjects. Out of all her altercations, this one may be the most ill-advised (in a PR sense). It is also one where she found her audience not only unreceptive, but actively accusatory.

Whatever her point may have been, Megan said M/M wasn’t for gay men. Yes, Yaoi, BL, and slash fic was, on the surface level, fueled initially by a female audience. Yes, they fall under different genre conventions than the works of EM Forster and other literary authors. But there’s something undeniably and offensively entitled about declaring ownership of a genre over the actual subject of that genre.

When Megan felt that people were ignoring her reasoning unfairly, she shut down comments.

Friend/Colleague Exodus

If one were to casually take note of the comings and goings of Megan’s friends and colleagues, they may notice a gradual change in the cast of characters. The common denominator of this situation, of course, is Megan. There is a track record of Megan and her sister, Sam, saying oddly misguided and downright offensive comments to their authors, usually trans authors, at which point the relationship is ended and the author quietly moves on.

Water off a duck’s back

People in Megan’s sphere have probably noted that, controversy after controversy, nothing sticks. Even after years of wanky drama all throughout M/M’s history, with the inevitable apologies and flounces from the authors and readers at the center of each crisis, Megan keeps on trucking. The question is, what makes her different?

Leaving the realm of screenshots and facts, there’s only theory to go on. For instance, maybe the conflicts Megan faces are small enough, and far enough apart, that no one can exactly put into words why they think she should be called out. Or perhaps the people who dislike her realize some hypocrisy would come with accusing her of something. (Those in glass houses, etc.)

From a more practical angle, she almost never apologizes. Typically, the subjects of wank quibble, apologize several times, and release statements. Megan usually just posts a few accusatory tweets and then moves on after blocking anyone who could possibly question her worldview.

As evidenced by the more recent wanks, there is generally tangible evidence of harm with multiple victims stepping forward to detail their abuse. However, this takes years and momentum for this to occur. We know that Megan has her share of victims as well, and we know that they have experienced mental and emotional harm that has had real impact on their ability to work. Yet if people were to inspect why they don’t like her, would they only find several blog posts and Tweets that are abrasive and tone-deaf?

Her Modus Operandi has always been to aggressively confront someone she disagrees with (ex. Rose Lemberg) and then flounce/block when she’s challenged. Mirroring that, when someone confronts or disagrees with her, she immediately shuts down discussion (ex. M/M is for Women blog post).

As the co-owner of LT3, she also partly controls the narrative of indie LGBTQ publishing. Her choices and attitude influence the community tone and acceptable in-group culture, and, arguably, add toxicity. However, to pin down specific instances (and therefore confront and address them), is incredibly difficult—which is possibly why every call out thus far has dwindled without fanfare.

In Summation

The overarching, and fascinating, truth about Megan is sometimes she makes sense. Unfortunately, she also says a lot of bullshit. This may come from a lack of ability to grasp nuance.

Does #OwnVoices put pressure on people to out their life circumstances for the sake of credibility? Probably, yes. But others feel confident in self-reporting, wanting their voices out there for others to hear them. Do people mispronounce white people’s names? Yes. But that doesn’t negate the racist undertones and microaggressions minorities face when people mock their names. These, among other situations, are odd hills Megan chooses to die on seemingly because she doesn’t want to understand them.

The current call out is in reaction to the Bi Awards. Certain authors have stepped forward to Tweet their protest of LT3's nomination. They argue that Megan, as the owner of LT3, has promoted an environment that does harm to bi voices, and they feel it is inappropriate for her to be celebrated in this specific context.

The situation is still developing. From here, we can see only two branching paths. Either those running the Bi Awards rescind LT3's nomination, or they do not.

But this event is dredging up old salt. As with any wank, one is left wondering what the conclusion should be; Exile? Apology? Loss of sales? What does a successful call out look like? Megan is a real person with a wife and a business that she has worked hard to develop. She publishes minority representation because she believes in that effort.

But her belief does not exculpate her.

She has managed to repeatedly dodge accountability. Whether this is through calculated tactics or a magical formula she managed to stumble upon doesn't change the fact that she has actively contributed to making the community hostile to marginalized people. It doesn't change the fact that her status as a major publisher among LGBTQIA online presses shields her, especially as those who would ordinarily call her out for bad behavior must hesitate and consider the economic ramifications of doing so.

Now, to guess what Megan might pull from this to deflect responding to the salient points? Probably that we mentioned her mom voted for Trump.

Interesting links:

Heidi

http://archive.is/Aio1f

http://archive.li/1IknD

http://archive.li/SsQ41

Maria_Reads

http://archive.li/zPqGa

http://archive.li/kCInK

#fandom wank #megan derr #lt3 #less than three press #mm romance #publishing

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forest-of-stories · 6 years ago

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The “Evolution” of a Problematic Shipper

[I’ve been working on this lengthy post, which is about my early adventures in X-Men: Evolution fanfiction, for a very long time. So, here it is, friends. Please note a content warning for some discussion of abuse, mostly in fiction. Also, my individual recollections are my own, and extremely subjective; others might remember the fandom differently than I do.]

Quite a few years ago, I wrote about how X-Men: Evolution was “the first fandom in which I participated heavily: watching the show as it aired, obsessing with other fans about the stories and relationships within, and writing reams and reams of (mostly very bad) fic.” I still think that this is somewhat true; XME certainly inspired me to do all of those things more publicly and enthusiastically than I ever had before, especially where my One True Pairing was concerned.

For those who don’t know, X-Men: Evolution, which ran from 2000 to 2003, was essentially an animated High School AU of the X-Men comics in which our heroes lived and trained at the Xavier Institute but attended classes at their local high school. For the first couple of seasons, mutants weren’t public knowledge as they are in the comics or movies, so a few characters used their powers for the first time without understanding what was going on.

The second episode, “The X-Impulse,” introduced viewers to (this world’s version of) Kitty Pryde, a lonely, sheltered fifteen-year-old who was terrified of her newly awakened ability to walk through walls, and to Lance Alvers, a juvenile delinquent whose own powers caused him to make awkward faces and terrible puns (and also earthquakes, I guess). When they met, Lance seemed happy and excited to meet someone else with super-powers, but he quickly developed a plan to manipulate Kitty into helping him in his criminal shenanigans. He presented himself as helpful and supportive, gained her trust, and, when she refused him help him, became aggressive and violent toward her and her family. The episode ended with Kitty recruited by the X-Men and Lance joining the bad guys, and the two of them spent the rest of the season as enemies.

Watching this episode for the first time as a teenager, I knew that Lance’s behavior toward Kitty was wrong and abusive. And yet, there was something about their early interactions that captured my imagination. Maybe it was the fact that, whatever else might have happened, he was the first person to show her how to find confidence and joy in her powers. Maybe it was the hug that they shared, or his line, “Once you own it, nothing can own you,” or the possibility, thwarted though it might have been, that they could have formed an understanding despite very different backgrounds and attitudes. I liked forbidden romances, and I liked flipping the script to make unquestioned heroes seem villainous and villains seem sympathetic, and I liked when characters rebelled against controlling authority figures and communities, which is how I reimagined the X-Men when I first started writing about them. I’m not saying that I explored any of those ideas well, but they were what started me writing: at first in collaboration with a friend from summer camp, who still deserves a lot of the credit, and then on my own. I posted my solo stories on Fanfiction.net, where this fandom would enjoy some remarkable popularity that I’m not sure has ever transferred to any other platform.

I wrote about Lance infiltrating the X-Men (with psychic shields in place), and having to choose between his original mission and his romance with Kitty, whose own commitment to her team and its mission was starting to waver. I wrote about her trying to figure out her identity beyond her friends’ expectations of her, even as Lance tried to be a better and less destructive person. I wrote about Charles Xavier mind-controlling Kitty into dismissing Lance and falling back into unquestioning loyalty, giving way to several well-received sequels in which some of the characters tried to free themselves and each other from Xavier’s telepathic chokehold. I wrote without much direction or concern for established continuity and characterization, and assumed the whole time that the show would never explore what I saw as the unrecognized potential of my OTP. When canon actually went there, I was as surprised as anybody.

After Lance had spent the entire premiere of Season 2, “Growing Pains,” acting like a complete jerk to Kitty and her friends, his destructiveness endangered her life, and he saved her. They became romantically involved soon afterward, and he became noticeably less of a jerk toward her and slightly less of a jerk toward others. The series of fics that I was working on had decisively departed from continuity by this point, but I still incorporated elements of the season premiere into the installment that I was posting at the time. And my fellow Lance/Kitty shippers, believing that canon had vindicated us, were transported with joy.

If XME were popular today, I believe that there would be a lot more pushback against Lance/Kitty, in both good and bad ways. Even at the time, the pairing was not universally beloved. There were probably those who thought that its dysfunctional beginnings outweighed any potential for functionality or sweetness, and there were definitely those who thought that both characters would be better off with someone else. It’s tempting to rewrite history with claims that “in my day, we shipped and let ship,” and it’s true that yesterday’s shipping conflicts didn’t use all of the same weapons that today’s do, but the fandom was still full of snarky, self-important brats who, no matter which side of any given argument we were on, believed that only we understood these characters and this world.

I say “we,” because I was not exempt from these behaviors. I’ve sometimes thought that participation in this fandom brought out some of my worst habits. But a lot of positive things came out of it as well. It gave me the inspiration and confidence to write more prolifically than I ever had before (or maybe even since), and a chance to explore ideas that became deeply important to me: perhaps most importantly, I don’t think I’d written so extensively or publicly about the horrors of mind control. Mutual devotion to our show and its fandom, and mutual conviction that Lance and Kitty were meant to be, connected me with a number of friends with whom I started exchanging emails and IMs and LiveJournal comments, and I’ve kept in touch with a couple of them to this day. And even though I didn’t always respond constructively to attention and validation, XME fandom gave me what I think fandom has given a lot of creative young people: a wider audience for my writing, and a community who cared about the lives and feelings of cartoon characters as much as I did, and in many of the same ways. My experience in this fandom was as uneven and as flawed (dare one say… problematic?), and often as delightful, as the show that inspired it.

And, for me, it had all started with Lance and Kitty. As the show progressed, and for years after it ended, I continued to write more canon-compliant one-shot stories about them: missing scenes or predictions for the future. Their relationship was a given in more or less everything I wrote, whether or not they were the focus, and even when I’d fallen deeply into other fandoms, I still regarded it with nostalgic fondness.

I think that a lot of us have faced an uncomfortable tension between our social consciences and our nostalgia for the uncomplicated adoration with which we viewed our “problematic faves” as children. I can’t provide a one-size-fits-all solution for that conflict. I don’t know if one exists.

“Although I'm not going to say that I never thought that I'd be engaging with XME again in any way,” I blogged in late 2013, as my local cartoon-watching group began the first season, “I was somewhat surprised that I had any feelings about this show left, or anything else to say.” But I did, and I said a lot of it in short ficlets of less than 500 words, which - since I was in graduate school at the time - were usually all that my energy levels would allow.

At around the same time, I started reading fandom-related posts on Tumblr, including the ones that stated or implied that redemption arcs in fiction, and/or shipping characters with people who had mistreated them, were universally bad because they would increase the likelihood of real-life abuse. It’s not like I had never thought about that aspect of Lance and Kitty’s relationship (I’d addressed it more than once in the intervening time), but something about phrasing of those posts - or maybe something about my own mental state when I saw them - sent me into a spiral of self-doubt. I wondered I would have to publicly apologize for and cast aside my affection for a pairing and a narrative that had been so deeply formative for me. I wondered if my friends would consider me an abuse apologist if I didn’t, or even whether I might secretly be one.

One of the reasons why it took me a long time to write this retrospective is that I wanted to avoid too many lengthy tangents or blanket statements about critical consumption of media, the toxic elements of “anti-shipping,” and the relationship between fiction and reality. I do believe that such a relationship exists, but it’s much more complicated than “impure fiction is dangerous, especially if people might be enjoying it in ways that are not politically conscious or wholesome enough.” Anybody who reads my blog knows that I am intensely critical of purity culture, and I do not believe in being unkind to real people on behalf of fictional characters (and I say this as someone who used to do exactly that). Also, if you were going to ask, “So you’re saying you support [taboo and/or illegal act]?” please don’t. I am not saying that, and we are not having that conversation. Not all “problematic” stories are interchangeable or should be talked about in the same way, and all of the issues that surround them are bigger and more complex than any individual character or romantic arc.

So I am not suggesting that Lance and Kitty’s own romantic arc should not have happened, or that people shouldn’t enjoy it, when I point out that was built on some incredibly inappropriate behavior that reflects toxic cultural attitudes even if it doesn’t “normalize” or “promote” them, and I can understand why some people (including at least one of my Cartoon Night buddies) would see it as irresponsible storytelling. In “Growing Pains,” Lance harassed Kitty despite her trying to tell him off, used his powers in publicly destructive ways in order to hold her attention, and tried to keep her from leaving school with her friends. Even when his protective leap caused her to regard him as something besides an enemy, it seemed to be setting up an arc in which her love - or the possibility of her love - would make him a better person.

In reality, of course, it’s unrealistic at best for anyone to expect that they can “change” or “improve” the morality of a partner who has treated them (or others) badly. But it’s an enjoyable and compelling fantasy, as are the “opposites attract” and “forbidden love” aspects of the pairing, all of which we shippers ate up with a spoon. It’s vital for shippers to recognize the difference between reality and fiction, but it is not my place to assume - based solely upon the nature of the fantasy - that they’re unable to do so.

And, in-universe, I can absolutely understand why sheltered, idealistic Kitty might have given in to this fantasy. But it doesn’t play out in the way that she - or I - initially expected.

I’ve seen the Season 2 episode “Joyride” so many times that I didn’t have to rewatch it in order to write this essay. That’s the one in which Lance briefly joined the X-Men, in order to be close to Kitty and, hopefully, to become the kind of person that she might admire. The story was full of cute moments in which they flirted, bantered, and ultimately worked together to solve a crisis. It also spotlighted one of the biggest obstacles to their relationship, and despite what a lot of fanfic - including my own - suggested, that did not come from their respective teams’ objections. Professor Xavier even encouraged Lance’s potential for redemption (which didn’t stop me from reading, writing, and endorsing fic in which he regularly meddled in his students’ love lives), and the other characters reacted to the situation in a variety of understandable, if not always admirable, ways. No, the telling moment occurred when the team was running through aquatic rescue scenarios, and Lance cheerfully broke rank and “drowned” two other people in order to pull Kitty out of the water. Here was his entire approach to redemption and to their relationship, summed up in one gesture: he wanted to ensure her safety and well-being, but didn’t always care what or whom he knocked down in the process. This became even clearer toward the end of the season, when he tried unsuccessfully to chase her (and only her) away from a fight between their two teams, although her friends would still be in danger. This tension exploded in the third episode of Season 3, when Lance and his friends once again attacked the X-Men on school grounds, and Kitty shouted, “This is the real you, isn’t it?” Lance responded, “That’s right! I’m never going to be good enough for you!” (I typed that out from memory, too.)

Naturally, my fellow shippers and I were devastated by this development, and I, for one, wrote lots of angsty fic (often interspersed with the lyrics to late 1990s/early 2000s pop music) in which the former couple pined for each other despite having been Torn Apart By Circumstances. Years later, however, I’m proud of Kitty, and of the writers, for drawing that line in the sand, and for realizing that - although, as Charles pointed out, it would have been a good start - it wasn’t enough for Lance to be good for her. Whether or not this was an intentional writing choice, the later seasons reflected an awareness that he was primarily the one responsible for making himself a better person.

Yes, after Lance and his comrades joined the climactic battle even though he’d insisted at first that he didn’t care, he and Kitty got back together in the series finale. There were probably viewers who thought their reconciliation hadn’t been earned, as well as those who thought it had been. Obviously, eighteen-year-old Nevanna (by then in her first semester of college) was one of the latter. But I appreciate the time that they spent apart, and the fact that it came at least as much from from internal motivations as from external pressure, far more as an adult than I did as a teenager.

To be clear: you don’t have to like Lance/Kitty or pairings like it. When I say that I regard it differently now, I am not trying to assert that “my ship is Unproblematic after all, so there!” because it isn’t. Nor am I trying to suggest, “It’s okay that I had a Bad Ship, because I regret it now, and the rest of you are filthy sinners who should do the same.” I don’t, and you’re not, and you shouldn’t. Or, rather, how you feel about your past shipping, and what kind of person it makes you, is not for me to decide.

I loved and built upon this pairing both despite and because of its problems, and that is one of the reasons why I try not to condemn other people - as long as they maintain that all-important boundary between fantasy and reality - for loving and building upon stories that have similar problems, or different ones altogether.

I was sixteen when I first started writing XME fanfic. I’m thirty-three now. I can easily imagine some of you asking, “When are you going to get over these imaginary fake not-real cartoon characters and get a life, Nevanna?” That is, I hope that my friends, whom I love and who love me, aren’t thinking along those lines, but it’s certainly a question that I have asked myself more than once.

Even when I was cheerfully participating in fandom in my youth, I still feared that my obsessions with fictional characters were bad for me, a sign that I wasn’t equipped to deal with or care about “real life.” In one diary entry, I wrote with certainty that I would have to abandon my fannish interests entirely when I started college. If a large contingent of fans had loudly insisted that my interests were not only bad for me but bad for the world, that I was actively hurting others simply by writing about my chosen subject matter, that I was likely to enable or engage in actual criminal activity… I’m not sure what I would have done, but it probably wouldn’t have been what they wanted me to do, and it likely would have made me an even more unpleasant person to be around.

I tried my best to balance academic obligations with fandom and creativity when I did enter college, and sometimes failed spectacularly, but that owed as much to anxiety and poor time management skills, both of which are still everyday challenges for me, as it did to caring “too much” about stories. I eventually earned a master’s degree, and found a series of jobs, in a field that is just a bit concerned with making sure people get to read whatever they want. If I’m still “getting a life,” which I believe is an ongoing process, then my fandoms are just one part of it. And after all this time, X-Men: Evolution is still one of those fandoms. I find it easy and comforting and fun to write about these characters, and the only person who gets to decide whether I’m “over” them is myself.

The last time I wrote anything that focused specifically on Lance and Kitty was a little more than two years ago, and the fic didn’t shy away from the troubled history of their relationship. I have a preference for stories that at least acknowledge that history and the tension that comes with it, but I would never barge in and assume that because a content creator doesn’t check those boxes, they support real-life abusive relationships.

Would I still ship Lance and Kitty if I encountered them for the first time today? It’s difficult to say. Many aspects of their relationship are still things that I enjoy in fiction. But my early interest in them was based on a specific set of assumptions about the characters, their world, and even the purpose of fanfiction, as well as, yes, some amount of ignorance about how romance and attraction worked. I don’t want to enjoy their story, or others, solely in the way that I did when I was younger. Most of the time, I prefer the all the ways that I enjoy stories now.

As I said earlier, I’m not proud of some of my actions in the XME fandom. I regret sneering at the fanbase for another popular pairing that had dysfunctional beginnings, as if my OTP didn’t. (The two pairings didn’t even have any common characters, so it’s not as if they challenged each other as far as I know, not that my attitude would have been okay even if they had. I think I partly just enjoyed hating what so many people liked.) I regret participating in an LJ community that publicly mocked specific people’s writing. I regret sticking my nose into people’s reviews just to beg them to read my latest chapter, but not as much as I regret leaving at least one hostile review, with a very thin veneer of playfulness, when half of my OTP hooked up with another character in the middle of a multi-chapter fic. And, all of that aside, there is a much longer list of regrettable choices that I made as a writer. But I don’t regret looking at Lance and Kitty in their introductory episode and thinking, “There’s a story there, and I want to find out where it might go.”

#xmen evolution #all our faves are problematic #nevanna life #nostalgic fun times

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wanderingandfound · 4 years ago

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Hey hope you don’t mind me asking but what’s Tammy-gate? (I saw it in your tags) I’ve always been really into tamora pierce’s books but never really got into fandom for them, so I’m not familiar with the drama.

So back at the beginning of 2015 Tamora Pierce made a racist comment about how Black people would be unrealistic in Agent Carter in response to fair criticism about how the show is racist. Which uhhhh????? 1? It's NYC in the 1940s-1950s? The white-washed history Agent Carter presented was the historically inaccurate version. 2) Superhero shows don't have to be realistic anyways. 3) She's a fantasy author???

There's more information about it here, which is a masterpost that links to other posts. I was supposed to be writing a paper at the time so I don't think I reblogged much but Shannon has a whole tag called The TPgate of 2015 which is what I was misremembering when I called it Tammygate in my tags on that reblog. What's worth noting (disclaimer I am white so the racism doesn't affect me and so take the following with a bucket of salt) is that I think the fandom would have survived the racist comment. We've all read The Woman Who Rides Like A Man and Emperor Mage and the Trickster's Duet. The fandom had discussions about the racism in the books and White Feminism TM and the White Savior Syndrome/trope. (Apparently Pierce had also made racist comments of a similar variety on livejournal but I didn't use that platform.) No in my opinion what killed the fandom was her doubling down, giving multiple bullshit apologies until figuring out something genuine (especially when one is free to just... not post. sleep on it and wait until morning come on), and especially saying that there was a "witch hunt" because fans of hers, especially Black fans and other fans of color, were gently explaining what was wrong with her comment. (The post then blew up to all of Tumblr, and this was pre-porn ban exodus mind you, so I'm sure she was also getting notes that weren't well-intentioned. But it didn't start like that.)

After that event a lot of the respect, trust, and enthusiasm of the fandom was gone. Many fans took a break or left all together. Everything dwindled and from my (limited) perspective the fandom no longer had the critical mass and the desire to have reblog-conversations about the problematic aspects of the books that came from a place of love, nostalgia, and desire to be better. I still track the Tamora Pierce tag and every once in a while I'll see a post singing the praises of representation in her works, or comparing Pierce favorably to Rowling about how she won't let us down by advocating against human rights. (And to be clear I'm not saying this event is the same as JKR because Pierce eventually did give seemingly genuine apologies and is also not advocating for laws to be changed. But there's probably good parallels to draw between her use of the word "witch-hunt" and how Rowling says she's receiving "online harassment" due to misogyny.) And I look at those posts and get sad because I don't want to harsh anyone's vibes but I miss the days where it felt like Tumblr fandoms dwelled in this middle ground between Idolizing Everything: The Artist(s) Can Do No Wrong and Hating Everything: It Is All Terrible And Makes You A Bad Person. I miss when fandom was critical in a loving way, when people rarely got defensive because they understood we all care about the thing and we want it to be better. I know people say there is no good fandoms only good friends, but my Tumblr experiences were so promising 2011-2013 (and thankfully I made many good friends out of those experiences).

Sorry this post is really long and doesn't tell you much. Follow that first link up there for the actual info.

#Earlier tonight I was talking about this with my newest friend (an IRL one) because I was talking about how I am still looking #for a Wolf 359 fandom replacement.#And he was like wait doesn't the fandom still exist? And the answer is yes there is a Wolf 359 fandom. But it's not the fandom I miss.#And maybe I need to keep looking. Or maybe that type of fandom doesn't currently exist. I dunno it's late and I need to go to bed.#Ask #Anonymous #reply #Tumblr #thoughts

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newamsterdame · 7 years ago

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What's the fanfic discourse? I'm way out of the loop, I would really appreciate if you could point in some direction (like, I'm not expecting you to explain the entire thing, even though I'm interested in what your opinions were and are on the topic)

okay, so maybe “discourse” is the wrong word to use here (i generally use the word sort of facetiously, so). but basically i guess there’s a general ethos amongst a lot of people who write fic that their work goes un- or under-appreciated, and that the general environment for writing fic can be unwelcoming or thankless one. that is an idea i don’t necessarily disagree with, and i can attest to the fact that there are times when writing fic doesn’t make me happy. and that’s pretty sad, given than fandom exists as a place to enjoy stories and meet people and generally have a good time.

the place where i am beginning to part ways with some people is on the reason why people feel this way. there’s a lot of talk and productive discussion about how to get people to comment on fic more, or to reblog it, or basically to give it attention that fic authors really clearly want and in many cases deserve. i have a whole tag about this stuff.

basically, right now what i feel is this: no one owes you a comment on your fic. it’s a sad reality that many people (a larger proportion of your audience than you’d like), will read your fic and never acknowledge having done so. they won’t reblog it, comment on it, give it kudos, or tell you that they’ve read it. statistically, this is just a fact. there is no way to police fic so that the price of admission is a comment or kudos. this is really demoralizing, and i’m not discounting that. i have often abandoned works because the feedback i get from them is not worth the time it takes to write them. and i have seen other authors similarly discouraged. i don’t blame them for that.

but, i don’t think the solution lies in expecting everyone to comment on your fic. i think the real issue here is one of visibility. if 5000 people ready your fic but only 10% of those people comment, you’re still going to get a lot of good feedback and will probably feel pretty good about your story. but if only 50 people read your fic (or click on it, there’s no real way to tell if hits = actual reads), and only 1% of those people comment… that’s a lot less comments, and sometimes equals no feedback or acknowledgment at all. and that’s the sort of deafening silence that can kill motivation very quickly.

so i think the solution lies not in expecting everyone to comment, but in fostering a better environment for sharing fic so that it’s a more social experience and your story is more likely to find its way to the people who will comment or acknowledge it. i could pull out stats about how often people like my fic posts on tumblr versus how often they reblog them, but suffice to say that most people don’t reblog. but if they did, that story would make its way to a lot more people, and maybe through the people who don’t feel like commenting it could reach people who do. same with twitter, or discord, or any number of other sites people use to share things.

another solution might be in people being better about how they talk to fic authors. i hate “please update” comments. they kill my soul, two words at a time. if i get a comment that encourages me to update without saying anything about what i’ve already written, my mind processes that as “no one is even reading what’s here, they just want me to keep producing for no benefit.” and there are other ways that comments can be entitled or rude or even mean. so if people got less comments but friendlier or more encouraging ones, that might also help.

and finally, there’s a problem with the modern fic apparatus, and that is that it is way too easy to compare yourself to other people, and way too easy to get lost in the tags if you’re not the first fic in a fandom or don’t find a big audience quickly enough. everyone sorts ao3 tags by kudos. you do it, i do it, the whole world does it. but this leads to feedback loops that reward the top x fics in any given tag, and let others fall by the wayside. a writer who works really hard but gets to a fandom late, or who doesn’t get enough visibility early on, can see their works completely lost in the shuffle and unacknowledged. and that leads back to the deafening silence problem.

my problem with the “discourse” is that it’s turned into a writers vs readers problem, which i don’t think is actually the case. i think it’s a problem of the culture around fic. when i was 15 or 16, i wrote all my fics on livejournal. i couldn’t see how many people were clicking on them, so i didn’t know what percentage of people were leaving comments. the comments i did get were nice and encouraging and helpful, and often lead to long conversations and lasting friendships. i didn’t have to worry about whether the same 10000 people who were reading another fic for my ship were also reading my stuff. i got a few good, insulated years to explore and experiment and develop. and i could do so without comparison to people who were much more experienced and much better than me.

i am, in all likelihood, going to keep complaining about fic stuff. it’s in my blood, at this point. and you better believe that when someone comes to me three months after i’ve abandoned a fic, and asks me why i haven’t updated it, i’m going to feel hurt if they never acknowledged my work before that. i am going to wonder, “where were you when your enthusiasm might have made the difference?” but that’s not me blaming all readers generally for this. i think we need to implement some new systems, encourage some better communication, and above all be kind and respectful to one another. but i’m not in charge of how this dialogue goes.

#my thoughts are still mushy and developing #so this probably doesn't make sense #fic stuff #quality reply blog #feedback

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lodessa · 7 years ago

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@icecream-junkie sent me:

Yay, fanfic commentary! Great idea, though I had a hard time choosing a passage from Promotion. If I thought I’d get away with it, I’d just copy pasted the whole story. ;) Anyway, here goes:

“Would you believe I was defending your honor,” he tells her glibly.

“No,” she rolls her eyes, “And my honor doesn’t need you defending it.”

“Of course not,” he slurs with a false exaggeration, “Because you are the model of what a Starfleet officer should look like.”

“Gabriel,” she interjects, “Why did you come here?”

“I miss you,” he tells her and she knows he does, in his own way.

He reaches out and places one hand just below her chin, barely brushing her skin but she lifts it up towards him anyway.

“Are you sure it wasn’t because you want me to make you feel better, about the fight and about not getting that post?”

“I thought you couldn’t be my counselor,” he evades, “You know given our history.”

“And I’m not,” she reminds him softly, “I’m just reminding you I’m here to talk. That is a thing friends do you know.”

“And what if I don’t want to talk,” he replies suggestively, fingertips trailing down her throat. He’s always preferred to claim that is why he shows up like this, that it is sex he is seeking and not something beyond just that. “Nobody is better at cheering me up than you, Kat.”

That part, that part she thinks is true. He turns to her for comfort, even if it’s easier for him to swallow paired with sex. Not that the sex isn’t worthwhile on its own. It definitely is, which is probably part of why she can’t seem to be bothered to try and form any real attachment to something with more potential for stability and commitment. Though how many so called committed relationships between officers has she seen last this long… not many. She and Gabriel have never promised each other anything but that hasn’t stopped either of them from following through on being there.

“No one is less impressed with your bullshitting than me,” she replies but she is already well aware they will end up in bed together tonight.

“I seem to recall you being very impressed with some of the things I can do,” he continues unabashed.

“Gabriel,” she sighs, “Talk to me.”

“Fine. I was upset about not getting that first officer spot so I picked a fight for no good reason and when that didn’t work I came running to you to make me feel better. Does that make you happy?”

“That you are talking to me about it, yes. That you’re hurting and making bad rash decisions, no.”

“I don’t think coming here was a bad decision and I don’t think you really believe it was either.”

He’s right. She let him in and that’s because some part of her narcissistically thinks she’s good for him, that she can help him in ways no one else can.

One of the things I am finding I have to balance in writing them is that Kat is too smart and too knowledgeable on psychology not to recognize the dysfunctional elements of their relationship/dynamic, but at the same time she’s obviously still engaging in it. So this section features both of my ways of dealing with it. The first is when she draws a line by pushing him to talk to her and admit at least a little. She calls him out on his evasion, presses him to talk, because I wanted to show her making these little rules that she tells herself mean she has not lost control. The other is where she openly comments to herself about these red flags she keeps ignoring, like somehow noticing them changes doing them anyway. For example, at the end of this section where she admits her motivation and delusion about helping him to herself. It is my intent here that basically she tells himself if she can name it honestly it’s not out control, just so long as she doesn’t start romanticizing it to herself. That’s also why I have her constantly labeling things: Gabriel “evades”, he “falsely exaggerates”.

I also should probably note that I borrowed heavily from an “un-relationship” that I was (not) in throughout most of my college years and that I was recently reading back through old livejournal entries from that era and remembering what it was like. Specifically I borrowed his “joke” evasions and sexualizing things to avoid places he doesn’t want the conversation to go (which of course Gabriel does on the show when he puts his hand on her knee and changes gears from a serious conversation she’s trying to have to them hooking up), and also the paragraph where she thinks about how even though outwardly their relationship is a “friends with benefits”/”fuckbuddies” relationship with no strings attached it’s actually outlasted most “real” relationships, but especially the fact that they are the person the other can count on for comfort and emotional support. Because, ultimately, the reason that people really keep hooking up with that same person over and over whenever something else isn’t working out or “can’t resist the temptation” is never just about sex/physical attraction in my experience. There is some emotional need getting engaged with there, whether it is sating it or not. And I feel like this is clear to a certain extent in the show with these two. Kat knows Gabriel well enough to recognize he is having a hard time and she comes to help him through it, even in the end when she’s leaving to meet the Klingons she tells him they will figure out a solution together. She was angry and scared when he pulled that phaser on her and she recognizes that he needs more help than just their “friendship” but she is still there for him, whether he appreciates the way she is doing that or not.

As for Gabriel and where his head is at (in my mind) in this section: I think that the more uncomfortable he is the more exaggerated his bravado becomes. It’s a defense mechanism and also it is an attempt to control the scene a bit. So he starts out with the obviously false line about “defending her honor” a joke to deflect her question, but it escalates to something physical as she presses for answers "fingertips trailing down her throat” and then bragging “I seem to recall you being very impressed with some of the things I can do“. It doesn’t work (directly) because Kat knows exactly what he’s doing and he does have to admit weakness, but I feel like he knows that and he admits just enough to satisfy her enough to move on. At the same time, I think Kat is right that he is also coming to her to help him process the feelings he doesn’t want to admit he has about losing out on that post. It is precisely because she will push that he goes to her for support, even though its sort of inappropriate since he lashed out at her earlier.

It’s also inappropriate (on both sides) because he does sort of use her as his therapist and she admits she thinks “that she can help him in ways no one else can”. I say that right after the bit about her pushing; because, its relevant to Gabriel’s canonical ability and willingness to manipulate and fake interactions with counselors. I suspect that the people Starfleet has assigned to trauma/ptsd treatment/evaluation are the “nice” type. Soft, comforting, supportive types who are careful not to upset you further. There are people who need that, who are too raw for anything else. However, I have never done really meaningful for work them. I mean it’s nice for someone to listen to you for an hour, but honestly I have friends and family who will do that. My real growth has come from the type of therapist who calls you out on your bullshit. I feel like Kat is that person, as a counselor but also just as a person in the world. So Gabriel seeking her out (even though he would say it was to have sex) is really a cry for help here.

(If there are any specific questions you have or thing I didn’t mention that you wondered about , feel free to let me know so I can address them directly.)

Also I’m still accepting these, so everyone feel free to send me sections of my own fic to discuss.

#lorca x cornwell #fic commentary meme

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whydoyouhaterapevictims · 8 years ago

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On abusive interactions

Last night, tumblr used clownyprincess was approached via DM by Carmen/courteousmingler. The conversation opened with Carmen asking clownyprincess to “walk [her] through” how to commit suicide and went downhill from there. Carmen has since made several posts about this, and posted some decontextualized screencaps from their conversation.

Carmen’s version of what happened between her and clownyprincess seems to be that clownyprincess was “sent after” her by catandkitty (untrue; catandkitty and clownyprincess are barely acquainted, and clownyprincess was wholly acting on her own during this exchange) in order to gaslight her by calling her motives into question. This is not what gaslighting is. When someone has lied consistently - and provably - as Carmen does when she says that no one ever called catandkitty or myself rapists, and that she never “invalidated” catandkitty’s abuse, and that catandkitty and myself ONLY brought up our abuse in “the chronological middle” of a discussion where asexual rape survivors were sharing their stories, and that catandkitty tagged posts about her abuse with “aces” and “asexual” specifically to create an association between all asexuals and her own sexual abuse, and that she never discusses the sexual abuse of people who have not given her permission to do so... it is not gaslighting to not trust them when they claim to have intimate knowledge of other peoples’ motivations, as Carmen does when she says that catandkitty “wants asexuals to be raped”, or that I have a “passionate love” of rape. When someone says they support rape survivors, but spends the majority of their online time calling rape and CSA survivors “rape worshipers”, “pedophile worshipers”, “pro rape”, saying that their “love” of rape is “masturbatory”, etc, it is not gaslighting to question the degree to which they actually support all rape survivors. These are questions that I hope would occur to anyone who observed someone acting in way so contradictory to their stated intentions.

It IS gaslighting to consistently lie to someone, over and over again, and then berate them for not believing you automatically. Which is not to say that courteousmingler gaslights people - I don’t think you can call any singular, one-off interaction with a person gaslighting; gaslighting by necessity takes place over a series of interactions, that is how it works - but having been in an abusive relationship that included gaslighting, it’s noticeable to me that Carmen frames people simply trusting their own immediate perceptions over what she tells them to believe as “gaslighting”.

After talking to clownyprincess about her interaction with Carmen, we decided that it would make sense for me to post the screencaps of their conversation, as well as a statement from clownyprincess, here. The caps are below the cut. I received them from clownyprincess via e-mail last night, and am only posting them this evening because I had a lot to do today and couldn’t post them earlier.

PLEASE note that this chat contains heavy trigger warnings for suicidal ideation, discussions of rape and abuse, and honestly, serious emotional manipulation. I am not kidding. I find these screencaps deeply upsetting, even triggering. Take care.

There’s a lot I could say about this interaction and I may say it later. The way Carmen lies (claiming that catandkitty tagged posts about her own abuse with “aces”, for example, which is provably untrue) and then repeates the lie over and over and then demands that clownyprincess tell her where she’s lied and then immediately changes the subject - the way she opens with a request that clownyprincess go over suicide with her in explicit detail - the way she starts out questioning and becomes increasingly aggressive and verbally abusive (going from “it’s been really scary lately” and “I’m having a bad day” to “RAPE WORSHIPER! RAPE WORSHIPER! RAPE WORSHIPER!” in very short order) - the CONSTANT, constant, attempts to define catandkitty’s thoughts and intentions, followed by a complete meltdown when clownyprincess said that she felt she understood Carmen’s thoughts and intentions - the accusation that catandkitty and clownyprincess want to rape asexual people. All of that is here. What’s also immediately obvious is that Carmen has a specific sort of arguing style - I observed it from her in the DM interaction we had on my old blog; other people have commented on this as well. She messages you repeatedly, VERY quickly, often shifting the subject slightly from one message to the next, so that it’s hard to get your bearings, and you end up responding belatedly to some point she made earlier. When you do this, she berates you harshly for lying or changing the subject. Recently, she has claimed that this is a symptom of autism, and that therefor if any other disabled people find it hard to follow her particular chat style, they are being ableist, because her disability, I guess, trumps theirs.

However, I want to close this out with a statement from clownyprincess, that she sent me along with these screencaps. I’ll preface this by saying that clownyprincess and I have been mutuals for many, many years now; our internet friendship dates back to livejournal days, and during that time, I have seen her get triggered and angry, but I have never seen her be dishonest about her feelings and motivations. If there is one person I trust on this hellsite to be a straight shooter, it is clownyprincess. She and I have very different styles of engagement in this sort of thing, but I understand where her anger here comes from, and I have a lot of respect for her relentless honesty in confronting online harassment and abuse.

Anyway, here is what she had to say:

first of all, I am well aware that I lost my self-control whilst DMing with carmen yesterday and that nothing productive could come of it. I have worked hard to gain a great deal of self-control I didn't have over the last few years and having it stripped away like that left me shaken. the entire interaction has left me feeling hollow and ill.

carmen knew exactly which buttons to push in order to trigger me and elicit an hysterical reaction, because later she can use those against the person she attacked. the aftermath of knowing a manipulative liar managed to suck me into the vortex of her awfulness is stark and ugly. fuck you, carmen, you're a fucking black hole.

I have watched carmen harass an innocent woman, using the most violent and vile language about her, for months. carmen writing this post is what led to our confrontation (http://courteousmingler.tumblr.com/post/160416266640/catandkitty-wants-asexuals-to-be-raped-this-is-a)

carmen maliciously and savagely attempts to rewrite history, casting catandkitty in an incredibly ugly role of a rape advocate and apologist and which I knew could also be extremely triggering for her target. the following in particular horrified me: "catandkitty ran a campaign trying to associate asexuals who say “no” to sex, to violent abusers who withhold sex. because associating these two groups with each other can make the rape of asexuals more socially acceptable."

it is such a heinous, depraved thing to say, especially as it is absolutely untrue. seeing such a malicious lie said about someone who is themselves a rape survivor infuriated and disgusted me. it was so blatantly evil. I sent carmen an ask saying simply "you are an evil fucking monster". though some may say I started it, I stress again that what prompted my reaction was an evil fucking lie.

she then responded by DMing me with a request to help her commit suicide, as seen in the screencaps. this was deliberate, I have no doubt. it is such a vile, violent thing to say to someone and she knew exactly what she was doing, evidenced in her own words "I know". she attempted to manipulate me by trying to get sympathy and when that didn't work, she doubled down on the same awful, repeated statement about catandkitty. frankly, the whole thing was triggering for me.

having someone deluge me with endless messages all basically just repeating themselves and all with the same disgusting, UNTRUE message about a traumatised woman who was only speaking the truth drove me right over the edge. so many people have explained so many times in so many ways, the only possible reason that occurs to me that carmen maintains her insistence that catandkitty's motives were what she claims is pure vindictiveness. having someone repeat the same HORRIBLE lie like that, over and over, someone intentionally using the most distressing and awful language possible, knowing full well the impact it would have, was awful. I couldn't believe she could lie like that, like she doesn't give a fuck about the actual impacts this is having on a real person. I yelled at her because I wanted her to know that no matter how many times she told the same lie, I would not believe her.

the messages were flying back and forth constantly and by the time I was able to reply to one thing she'd said, another couple of her messages had come through, disrupting the continuity of the messages. her efforts to trigger me reached their peak when she told me that I was trying to make rape easier so I could rape someone. with the sexual violence I've experienced in my past, I just went numb. I realised I was arguing with someone who has no soul and no heart. I played cool and blocked her. good riddance to a toxic hellhole.

I'm not proud I lost my shit with carmen, but that's because it's what she wanted. from the second she sent her first message she knew what angles to play. asking me to help her commit suicide was a seriously abusive and violent thing to do and I am still shaken by it. she wanted to distress me as much as possible, knowing she could then manipulate the conversation to further blind her sycophants and cast herself as persecuted.

I will call an abuser an abuser. carmen has lied and lied and lied about catandkitty and has obsessively stalked catandkitty for seven months now, which is a type of abuse. carmen uses catandkitty's abuse history against her in order to further traumatise her. that is abuse. and when someone is screaming the same stomach-churning lie calling a rape victim a "rape worshipper", you bet I will double down and tell that abusive person they are a liar, that I know they're lying, that they're not fooling me for one second. and there is no damn good reason for these vile lies, except that that piece of shit enjoys it. if someone is gonna stand their ground and maintain the same obvious lie, expressing it in the most violent language they can find, I will definitely draw my own conclusions about their agenda.

oh and catandkitty did NOT send me. another blatant lie, carmen. I acted on my own accord.

#courteousmingler #rape tw #abuse tw #stalking tw #harassment tw

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coldsoupy · 7 years ago

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High School Never Ends: Popularity and Engagement in the Digital Age

Everyone wants to be popular.

While this sentiment might not be outwardly expressed by many or overtly apparent in everyday life, there exists a deep-seeded need for validation and recognition. In the digital age (arguably starting with the first AOL Instant Messenger screen-names, MySpace profiles and Livejournal sites) this outward, public seeking of validation and approval has been at the core of every endeavor undertaken in the digital world of self-broadcasting, self-publishing and community entertainment.

Whether outwardly apparent to the post-er or not, every status update, photo upload, blog, vlog, reshare or creative work is a shared and curated element of self-promotion and self-branding that speaks to a need to control how people see who we are and recognize the things we stand for, create or “share.” Likes, comments, re-blogs and re-shares all amount to a point system, a personal catalog of validation that works like a checkbook ledger crediting and debiting the appeal of the creator.

People, hyper-aware of ideas on the spectrum of “going viral” to “trolling” post with total awareness of the weight they carry in the online sphere. Everything one “shares” is at its core a maintenance of an online persona, a way to lure people to think a-like or challenge people to debate with the intent of bringing attention to the very thing that was publicly created.

To exist on social media, in any capacity and on any medium, speaks to a personal need to be popular, accepted, validated and recognized.

Thus, I would like to focus on three key areas of 1.) personal creativity in a “friends” context, 2.) public personal creativity (blogs, vlogs, podcasts and websites) and 3.) activism to examine how public viewing, critiquing and collaboration have made virtually all forms of interaction on the media, at some level, an amplification of personal desires for popularity, acknowledgement and relevance.

I will attempt to articulate a unified nature to why we post what we post. What are we looking for in our digital authorship and will it ever be realized? Does our personal digital authorship have a point? Does our “shared” authorship matter if everyone’s an author? For what reasons does the “social media self” exist? Is there such a thing as post-popularity authorship?

Part I: Selfie

The selfie has become the poster-child for our digital times.

The sole-creator, sole-subject of a picture looks to show in the most blatant of ways, what “I” am doing. Check this out. While the selfie is not something everyone partakes in regularly while at the gym, at scenic locales or simply to show something unmissable in the moment, it does serve as a good starting point for the larger discussion of the role of popularity in social media. The selfie is a metaphor of the digital author in any form (including the selfie itself!).

In their paper Narcissism 2.0! Would narcissists follow fellow narcissists on Instagram?” the mediating effects of narcissists personality similarity and envy, and the moderating effects of popularity, Jin and Muqaddam (2018) point to a level of narcissism associated with and attached to selfie takers. They write that “selfies allow individuals to manipulate the angle of the shot, to be at the center of the frame, and to make certain poses and facial expressions that reflect the personality they wish to communicate. Social networking sites like Instagram and Snapchat provide filters that improve the quality of the image and digitally enhance the face by hiding skin-spots and controlling brightness. Hence, when social media audiences judge images where the source is self-centered, they naturally associate this self promotion with narcissism (Lee & Sung, 2016) and therefore perceive selfies as narcissistic behaviors (Re et al., 2016)” (Jin & Muqaddam 2018, p. 32). While the selfie remains one of the more obvious and self-centered forms of self-promotion on social media, the intent of the selfie is the same core intent that drives any singular post someone might make. It is a desire to outwardly “share” something with the expected viewership and feedback of a community in return.

Digital authorship, in all forms, is simply different reiterations of the selfie. The word count or perceived merits of “high-brow” creativity or the simplicity of the re-share does not take away from the core purpose of the piece of authorship: It is a way to be noticed and to reach a perceived audience.

Part II: Yourself, personally curated

Like a perfectly staged selfie of profile picture, how one portrays themself online through the things he or she shares speaks to the unique ability to self-create and self-curate our own online perceptions. Kurt Vonnegut once wrote, “We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful what we pretend to be.” This has never been more true than in our digital age and in regards to the task of personal digital authorship.

The act of wording a Tweet or choosing a recipe to share or choosing a cause to “like” all stems from the intrinsic knowledge that this information will be seen. The online persona is a sum of its digitally authored parts and it is responsive to the input of other digital authors.

Essentially, digital authors are in constant flux, tweaking, branding and altering digital personas to appeal to approval or recognition from online communities. The digital self is not static, it is constantly malleable to changing trends and events. In their study of different types of Facebook profile pictures, Wu, Chang and Yuan (2015) point out that “people use the internet to explore themselves. That everyone has two different entities; ‘true’ self and ‘actual’ self have been proposed before (McKenna, 2007). The user is highly motivated to project himself in the best possible way in the virtual world (Emmons, 1987)” (Wu, Chang & Yuan 2015, p. 881). This differentiation between the “true” and “actual” self speaks directly to Vonnegut’s “pretend to be” self. The words “true” and “actual” could just as easily be replaced with “digital” and “real-world” self and with that we could even branch those selves further!

Joachim Vogt Isaksen (2013) writes that a “person’s construction of an ‘imagined self-image’ is done unintentionally. We are not consciously aware that we often try to conform to the image that we imagine other people expect from us” (Isaksen 2013). One mirrors what he or she thinks will be acceptable to others and creates a version of themself accordingly.

To consider what elements of digital authorship show about our “best possible projections” is to consider the implications for our choices of what we show. It is worth noting, how absorbing the digitally authored, online self can be. Even in the midst of navigating real-world situations, the parallel Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, blog or other social platform sits ready to show new forms of validation for something shared. Who hasn’t scrolled through Twitter on the subway? To post a photo is not just to post a photo. To post a photo is to monitor the popularity of that photo in real time. What is the fallout from that photo? What is the impact of that photo? When does following analytics for a given photo cease being something worth looking at a smartphone for?

Isaksen (2013) points to American sociologist Charles Horton Cooley when he asserts, “[the] looking glass self, states that a person’s self grows out of a person’s social interactions with others. The view of ourselves comes from the contemplation of personal qualities and impressions of how others perceive us. Actually, how we see ourselves does not come from who we really are, but rather from how we believe others see us” (Isaksen 2013). With Cooley speaking to us from the turn of the 20th Century, it is easy to see how this idea of “self-image” has become hyper-edited and hyper-curated in the digital age.

While in person one might mimic body language subconsciously to gain someone’s favor, the world of back-and-forth digital authorship has allowed people to spend time and put great care into the maintenance of exactly who they are through their authorship. Shows such as MTV’s Catfish are built on the whole premise of people completely mirroring to the point of assuming someone else’s identity just for the sake of validation.

A post is more than a post, it’s an established ecosystem.

The point is not about the post. The significance lies in the life that takes shape around the post. The discussion or feedback or “virality” of the post is more important than the post itself. It is the cosmos that forms surrounding the post that gives the author meaning, feelings of validation and a reason to continue engaging. The post, no matter what it was, gave life to something.

That’s creationism.

Part III: You be an author while I be an author.

To be a digital author is to engage in “correspondent authorship.”

The act of writing a post and then responding with a gif is a case in point of back-and-forth authorship. While a face-to-face conversation is built around the moment, social cues, pragmatics, situations, visual and auditory stimuli; the act of being a digital author allows for wait time between interaction. In this way, the only way to respond to one’s online publication, even one so simple as “Love shopping at Aldi!” (Who’s my audience with that line? Why’d I say Aldi? The irony!) would be met with a considered and measure expression in return. The act of even considering whether to “like” a post carries with it the weight of realizing that the “like” will be seen by the author and that the “like” stands for something.

That “like” stands for a person and everyone can see who they are, everyone can think about why they “like” it and everyone can judge them.

Correspondent authorship, even between “friends” on Facebook is public domain. This is a central idea to the popularity drive behind every social media interaction. Companies like Facebook, Twitter or Tumblr afford the user a free service and all-important “wait-time” to express themselves. The promise of millions of other users having access to view and consume what we say or do, whether that many people actually engage with our published material, is enough to give everything we post, say or articulate a literal “pause.” Ranney (2015) writes that “the ability to control the dissemination of information and monitor self-representation in digital contexts helps individuals develop positive impressions among others and cultivate the esteem of their peers (Walther, 2011). Thus, information and communication technologies facilitate social and emotional adjustment by encouraging individuals to be more careful and deliberative in their digital interactions and behaviors than they are in their face-to-face interactions” (Ranney 2015, p. 4). This act of being “careful,” the momentary finger-hover over the enter key is our brain working not as a conversationalist, but rather as creator, editor and publisher of our own persona, hyper-aware of how the thoughts put to publication might play out.

And that’s just in the person-to-person interactions!

The things we choose to post and the multitude of other posted fragments, whether it be a Pinterest board or Instagram feed or news site with attention grabbing headlines, all feed into our ambient awareness. According to Levordashka and Utz (2016), “Ambient awareness can be defined as awareness of social others, arising from the frequent reception of fragmented personal information, such as status updates and various digital footprints, while browsing social media. “Ambient” emphasizes the idea that the awareness develops peripherally, not through deliberately attending to information, but rather as an artifact of social media activity” (Levordashka and Utz 2016, p. 147). The act of mindlessly scrolling through Instagram after a long day of work is actively working to develop ambient awareness of tens or perhaps dozens of people mathematically chosen to appear for one’s viewing pleasure. This ambient awareness informs us of trends, events or ideas worth further investigating, engaging with or forgetting about.

If enough people post about something, it’s going to get noticed.

In their study of “ambient awareness” on social media platforms, Levordashka and Utz (2016) used questionnaires to assess the extent to which people became aware of information in their networks just by browsing through a Twitter feed. Levordashka and Utz (2016) wrote the “results of this study show that people experience a sense of ambient awareness towards their online network. More importantly, they were able to recognize and report information about individual people in their network, whom they know only through the microblogging platform Twitter” (Levordashka and Utz 2016, p. 150).

Just as we have become accustomed to “scanning” for information, so too has our awareness of our social, political and professional circles become crowd-sourced. To just browse through what friends are posting on Facebook on a given night offers not just close friends, but acquaintances, ads and other algorithmically driven sponsored content based on the things we choose to publish. Thus, our acts of authorship are motivated to determine what social, political or professional circles we both see and pop up in.

Levordashka and Utz (2016) go on to conclude,“We demonstrate that browsing social media and frequently encountering various social information allows social media users to gain awareness of what is going on in the lives of people in their online network” (Levordashka and Utz 2016, p. 154). To engage on social media as an author and as an author on someone else’s authorship is further created in the context of being watched in a “fishbowl” so to speak. To engage on social media is part creation, part mathematical equation and part right-place-at-the-right-time all stemming from the initial desire to be noticed.

Whereas in person one must cultivate who they are in a fully dimensional way (emotionally, socially, physically), the digital world has been left as a place to write, edit and re-edit our memoirs in real time, see who’s reading it in depth and be intrinsically aware of the many others “window shopping.”

Part IV: Social Activism…there’s a brand for that

Social media has made social activism click-friendly.

To be an activist does not require physical action only intellectual action and a willingness to be vocal. In this way, activism in social media circles is kind of like comparing bumper stickers. There is a certain awareness that a “like” to an organization, whether it is Black Lives Matter, the National Rifle Association or Greenpeace, proclaims publically what one stands for.

Furthermore, to be an activist on a platform like Facebook, to “like” a page, offers a scroll bar of like-minded organizations, all with the same goal in mind, more likes and more clout that translates to more “likes” for the liker from the kind of people they want “liking” their posts.

Fichter and Avery (2012) write, “Having power and influence, making the things you advocate happen: This is the essence of clout. Does clout matter? Yes. On different issues, at different times and for different reasons, everyone wants their voices to be heard and their points of view acted upon, or at least understood, acknowledged and validated in some manner” (Fichter & Avery 2012, p. 58). This idea of clout puts community, social, political and grassroots organizations into the interesting space of brand management in order to achieve change. At some point, maybe around 10k “likes,” an organization enters a space of brand recognition that affords it the ability to market itself to people as a kind of “badge of honor.” Social movements become a way to express oneself without showing anything more than a copyrighted title and font.

In many ways, this appeal to broad popularity in a social media platform (soft activism) becomes a gateway to more concrete forms of activism such as giving money, protesting or voting (hard activism). In a study done on whether civic activism online made young people dormant or more active in real life, Milošević-Đorđević and Žeželj (2017) found that “when tailoring policies to

engage young people in civic activities, one has to have in mind different platforms and different topics; making them engaged in one type of activity makes it more probable that they would engage in others, making them engage in “soft activities” makes it more probable that they would engage in “hard activities” (Milošević-Đorđević and Žeželj 2017, p. 118). Therefore, it becomes essential for an organization to develop brand appeal and clout through activism and a key way to do this is to stand for something that people can show publically and let it, in turn, stand for who they are.

A drawback to the click “like” approach to activism lies in the “browser” nature of how we consume information online. To get into the nitty-gritty details is simply not something everyone has time for, so to “like” something one stands for places a level of trust in the organization to promote an imagine that maintains the cultivated imagine one hopes to achieve by advertising their “like” for that organization.

Ranney and Troop (2015) explore how this at-a-distance approach to social interaction leads to disconnection when they point out that “information and communication technologies (ICTs) limit the number of non-verbal social cues available during social interactions (i.e., facial expressions, vocal inflections, body language; Lee, 2004; Tanis & Postmes, 2003; Walther, 2011), which in turn reduces the total amount of observed information that is exchanged during interactions. The consequence is that ICTs may reduce the total amount of information exchanged, including the ability to convey one’s emotions, revisit topics, and discuss topics in detail” (Ranney & Troop 2015, p. 64). This lack of information exchanged directly correlates to the Trump-era we find ourselves in. The “like” of something Facebook recommends we like or the “follow” we give to someone Twitter says we should follow supplants the way one explains themselves, relying instead on social crutches to explain their views or personality for them through shares or re-tweets.

In 2016 people could go online and like a page proclaiming, “Make America Great Again,” they could buy a red hat and wear it and in those few words, so much could be said. Was it a movement? A feeling? A trend?

Whatever it was, people could share it, their “friends” could “like” it and their views were validated. The kicker was when those “likes” turned into mobile votes.

Instances such as this, mass movements based on catch-phrases and gut-impulses, is a natural conclusion to an online, social culture based on self-promotion, fast, bountiful information and limited time to consume or articulate stances, viewpoints or feelings. There lacks a need to explain one’s post if it is someone else doing the explaining. The digital author simply gets the credit for sharing, not articulating and the greater the ecosystem of engagement created, the greater the success.

If something feels right, why not share it and see who reciprocates those feelings?

Part V: Moving On

As an avid digital author in numerous forms myself, it is unclear whether there is a remedy to the popularity driven social authorship or whether there even needs to be a remedy. In essence, is being driven by popularity wrong? The moral implications of why we engage on social media aside, it can be asserted with confidence that the vast majority of our social, digital authorship through personal posts, blogs, vlogs, podcasts or other forms of creative publication is driven by a need for validation within a community or by a more open-public audience.

Validation in the form of debate-seeking trolls or likes or upvotes all add to a subconscious (or conscious!) tally of who sees our stuff, who likes it and who values its creation in the first place.

In short, we are a large part of each other’s entertainment, so we’d better have evidence that we are entertaining!

Ranney (2017) in his study of adolescent social interaction on the internet as a means to maintain social hierarchies, points to the growing influence of digital societies on social interaction. Ranney notes that “socialization through information and communication technology (ICTs) is so pervasive that, compared to 35% adolescents who report socializing face-to-face outside of school, 63% of adolescents text their friends daily, 39% talk with friends on cell phones, 29% message friends through social networks, 22% communicate through instant messaging, and 6% email their friends daily (Lenhart, 2012). Although time spent in school and in-person gatherings with friends remain important for adolescents’ social and emotional well-being, a majority of the social interactions that peers have with one another during adolescence is currently taking place in digitally mediated contexts” (Ranney 2015, p. 2). This time spent in digital social circles points to a need to fully understand and embrace what drives acts of digital authorship, come to terms with the underlying reason people are engaging online and decide whether “online” is ever meant for something bigger; driven by creations that are less self-serving.

Despite researching adolescents, I would not expect an adult sample to look much different in terms of time spent in digital realms. An adolescent posting about secret levels in a computer game and a middle aged man posting a cat meme are both driven to publish material for the same reasons; recognition and validation. It’s almost like a mantra.

Thus, as with anything else, attention is the catalyst for what one chooses to do. Where we place our attention is where we place value and seek to find quality.

Tiffany Shlain (2017) points out that “attention is the mind’s greatest resource”. She goes on to picture “the Internet, like the developing brain of a child…in a rapid phase of growth and change” (Shlain 2017). Like a small child, countless synapses are forming as the Internet grows in real time. More than being just “along for the ride,” we are active builders in the unseen and unrealized scope of what the Internet will become. Our acts of digital authorship, while being currently driven by popularity as a catalyst to create might need to become something more empathetic or humble if we hope to see social media and digital platforms become more altruistic than they appear to be. If Facebook’s recent rebrand as something “pure” has shown us anything, it seems we might be turning a small corner towards seeing social media in a different light.

There’s more to all of this than just “sharing” in different forms. I’m sure of it.

“This means that just as we must be mindful in how we nurture our children’s minds,” Shlain notes, “we must also pay careful attention to how we develop our global brain” (Shlain 2017). Our information and our authorship is shared content in the public domain. No matter what the privacy settings, someone else has access to it. It is a building block. It might feel insignificant or goofy or even useless and futile, but it is valuable information that informs a larger design. With the role of “builder” rather than “user” in mind, one can begin to envision a larger calling in the name of global consciousness and motivation behind digital authorship. One begins to not just be a personal creator, but a contributing creator. One is part of a larger one.

On the other hand, maybe a good, well-timed meme is as good as it gets.

Resources

Fichter, D. d., & Avery, C. c. (2012). Tools of Influence: Strategic Use of Social Media. Online, 36(4), 58–60.

Isaksen, Joachim Vogt. (2013). The Looking Glass Self: How Our Self-image is Shaped by Society. Retrieved April 17, 2018, from http://www.popularsocialscience.com/2013/05/27/the-looking-glass-self-how-our-self-image-is-shaped-by-society/

Jin, S. v., & Muqaddam, A. m. (2018). “Narcissism 2.0! Would narcissists follow fellow narcissists on Instagram?” the mediating effects of narcissists personality similarity and envy, and the moderating effects of popularity. Computers In Human Behavior, 8131–41.

Levordashka, A. a., & Utz, S. s. (2016). Ambient awareness: From random noise to digital closeness in online social networks. Computers In Human Behavior, 60147–154.

Milošević-Đorđević, J. J., & Žeželj, I. z. (2017). Civic activism online: Making young people dormant or more active in real life?. Computers In Human Behavior, 70113–118.

Ranney, J. D. (2015). Popular in the digital age: Self-monitoring, aggression, and prosocial behaviors in digital contexts and their associations with popularity (Doctoral dissertation, North Dakota State University).

Ranney, J.D., & Troop-Gordon, W. (2015). Problem discussions in digital contexts: The impact of information and communication technologies on emotional experiences and feelings of closeness toward friends. Computers in Human Behavior, 51, 64–74.

Shlain, T. (2017). How The Internet Is Like A Child’s Brain. Retrieved April 17, 2018, from https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/brain-power-film-and-ted-book_b_2083785.html

Wu, Y. w., Chang, W. i., & Yuan, C. d. (2015). Do Facebook profile pictures reflect user’s personality?. Computers In Human Behavior, 51880–889.

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