What Happens Next: A Gallimaufry

on fan discourse

fozmeadows:
spidergvven:
involuntaryorange:
fozmeadows:
*wades cautiously into the wank-infested waters of Fan Discourse, pulls out megaphone*
AS FANFIC IS PRODUCED FOR FREE, IT’S KIND OF SHITTY TO COMPLAIN ABOUT ITS LITERARY QUALITY OR THE FREQUENCY OF UPDATES. THESE ARE COMMERCIAL EXPECTATIONS THAT CAN’T BE FAIRLY APPLIED TO WORKS CREATED AT AND FOR NO COST.
THAT BEING SAID:
AS FANFIC IS PUBLISHED FOR PUBLIC CONSUMPTION, IT’S KIND OF DISINGENUOUS TO COMPLAIN ABOUT READERS HAVING CRITICAL REACTIONS TO THE CONTENT. CRITICISM IS A LITERARY REACTION THAT CAN’T BE FAIRLY DENIED ON THE BASIS OF WHETHER OR NOT THE WORK COST MONEY.
THAT BEING SAID:
REGARDLESS OF WHETHER A WORK IS COMMERCIAL OR FANNISH, GOING OUT OF YOUR WAY TO SEND HATE OR CRITICISM DIRECTLY TO THE AUTHOR IS A DICK MOVE. YOU CAN DISCUSS THE CONTENT, MERITS AND/OR FAILINGS OF A GIVEN WORK WITHOUT THE NEED TO MAKE THEM AWARE OF YOUR FEELINGS. EVEN WHEN A WORK IS CREATED COMMERCIALLY, CREATORS ARE NOT BEHOLDEN TO THE PREFERENCES OF INDIVIDUAL FANS, NOT LEAST OF ALL BECAUSE THIS IS A PHYSICALLY IMPOSSIBLE STANDARD FOR ANYONE TO MEET. SOME WRITERS ARE HAPPY TO BE MADE AWARE OF CONSTRUCTIVE CRITICISM IN WHATEVER FORM, BUT MANY EXPRESS A PREFERENCE NOT TO SEE ANY, OR PREFER TO DO SO ONLY AT CERTAIN TIMES. IF YOU’RE NOT SURE, ASK FIRST. THIS IS BASIC COURTESY, BOTH PERSONALLY AND PROFESSIONALLY.
THAT BEING SAID:
SOME INTERACTIVE ONLINE SPACES - SUCH AS AO3, GOODREADS AND TUMBLR - ARE FAIRLY USED AND INHABITED BY BOTH CREATORS AND READERS. AS THESE SITES ENCOURAGE READER RESPONSES AND COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT VIA COMMENTS, REVIEWS AND REBLOGS AS A BASIC FUNCTION, IT’S GROSSLY UNREALISTIC FOR CREATORS POSTING IN THESE SPACES TO EXPECT TO ENCOUNTER ZERO CRITICISM EVER. SOMEONE EXPRESSING ABUSE OR UNWANTED COMMENTARY DIRECTLY TO A CREATOR IS NOT THE SAME AS READER/READER ENGAGEMENT TAKING PLACE WHERE THE CREATOR CAN SEE IT. YOUR MILEAGE MAY VARY AS TO WHERE THAT LINE EVENTUALLY BLURS, BUT THE POINT IS THAT IT DOES BLUR AS A MATTER OF COURSE, AND THAT THIS IS A FEATURE RATHER THAN A BUG - ONE THAT WE ALL HAVE TO LEARN TO NAVIGATE.
THAT BEING SAID:
THE FACT THAT SOMEONE HAS WRITTEN SOMETHING THAT YOU FIND QUESTIONABLE, IMMORAL OR OTHERWISE AWFUL DOESN’T MEAN THE CREATOR SHOULD LOSE THE RIGHT TO CREATE MORE THINGS, OR THAT SUCH WORKS OUGHT TO BE ILLEGAL. YOU ARE WITHIN YOUR RIGHTS TO OFFER UP CRITICISM OF THE WORK ITSELF, THE TROPES IT EMPLOYS AND THE CONTEXT OF THEIR USAGE, BUT THE PROBLEM WITH ADVOCATING FOR THE TOTAL BAN OF PARTICULAR TYPES OF CONTENT IS THAT FICTION IS INHERENTLY LIMINAL. GIVEN THAT DEPICTION DOES NOT EQUAL ENDORSEMENT AND THE FACT THAT THE IMPACT OF A NARRATIVE IS ULTIMATELY DETERMINED BY THE INDIVIDUAL READER, IT IS IMPOSSIBLE TO BAN ALL STORIES WHICH USE “IMMORAL” DEVICES UNCRITICALLY WITHOUT SIMULTANEOUSLY BANNING STORIES WHICH EXAMINE AND ACKNOWLEDGE THEM IN DIFFERENT WAYS, AND THAT’S BEFORE YOU TRY TO GET A ROOMFUL OF PEOPLE FROM DIFFERENT COUNTRIES, CULTURES AND BACKGROUNDS TO AGREE ON WHAT “IMMORAL” MEANS IN FICTIONAL CONTEXTS IN THE FIRST PLACE, WHICH DEFINITION IS NEVER GOING TO OVERLAP PERFECTLY WITH WHAT “IMMORAL” MEANS TO THE SAME PEOPLE IRL.
THAT BEING SAID:
THE FACT THAT FANFIC IS FREQUENTLY WRITTEN IN THE SPIRIT OF NARRATIVE COUNTERCULTURE DOESN’T STOP IT FROM CONTRIBUTING TO THE SPREAD OF TOXIC TROPES OR STEREOTYPES THAT ARE ALSO PRESENT IN MAINSTREAM CULTURE AND/OR COMMERCIAL MEDIA. DEPICTION IS NOT ENDORSEMENT, BUT IT IS PERPETUATION, AND THE FACT THAT SOMETHING WAS WRITTEN FOR FREE DOES NOT MAGICALLY BALANCE ITS POTENTIAL NEGATIVE IMPACT AT EITHER AN INDIVIDUAL OR COLLECTIVE LEVEL. WRITING FIC IS OFTEN DESCRIBED AS A HOBBY, BUT AS IT IS LARGELY A SHARED ACTIVITY UNDERTAKEN WITHIN A DEDICATED COMMUNITY, IT IS A PUBLIC HOBBY, AND CAN THEREFORE POTENTIALLY IMPACT MORE PEOPLE THAN JUST THE INDIVIDUAL WRITER. KNITTING IS ALSO A HOBBY IN WHICH INDIVIDUALS CAN INVEST A GREAT DEAL OF TIME AND FEELING - AND, INDEED, MONEY - BUT IF SOMEONE IN YOUR KNITTING CIRCLE STARTED BRINGING IN SWEATERS THEY’D MADE EMBLAZONED WITH RACIST SLOGANS, THE IMPACT OF THIS ACT ON OTHER GROUP MEMBERS WOULD NOT BE AMELIORATED BY THE REMINDER THAT ‘IT’S A HOBBY’. IF THIS IS A VIABLE DEFENCE, IT IS A DEFENCE THAT CAN BE USED EQUALLY BY THOSE WHO WANT TO ACT WITHOUT CONSIDERATION FOR OTHERS IN THEIR COMMUNITY AND THOSE WHO WISH TO ENJOY THAT COMMUNITY WITHOUT FEAR OF BEING PERSONALLY DISPARAGED, AND IS THEREFORE LESS A DEFENCE IN EITHER CASE THAN A STATEMENT OF FACT WITH NO ACTUAL BEARING ON HOW TO SOLVE THE PROBLEM.
IN CONCLUSION:
THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN GOOD MANNERS, PERSONAL POLITICS AND FREEDOM OF SPEECH IS A COMPLEX ONE. IN THE WHOLE OF HUMAN HISTORY, NOBODY HAS YET SOLVED IT TO THE PERFECT SATISFACTION OF ANYONE OTHER THAN THEMSELVES, AND WHILE THAT DOESN’T MEAN THERE ISN’T A BETTER SOLUTION TO BE HAD IN THE FUTURE, I GUARANTEE THAT NEITHER CREATIVE ISOLATIONISM NOR BLANKET CENSORSHIP WILL GET US THERE, BECAUSE THE ONE THING BOTH THOSE POSITIONS SHARE IS FEAR OF CRITICAL ENGAGEMENT WITH A PERSON WHO DISAGREES WITH YOU, WHICH IS THE ONE THING YOU ABSOLUTELY NEED IN ORDER TO PROGRESS A DISCUSSION PAST WHATEVER STALLED YOU IN THE FIRST PLACE.
*flings megaphone into the distance, dons portable sharkcage, wades irritably back to dry land*
Oh my god, thank you.
uhhh, that being said: pornographic adult/minor content is literally illegal. and yall can take that up w the fbi if u have a problem.
Several points, in no particular order:
- Anti child-pornography laws exist in most places for a really fucking good reason, that is not for one second in contention, but different countries define those laws in different ways when it comes to fictional content, as distinct from images depicting the actual abuse of actual children. In many cases, there aren’t a lot of genuine legal precedents around prosecuting the creation of such content regardless of the letter of the law, so implying ficwriters are in danger of being investigated by the FBI is… not really accurate. I mean, Nabokov’s Lolita is the obvious thing to cite here, but there are people who tried to get Laurie Halse Anderson’s Speak banned from high schools because they considered its depiction of rape to be pornographic. There are multiple (ostensibly consensual) sex scene in A Game of Thrones between a twelve-year-old Daenerys (yeah, they aged her way up for the show) and the adult Khal Drogo, and those books are currently bestsellers. Plenty of things that are awful and immoral and illegal in real life are routinely depicted in fiction - murder, torture, domestic abuse - and not always in contexts where the text makes clear “hey, this stuff is Bad”. Talking about them is important, but for the reasons stated in the original post, it is really, really difficult to flat-out ban a particular type of content without simultaneously banning a whole bunch of stuff you might have preferred to keep, or at least not criminalise, so no, the FBI is very unlikely to open that particular interpretive can of worms right now.
- By way of an international counterpoint, there has been a recent crackdown in China on slashwriters, most of them young women, who’ve been arrested for writing, not underage sex, but queer sex of any kind. Which is an extreme but nonetheless salient example of what happens when you a) criminalise “immoral” writing and b) actually follow through on the consequences, because the thing about criminalising immorality is that, once other people and the associated legal systems get in on the action, it very seldom stops at the place where you think it should.
- Different countries - to say nothing of different places in the US - have different laws as to what constitutes a minor. I’m Australian: in New South Wales, the state where I grew up, the age of consent is sixteen. It’s seventeen in South Australia, and sixteen in Queensland unless you’re having anal sex, in which case it’s eighteen because legal homophobia. Which is why, for practical reasons, the legal system frequently attempts to have a case-by-case approach to instances where, for instance, a fifteen-year-old willingly has sex with a sixteen year-old-partner. Attempts, but doesn’t always succeed: there are still too many instances of teenagers being legally registered as sex offenders for life for sleeping with other teenagers, or or being charged with disseminating child pornography for taking or sending naked selfies. Which is another way of saying that, firstly, even IRL, there is no global agreement on what constitutes a minor or what the practical rule for consensual sex between two young people, one or both of whom is slightly underage by the resident definition, should be; and secondly, that this makes it really difficult to impose a blanket ban on fictional depictions of underage anything without cutting out a whole lot of (comparatively) non-objectionable content.
- Defending creative freedom as a general point doesn’t negate making harsh criticism of certain works thus produced. It’s not contradictory to say “you were legally entitled to make that thing, but I think it’s super fucking gross and here’s why”. You know how GamerGaters and their associated hangers-on are constantly equating feminist criticism of videogames with censorship, because they think that saying “I hated this game and thought it was misogynistic as hell” is the same as saying “legally, nobody should be able to make that sort of thing ever again”? Yeah. That. It’s not that I want to outlaw (for instance) uncritically misogynistic stories; it’s that I want to change the prevailing cultural attitude that says there’s nothing wrong with them. Making laws about what people can and can’t create on the basis of morality does not work, but actively discussing stories and tropes in the context of their cultural impact? That can actually get us somewhere, and that’s what I prefer to do.
Reblogging for extra content, but also good news: The legal age for consensual anal sex in Queensland has been brought into line with all other lawful sexual acts, ending “archaic” legislation against homosexuals.