ingrid

When is fandom going to get over this obsession with proving itself an egalitarian community when that's not, will never and cannot be the case?

Why this weird need to umbrella what amounts to an asteroid field, millions of individual rocks that occasionally get caught in each other's orbit for long periods of time, sometimes crashing into each other accidentally (sometimes with violent intent) while others float peacefully in their own space forever, unknowing and uncaring of what's going on on the other side of the belt?

Why are we setting ourselves up to violently argue over what constitutes a fan? Are we a male space or a female one or something that should be defined fandom by fandom or should we even ponder such an exclusionary question? Do we really want to be "umbrella"'d with anyone or anything that is created under the as-yet-undetermined definition of "transformative works" -- a definition that will probably become so broad as to be meaningless or so restrictive as to divide fandom along untenable lines?

Is there some kind of punishment for not playing along? Where will the Island of Misfit Fen be located? (I just want to know so I can start scoping the better parcel of swamp land for myself -- unlike you communists I'm old enough to recognize the value of "be prepared".)

All joking aside, I know that part of being an online fan invites a certain amount of control-freakishness but this is getting silly. How about we let the asteroid field revolve, expand, shrink, destruct and rebuild on its own without trying to mash it all together into an impossible, seething lump restrained by unnatural boundaries? Fandom has always been the product of its own uneven evolution, a combination of new technology, old-fashioned ingenuity and sheer human talent -- as well as intensely ugly human foibles.

I mean, I personally don't care what happens as I know a. where I stand and b. exactly where this thing is headed and that just means more amusement for me in my dotage. Still, the control-freak part of me wishes I could gently steer folks away from the oncoming poopstorm ...

Nah. Bring on the funny. I'll be over here with the liquor and exploding cigars.



# Heidi K. Says:
December 14th, 2007 at 11:39 am

OTW suffers from the fact that the majority (if not the entirety) of the upper level (board +committees), as well as most of the supporters, are coming from extremely similar fannish backgrounds. Female-dominated media-based fandom (I should note that not all fanwork-producing fandom is “media fandom”, many of those of us who write RPF reject that label) focused on LiveJournal.

Not that any of those are bad things. But the view and experiences at the core of OTW are a small fraction of overall fannish views and experiences, and as such they tend to misunderstand/misrepresent segments of fandom they’re not used to. Not necessarily with any ill intent - although I do question why their response to “this doesn’t apply to my experience” or “this excludes me” tends to be “no it’s not, because I say so” rather than an attempt to understand - but it happens all the same.

And so as someone who falls outside their comfort zone, I have one main issue: if, in advocating for legitimacy, they succeed only in legitimizing that which they are currently presenting as fandom, those who are misrepresented are still out in the cold.

I’m also troubled by their disregard for anything outside their paradigm; their contempt and/or ignorance of existing projects (I still have yet to get a good explanation why they intend to create a wiki, when one is already in existence, and fairly successful) has me thinking they are only out to legitimize fandom on their terms, done their way.