Fannish expectations

[dysprositos]

The conversation over in oliviacirce's posts about the differences between the Scary Ponies Oh No (commonly referred to as "book fandom", "SF fandom", "con-going fandom", and "those fanboys over there") and the Pretty Princess Monsters Blargh (a.k.a. "media fandom", "LJ fandom", "us fangirls", and "LJ-centered Western media fandom which reads Metafandom") is spawning all sorts of interesting discussion.

There have been all sorts of distinctions made, among them:

• Demographics: mostly white men versus women with a more-proportional white:nonwhite ratio;


• Fanacs: LARPing, collecting, trivia, filk versus fanfic, meta, fanart, fanvids


• Primary location: conventions versus Internet


• Thinking style: linear versus hypertext


• Relationship with the PTB: worshipful with a side of "I'll be one someday" leading to a tendency to side with them, friendly, officially-sanctioned versus neutral or adversarial, resistive to attempts at commercialization, and little interest in becoming a PTB


• Attitude towards fanacs: commercially viable and potentially career-launching versus fun and non-commercial amateur hobby


• Attitude towards canon: love or hate, but don't criticize, only fixable by fanwank, only one canon versus love and hate, criticize even your favorite shows if they deserve to be, fixable by fanfic, multiple canons

(Note that this is about the overall culture, not individuals by any means. There's far too much overlap for this to be at all a useful metric on the individual level.)

These differences lead to larger differences like the Scary Ponies Oh No dismissing activities, like fanfiction, associated with the Pretty Princess Monsters Blargh, often either because it's not being used as a launching point for a career (because the path from consumer to creator is so much a part of Scary Ponies Oh No expectations, if you stop midway, you're not an amateur, you're a failure); because it's perceived as trying to "fix" or, worse, redo canon and is thus an insult to the PTB; because it's a girl thing; or some combination of the preceding.

(Or, just thought of this, the tendency of Scary Ponies Oh No to bring their "squee, not critique" attitude to bear on themselves, so there are a lot of celebrations of fannishness but not so much introspection of what it means to be a Scary Pony Oh No or what needs to be improved or fixed. There tends to be a lot of "what do we do about the graying of fandom" hand-wringing, but also a marked resistance to any kind of change within fandom, without which young people are less likely to be interested. [Have you seen the SFWA website?] And not many discussions of things like sexism, homophobia, racism, and so on within fandom--whenever people do try to bring it up, the reaction of "we're not like that!" or "if we are, it doesn't matter!" or "we are like that and it matters, but there's nothing we can do about it but wait for the Old Guard to die off" is strong. Whereas one of the defining features of the Pretty Princess Monsters Blargh is a tendency toward introspection and self-critique; that's what Metafandom is for, after all: discussions of fandom, like this one.)

One of the points I made was

I think it is also worth noting that (it seems to me that, standard disclaimers apply) Scary Ponies Oh No expect a greater degree of homogeneity of interests outside the obviously fannish. I.e.: cats, computers, chocolate, RenFaire and/or D&D (or GURPS or whatever), a passing familiarity at least with Morris dancing, anti-Microsoft, &c. I'm not really sure what the equivalents for Pretty Princess Monsters Blargh would be; it's my perception that we're (much?) more likely to be liberal or leftist in some way, while Scary Ponies Oh No have a higher degree of libertarianism, and certainly if nothing else Pretty Princess Monsters Blargh fandom as a whole seems to expect anti-racist, anti-sexist, anti-homophobic, &c. sentiment.

to which aamcnamara replied

I think that the Pretty Princess Monsters Blargh also (to a certain degree) are anti-Microsoft--there are definitely expectations, just different ones. Like you, though, I am not certain exactly what those are.

So, lest this question get lost in the larger discussion: what expectations do we (Western media fandom as found on LJ and other journaling services, and united with such communities as Metafandom, Fandom_Wank, Fandom_Secrets, and so on) have of each other that are not related to fandom but that are not expectations we would have for humanity at large?

I'll start, adding to my comment above: I think that we have a tendency to expect each other to have some familiarity (even if only in passing, through reading each other's meta and reaction posts and out-of-fandom fic) with particular source texts that have or had large fandoms, e.g., Xena: Warrior Princess, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel: the Series, Firefly, the Sentinel, the Man From UNCLE, Stargate: Atlantis and Stargate: SG-1, Harry Potter, Doctor Who and Torchwood, Sarah Connor Chronicles, Star Trek, Star Wars, Pirates of the Caribbean, and more recently Merlin, Supernatural, and Dollhouse. Not necessarily be fannish about, not necessarily have seen the canon for, but at least have heard of it and maybe have some knowledge of what it's about, main character names, &c.

Comments

[dysprositos]

I don't know that I actually have the expectations you list

Obviously the idea that we would all have similar expectations is itself a dangerous expectation. Disagree away! ;-)

And I just can't escape the idea (sorry, I'm a bit obsessive) that while SPON are feminist, it's in that "we can all be boys together" sort of way, while PPMB seem to me to be actually doing female-socialisation-based culture.

Obsessiveness is good, when it leads to insights like this! It is true that SPON often label themselves feminist, but it seems like some of the ideas about how to act feminist are somewhat...well, "we can all be boys together." I know much of SPON fandom was against the Open Source Boob Project debacle, but I think the impulse of "let's celebrate [women's] bodies! Obviously since all women are just as hardy as men, they will not react adversely to being asked if we can grope them! And if they do, they will do it in manly assertive ways like telling us off, not by feeling so uncomfortable they leave and never come to cons again or anything like that!" which, um, is a nice thought but completely ignores how women's experiences are different from men's and what kind of power dynamics exist whenever a guy or group of guys asks a completely strange woman (but only the ones who were dressed provocatively! Because that was how we could tell if they were sexually open!) if they can feel her up.

Again, I'd like to stress that I realize not all Scary Ponies Oh No were involved in the OSBP, approved of it, or failed to argue vociferously against it, but I think that the "boys can be boys, and girls can be boys!" attitude (while a step up feminism-wise from more gender essentialist and patriarchy-supporting attitudes) often leads to a dismissal of women's concerns in less obviously fail-y ways, like inviting a well-known sexually-harassing man to convention after convention because he's a famous author and anyway all new con-going young women will surely be warned away from sharing elevators with him by their more-experienced friends, or constantly talking about why there aren't more women among the Scary Ponies Oh No without taking into account the very real dangers women can be in in male-dominated space.

I myself went through a "we can all be boys together" phase but I think it's worth leaving behind. Because some aspects of "being a boy" are privileged asshole behaviours.

You have exactly encapsulated why I am becoming increasingly disenchanted with nerd culture as a whole. Racefail was a factor, but mostly it's being entirely surrounded by people who are mostly straight (or closeted heteronormative) white guys who are all in favor of "privileged asshole behaviors" (because it is EDGY! because the PC pendulum has swung so far the opposite way that they are OPPRESSED as white males and so they are standing up to the (Wo)man with gay jokes and the casual use of the word "rape" and denigration of Africa, Asia, and Mexico! Who knew standing up to the Man could look so much like supporting the kyriarchy?) and totally against things like empathy and self-censorship and basic social skills and etiquette and things.

And some of it's ROTC culture and some of it is flyboy culture, but a depressing amount is nerd culture, and I'm learning to recognize "I've got no social skills and I'm proud of it!" as an excuse to be totally sexist and racist and homophobic (not that Asperger's and so on don't exist, but somehow I doubt that is the problem of all of these boys).

So, in short, yes to "it's worth leaving behind."

[aquaeri]

To a first approximation, I want to marry this comment and bear its children.

[damned_colonial]

You have exactly encapsulated why I am becoming increasingly disenchanted with nerd culture as a whole. Racefail was a factor, but mostly it's being entirely surrounded by people who are mostly straight (or closeted heteronormative) white guys who are all in favor of "privileged asshole behaviors"

THIS. YES YES YES.

God, sometimes I hate my so-called community.