Episode 115: Power Plays
In Episode 115, “Power Plays,” Flourish and Elizabeth discuss three listener letters that deal with the use (or misuse) different kinds of power in and adjacent to fandom. How do we navigate a social media world where creators can find—and fuel a backlash towards—negative critique? How do the amorphous structures of the fanfic world give some readers and writers more power than others? And what can you do if the person making your life miserable in a closed fandom community is also in charge of that space?
Show Notes
[00:00:00] As always, our intro music is “Awel” by stefsax, used under a CC BY 3.0 license.
[00:01:47] The episode in which we discuss Euphoria and Good Omens is #104, “The Fourth Wall Redux.”
[00:02:52] The article that started the whole Sarah Dessen situation: “Common Read hits 10 years at Northern,” in the Aberdeen News.
[00:07:18] Emily Nussbaum joined us for Episode 105.
[00:10:53] The Radiolab episode we’re discussing is called “Right to be Forgotten.” The local news organization experimenting with the right to forget is Cleveland.com.
[00:19:12] We discussed the way that smaller scale creators get attacked with Lilah Vandenburgh in Episode 56, “Ships and Showrunners.”
Ravelry requires a log-in to see most of its pages, so in case you’re not familiar:
[00:45:44] Our interstitial music throughout the podcast is “Everywhere,” by Lee Rosevere, used under a CC BY 3.0 Creative Commons license.
[00:48:53] We most recently talked about open and closed fan spaces in Episode 113, “Waffle House is a Reylo.” Before that, we talked about the topic extensively with Rukmini Pande in Episode 89.
[00:55:37] In 2012, someone wrote to ask advice columnist Dear Prudence what to do if she suspected her mother-in-law of poisoning her. That was wild enough, but later she wrote again to say she had confirmed that her mother-in-law was indeed poisoning her and her husband took his mom’s side.
Transcript
[Intro music]
Flourish Klink: Hi, Elizabeth!
Elizabeth Minkel: Hi, Flourish.
FK: And welcome to Fansplaining, the podcast by, for, and about fandom!
ELM: This is Episode #115, “Power Plays.” Power plays.
FK: [laughs] You said that so, so enthusiastically, like you were gonna like wear an ’80s jumpsuit. Shoulder pads.
ELM: Uh, you are literally wearing the jumpsuit right now, you know that’s not my style. I would be wearing the shoulder pads.
FK: Maybe I mean, maybe I mean like a blazer, not a jumpsuit.
ELM: Yes, you got it, you got it.
FK: But I was just thinking about something with, like, big shoulders, and some like large earrings?
ELM: Oh wow I wanna wear this right now.
FK: Yeah. And your hair in its full glory!
ELM: Yeah, you know, I’ve always regretted that I was but a child in the ’80s, because that would have been a great time for me personally to have been a teenager, because if anybody doesn’t know what I look like, I have curly hair.
FK: Yeah. Quite, quite curly.
ELM: Thank you. Thanks!
FK: [laughs] OK. So we got a series of questions that all sort of related to different issues of interpersonal power in fandom. And we thought that was interesting and we thought that they would be interesting to talk about together. So that’s what our plan is for today.
ELM: Yes. Power plays. So I think it might be worth probably people listening to, if they haven’t, the episode we did early in the summer where we touched on some of this stuff when we were talking about Neil Gaiman and Michael Sheen and the Good Omens fandom, and then in the second half of that episode about HBO’s Euphoria and the depiction of a One Direction slash writer.
FK: This is kind of an evergreen topic, but that’s a particularly good one to look back to.
ELM: Yeah, it is, it is a perennial topic. I think that the letters we’re gonna read today, they’re working on a few different levels. I think that episode was a really good kind of solid, those were fan–creator.
FK: Yeah.
ELM: In the sort of big-buckety ways. I mean, well, Euphoria maybe that’s not. That’s fan and creators, which is like viewer and…all right maybe that was also complicated too! Anyway, if you haven’t listened to that one, you should listen to it as well. We’ll put it in the show notes if you need a quick reference. But let’s go to our letters, then!
FK: Right. So the first one is almost not even really a letter. It was more of a request that we talk about, quote, “the Sarah Dessen situation.” Which, if people missed this, it was—it’s now kinda old news but I think it’s a good way to ease into this topic kind of?
ELM: Sure.
FK: Which is that this YA author, Sarah Dessen, tweeted an excerpt from a small South Dakota paper. And in this paper, a…I guess at this point former college student was talking about being on the committee that picks, like, the Common Read book, the book that everyone at the college, this little college, reads in their freshman year. And she said, here, I’m actually gonna pull up the quote just so that I don’t you know, misrepresent what was said.
This, this person said that she fought hard against a Sarah Dessen book being selected, quote, “she’s fine for teen girls, but definitely not up to the level of Common Read, so I became involved simply so I could stop them from ever choosing Sarah Dessen.” And then she went on to say that they had picked this book Just Mercy, which is I guess about race, although I don’t know all the details. “It was incredible…”
ELM: I don’t wanna misspeak but I think it was about the prison system as well.
FK: Yeah. So, OK, quote, “It was incredible so that became the book I supported. That’s how I sort of inadvertently joined the Common Read committee.” And a lot of people liked the book that they picked. But Sarah Dessen screenshotted this and was like, “What the fuck.”
ELM: To clarify, she screenshotted it without the second half of what they actually chose.
FK: Right.
ELM: So when people found that she had kind of cut it off at that point they were like, “Very convenient that this white author chooses not to mention that they chose a book by an author of color about race instead,” so just for the full context of that.
FK: So, right. So she just quoted the first part.
ELM: She was centering the comments about her in this excerpt, I would say. [laughs]
FK: Right. And then a lot of people came to her defense.
ELM: OK, so the thing that she said about it was like “I really hope that this person knows that authors are real people with real feelings,” and like, essentially that this hurt her feelings.
FK: Right. And then a lot of—
ELM: She didn’t necessarily say anything about like “Don’t shame teen girls,” which is what it kind of quickly turned into.
FK: Which is what it turned into, becuase a lot of people like, you know, like Jodi Picoult, like, you know? Justine Larbalestier—is that how you say her last name?
ELM: I don’t know.
FK: Anyway, her.
ELM: Jennifer Weiner, notably, famous writer of what, what…I don’t know if she actually uses the term “chick lit,” if she kind of reclaims that or not but she’s the most famous chick lit author championing, like, “When you dismiss us,” et cetera et cetera.
FK: Right. But then also like Roxane Gay, right. All these people were like “This sucks, what this girl said in this tiny South Dakota paper, and like, also, don’t hate on YA,” basically. Like, this is, this is, in fact Jodi Picoult framed it as like “Stop defending the patriarchy.” You know. “Stop supporting the patriarchy by, you know, rejecting YA.” And… [sighs] Then that was not great because that’s a giant dogpile of a lot of very famous authors on this person who is, I guess, currently a master’s student at like a little college somewhere and is like, 22. You know? And that’s a lot of, a lot of comments on something someone said—that was admittedly kind of mean.
ELM: This is something that I feel like I’ve seen a lot over the, over the years. I remember I, I have seen this, I have personally received this as a journalist and I’ve seen people do it a lot, where you write something critical about a celebrity and the celebrity’s fans get in your mentions and say “Stop bullying them!”
FK: Yeah.
ELM: And you’re like “What? What?” You know? And like, I—I gotta say, I’m sorry, I laughed out loud when I read the full context of this when she was like “I joined this committee literally to stop this specific author from,” it’s like, OK! That’s, you had an agenda! And like, I don’t wanna—I’m sure she’s had quite the experience and I feel really bad for this person, like, I, if I were to travel back in time and give her some advice, I would say “Do not name this person! Just say…”
FK: Just say “A particular YA author!”
ELM: Don’t even say that! Just say there were certain books they were considering, I mean, I, you know, just err on the side of vagueness and you can know in your heart that you don’t like this author. But I mean, I, I’m not gonna, I’m not gonna handwave over this and say that the way she phrased it was…beyond that, was great. I think that the…
FK: Yeah.
ELM: The “fine for teen girls” comment was shitty. I’m sorry. Like, that’s a shitty thing to say. You know. They also talk about how there were other YA novels in this sphere, you now. So it’s not like, you know. The kind of idea of like, and I know a lot of people in YA get mad about this too, this sort of idea of YA…it being a better novel if it can sort of transcend. You know? Similarly to like, Emily Nussbaum’s arguments about TV, you know. They’ll say like, “Oh, it’s not TV, it’s whatever,” and she’s like “I want it to be TV!” You know? Like, it’s TV. Right?
FK: Yeah, totally.
ELM: Like, YA is something specific. The genre conventions are as specific as, as, I mean, there are a lot of sub-genres within it. But there are conventions in the way that stories are written and to suggest that some are OK for teen girls and some transcend the teen girl, the lowest of the low…don’t love it. You know?
FK: I agree!
ELM: Just sayin’, don’t love it.
FK: I agree completely! And yet there’s still, like, no matter how shitty that comment was, there’s still this enormous power imbalance, obviously.
ELM: Wildly so!
FK: Completely! And so, it’s…it’s tough because on the one hand, yeah, ya said some stuff, and like, people heard about it and this is the world we live in, like, even though you’re talking to your little South Dakota newspaper that you wouldn’t expect to—it’s on the internet and now everyone knows, you know? Sarah Dessen: has Google Alert for her name, shockingly enough. You know? [laughs]
ELM: Right.
FK: But on the other hand…yeah. And Sarah Dessen gave an apology, it was, it was all right, I mean… [ELM laughs] You know. It was not a non-apology, but I’m not sure it was a great apology. And what she correctly said, you know, like, “I should be aware that I’ve got a large platform.” She should be aware! You know?
ELM: Right.
FK: Because like—I understand that you can be hurt, but there’s a lot of, there’s a lot of jobs in which you can’t, you know, you can’t get upset at someone because you have a power imbalance. Right?
ELM: I mean, you know, if I was—if I was gonna travel back in time to Sarah Dessen, if she truly felt really upset about this and needed to say something to her platform, there’s something called a subtweet. You say “Hey, I just read this comment in this kinda, you know, this really small paper, so I don’t wanna…”
FK: So I don’t wanna blow up your spot.
ELM: “I don’t wanna paint a target on anyone’s back,” yeah. “But, it really hurt my feelings and, you know, just know that, just FYI, in the world we live in anyone can google anything and see their name, and you may think they’ll never read it, but just be mindful that authors are real people with feelings.” She could have said almost everything she already said while still not putting a big target on this person’s back. You know? And it’s just like…
FK: Yeah yeah! And I also do wanna put it in the context of: whether you asked or it or not, it’s not like it’s only this case in which power imbalances exist. Right? As a…if you are someone’s doctor, there’s a power imbalance between you and a patient and like, there’s certain things that you shouldn’t do. Do you know what I mean? Like there’s lots of ways in which power imbalances exist and it’s not unique to having a large platform on Twitter.
ELM: Sure.
FK: And I think that’s the thing—one attitude that people have towards this is “It’s just so different,” you know. “It’s just so new! It’s so hard to know that you’re suddenly, how do you know that you’ve got this power?!” You know?
ELM: Right.
FK: And I don’t want to dismiss that, because I do think that there’s like a learning curve when you become a person with, with some kind of power, and then discover “Oh, now my life is not the same as it was before,” right, “and I have a different relationship to other people,” but I also don’t want to make it seem like this is a new thing within Twitter, because it’s not. And every day of our lives, in every part of our lives, anybody who exists in the world exists in a hierarchical system in which some people have more power and ability to bring harm on other people.
ELM: Right.
FK: Which you have to be aware of that!
ELM: Yeah, I mean, I agree, so it makes me think though, what you’re saying, like, there—all right. We need to reach a certain point, someday, Twitter’s existed for 12 years. Right? 13.
FK: Yeah.
ELM: Years. Ish. At what point are we going to stop saying “It’s all so new,” because what I will say, first, but second, it is new, right?
FK: Yeah…
ELM: I don’t know, did we, have I talked to you about the, that really interesting Radiolab recently about the, the Ohio newspaper that’s deleting things? Have we discussed this?
FK: No, we haven’t.
ELM: Highly recommended, you should listen to it, it’s such a thoughtful episode because it’s really complicated. Basically there’s a big newspaper in Ohio that’s experimenting with right-to-forget. Which…
FK: Hmm!
ELM: …if you don’t know, is…I mean, you know. If one doesn’t know, if the listener doesn’t know, European…in, the E.U. passed several years ago a right-to-forget law saying you can, if you don’t like your search results, you can file a complaint with Google and say “Take this down.” And American, the American tech industry has some fundamental Libertarian roots and this really doesn’t, this really kind of is a clash, an ideological clash between the European tech community and the Americana tech community. Right?
FK: Mm-hmm. Yeah.
ELM: So. That conversation is fraught and it’s big and it’s got like the E.U. and like Silicon Valley and sometimes it’s hard to think…and it’s always like some guy, like, murdered someone or something, or like he committed malpractice and he’s like “This is ruining my Google results!” And you’re like…it’s not always like that but that’s always the example the journalists pull up and it’s like, “Well, I would like to know that he’s been convicted of malpractice before having him be my doctor,” you know, if it’s a true…
FK: And I think there’s also, right, I think there’s also a genuine question of: maybe you do need to like come to terms with the fact that you have a life and a past, and you know…
ELM: You can’t erase it.
FK: If everyone has, if everyone has…
ELM: Google is not your PR agent.
FK: If everyone has the same thing…
ELM: Yeah. So this is more nuanced. Basically they were talking about, it’s a local newspaper, right? It’s in Ohio. And they were saying, you know, the local paper for ever, for the entire existence prior to the internet, and even several decades into that, because local papers are very slow to digitize, have, has like, the local paper was a kind of a…they frame it sort of temporally. It’s kind of an instant, like, a momentary record of what happened.
FK: Yeah.
ELM: And then you get another paper the next day and you don’t think, you know, you’re like “Oh, did you see he got arrested for drunk and disorderly conduct…”
FK: And then it lines the birdcage and you move on.
ELM: Right. And, and if you wanted to see what happened three years ago on January 4th, you would have to go to the library and use the microfiche machine. You know? Which is like, you rarely do.
FK: You can if it’s like very important, but it’s not at your fingertips.
ELM: No, and yeah. If you were actually doing research. But it’s not something that would just sit there in your mind. It would just float away, you know? And people make stupid mistakes. People get arrested for stupid things. You know what I mean? So they were like, “Well, now we have this as a permanent record. And is that right?” You know, cause this is really changing, like, what is our function then, you know? Are we just supposed to be some sort of ledger of all the, the bad things that people did, or are we supposed to be like, reporting on the news of the moment and then…
FK: Right.
ELM: …reporting on the news of the next moment.
FK: And how does that, yeah, how does that affect online discourse? In fact I think earlier today, I was complaining to you about how bad local news comment sections are, right?
ELM: Yeah!
FK: And one of the reasons they’re so bad is people continuously link back to, like, the thing that happened, you know what I mean? Like, it’s, there’s this memory grudge element…
ELM: Absolutely.
FK: That is only emphasized.
ELM: Yeah, and I’ve seen this used to very negative effect in my own home town where people will say “Well this happened six years ago, this one small incident that proves that everything is terrible here,” and I’ll be like, “You would never remember this if you didn’t have a, you know, the URL to it!” Right? Like, cause life moves on! You know? And it’s like…
Anyway, so this, they created a committee and it’s really really interesting. You should listen to it, because the committee has a bunch of different people on it from different parts of the newspaper, thinking about different concerns. And they go through, people send requests saying “Can you please remove this article, here’s my case.” And so they very slowly, and in the episode, they only had like maybe half a dozen cases. And they had a large period of time. So they were really just going through and saying, you know, and it was something like, one was like a cop who was doing something kind of, falsifying his hours or something. You know?
FK: Yeah.
ELM: So it’s like, well, it’s one cop, you know. It’s not systemic cop…
FK: Right.
ELM: Cop-falsifying-hours. But also he’s a cop! So like, is he, we’re paying for his salary, he has a duty to the public, he’s doing something shady. You know. But it’s, it’s one guy.
FK: Yeah.
ELM: You know, like, is this gonna…
FK: Yeah and also, if he did it once and he’s been disciplined and there’s no evidence that he’s ever done it again and so on, and like…OK.
ELM: Learned his lesson…cause you’re not gonna do a story…
FK: Cause obviously his boss knows, you know?
ELM: …that he hasn’t fucked up in the last five years, right? That he’s reformed and he learned his lesson. That’s not the way this works.
FK: Right.
ELM: And so they just go through…
FK: And at the same time he also, it’s not like he’s shooting unarmed suspects or something, he like fudged a time sheet, presumably. Not that that’s great, it’s bad.
ELM: Not great to that man.
FK: You know? [laughs]
ELM: So this was the, they go back and forth on all this and they go “Well, this, on the other hand…” and it’s so nuanced and it’s so thoughtful, and I really really recommend it. And it had me thinking a lot about, I mean, this makes me think about this too, like, oh, you’re a local South Dakota paper and you say this comment and you air your vendetta against [laughs] a particular author, and you think that you, it’ll have no, you know, it’s a—you’re a student. People do this in, there was just a huge blowup about…well, that was actually a little more serious. But there are blowups about the practices of student newspapers. Right?
FK: Right.
ELM: Or things that are happening on campuses. And you start to think, like, “Well, it’s not like the things that happen in college are…you’re still a human being in the world.”
FK: Right.
ELM: But also like, previously that might be a place for your, your world does kind of enclose on itself for a lot of college students. Not for all, obviously. For some people those barriers are a lot more porous.
FK: But actually maybe, maybe the answer is less, maybe the answer is we want more people to experience the joy of a place where you can make mistakes and it’s not remembered forever, right. Actually I think that the solution is not necessarily like…
ELM: Like, “Kids! It’s the real world!” Yeah.
FK: Yeah! We could—what if instead of saying “This thing that the elites have, this period of time in which you can fuck up and it’s not a big deal should be abolished,” what if instead we said “Everyone should have this!” Right, you know?
ELM: Right, right.
FK: Let’s think positive!
ELM: Yeah, exactly. And it’s just like if you’re causing real harm…I don’t know.
FK: It’s a hard idea. But I think that we can agree that what, whatever else comes out of this, the point, and the thing that’s important about this, is that it’s a lot more complex I think than just like, “Person who is aware that they have power sends their flying monkeys after innocent, pure person just living their life.” Like, that can be part of it and that can be the challenge and like, man, that was not great, but it’s also like a very complex issue in which there’s lots of, there’s lots of things to weigh and there’s a lot of factors that make it possible for them to, for this to be the thing that happens.
ELM: Right. Right, and that’s why, I mean, I think Jodi Picoult saying “this is the patriarchy” or whatever is… [laughs] I thought it was very telling too because it’s like, I understand why these, these female authors are upset with this, the state of things, right? You know? Like…
FK: Yeah. Very much so.
ELM: The patriarchy does suck. I’ll give you that.
FK: It sucks!
ELM: But like, is this the, the…I was gonna say the nail that you’re gonna nail your something to. Your cross? No. Is that what I mean?
FK: Is this the…no.
ELM: Reverend? [laughs]
FK: Is this the hill you’re gonna die on?
ELM: No, that’s overused! I was trying to do something with nails.
FK: [laughing] Is the the, I think of Martin Luther? [both laughing] Is this the 95th thesis?!
ELM: I guess we are Protestants.
FK: We’re Protestants.
ELM: Yeah…but I, like, I know, it’s also like, this is something that’s very interesting to see, and I think you see it in lots of, like, all levels of fandom, right? It’s like, it’s really hard to just sit there and rail against systemic problems. You know? And so if you can find someone to pin it to…
FK: Well and also like, I don’t know how much these people like actually looked up the original article or whatever! You know what I mean? It’s also like a Twitter thing where like, you see something and you’re like “Yeah! That’s bad! OK!”
ELM: Yeah, I mean I don’t think it was well-phrased, you know? It wasn’t a great quote! Like… [laughs] Sorry! I just, I’m not gonna sit here and be like “She,” I mean, she can say whatever she wants to say. Wasn’t great. None of this was deserved and like, none of this was a proportional response. But you know, I think we see this a lot, especially…I think you see it in fandom when fans will say something problematic and…well, I don’t wanna give people saying problematic things a pass though. So maybe I shouldn’t go down this road.
But you know, like, like…like we talked about, I mean, we’ve gone back to this again and again, it’s easier to attack a fan creator or a smaller-scale creator than it is to go after a large corporation, or a systemic problem, whatever. Right? Or, we’ve talked about how it’s really hard to have a, a loosely critical discussion of the overall content of fanworks in the climate where you can’t actually write a critical review of several works that you think are…
FK: Right.
ELM: Are not doing great things on gender or race or whatever. You know? Like, that’s not a part of our culture. So instead you’re kind of just talking to the air about how “fandom always does X” or “always does Y,” and then…
FK: And then you don’t have any examples, yeah.
ELM: Because that’s not the way that these, you know, because people are respecting some of these conventions of the communities.
FK: It’s kind of the opposite problem, actually.
ELM: Yeah, actually.
FK: There’s too much of the convention of, like, not calling anyone out, and then on the other side it’s like…
ELM: Right.
FK: But we’re definitely gonna call someone out, you know, because they’re there and they’re able to be called out, they can’t defend themselves in the same way.
ELM: Yeah, but I think it’s two sides of the same coin.
FK: Yeah.
ELM: I think this all exists in the same sphere of, of kind of having this formless frustration with the way things are not great and you know, either just kind of, just shooting it out there [laughs] generally in a big cloud of, cloud of critique, or or or yeah, and then the instant you find even someone who’s remotely that you can zero onto…I mean to tie these two closer together, I think that’s why when you do see incidents around discourse points in fandom, when you do see something that people can glom onto, they really really do. You know? Like, someone makes one statement in a challenge somewhere and then that could be the flashpoint.
FK: Right, right, right. When in reality—which doesn’t actually necessarily do great justice to the thing anyway. It’s back to that point of we only talk about race when someone says something overtly and extraordinarily racist!
ELM: Right, right.
FK: [laughs] And then, then we talk about race. Right?
ELM: Right, exactly. And you know, I think this, this is true for—I mean, not, it’s not unique to race. I think this is true for a lot of different topics within this.
FK: Right.
ELM: So…I don’t know. I’m just coming back to this kind of idea of, it’s new but it’s not new. And I feel like it’s really hard to see, I mean, even when it stops feeling new, right?
FK: Yeah.
ELM: It’s still modes of communication where you kinda feel like, people are just…puttin’ their thoughts into the world at all times! You know? And so that’s what like, as, if these platforms and tools continue to exist, which I think they’re going to, this is only, this kind of, this duality of like, pinning all your frustrations onto a target or just shooting your frustrations at the world, do know what I mean?
FK: Yeah, yeah.
ELM: That’s, that’s not gonna change.
FK: I agree. Let’s, let’s take a small pivot. Let’s pivot to something that’s happier.
ELM: I literally just imagined a basketball player pivoting.
FK: Great. So we’ve made our pivot. Shall I read the next letter? Which is a little happier.
ELM: John Stockton. A little pivot. [both laugh] Of the Utah Jazz! In the ’90s!
FK: Here’s the next letter. “Hi there! First, I’d like to say I think you’re both great and I’m so happy I found this podcast.”
ELM: Aww, thanks!
FK: Aww! OK. That’s lovely. “I’ve been thinking about your recent discussion of validation, but in a different context. While I tend to lurk, I’ve written several stories in the BBC Merlin fandom—”
ELM: Flourish, your favorite!
FK: “And yes, I agree with you it’s terrible, but in such a delightful way. Recently, the author of one of the most-known, celebrated, honestly just good Merthur fics left kudos on my story, and I was absurdly excited. As a grown woman with an established career and a post-graduate education, this elation seems ridiculous. Fic is my hobby and while I know that it’s quote ‘serious leisure’ and all that, it amazes me that one person’s probably-meaningless click can be so powerful.
“And that got me thinking about a host of other things, like cognitive authority and maybe even a type of gatekeeping, especially in the age of a 10-year-old Archive Of Our Own. I’m not really sure how to describe the exact phenomenon. It isn’t really either of those things, but there definitely seems to be something going on in the way that we interact and distribute and structure power within fandom.
“I was wondering what your perspectives are on this topic because I approach everything with an information science lens, and while I’ve read some interdisciplinary articles and books in fandom studies, I am far from an expert. I find your discussions fascinating and would love to know your take.
“To clarify, by ‘absurdly excited’ I meant I felt happy, not like, Senpai-noticed-me, fainting, my-life-now-has-meaning, but it was nice.”
ELM: [laughing] Oh my God.
FK: And that’s from anonymous, and anonymous, I love that little P.S.
ELM: Really good!
FK: [laughing] You’re really good. That was the best.
ELM: Really good. We’re validating you right now!
FK: I am so excited to find out what you have to say to this person as a newly minted fanfic author with some comments.
ELM: Well “minted,” wow, what kinda status are you saying, you saying that I wasn’t a fanfic author before I posted? [FK laughing] FYI, to keep people abreast of the conversation…
FK: No no no, you were always a fanfic author.
ELM: Thank you! I was a fanfic author in 1995 when I didn’t have the internet.
FK: You have been a fanfic author forever, but as, as someone who is now posting. I’m curious to see what your take on this is. Because, you know.
ELM: I don’t, I don’t know if the, the podcast knows this! Because I just promised, I told you I was going to post it, but yeah! I’ve now posted ⅔ of the story. Probably ¾ actually. And I’ve gotten a lot of great comments! And it’s been very very interesting. I think that…
FK: And you’ve been validated!
ELM: I have been validated. I, I would say there’s a few things that I read into this from my own perspective going on, because there’s a difference between, like, this is—this is an author, the person who kudosed the anon’s story, who they really really respect the work of. And that’s not necessarily the same thing as like, the, the number one BNF in the…and sometimes it’s the same thing. But I actually think kind of increasingly, I think actually AO3 has, has maybe diminished those, that kind of direct one-to-one, right?
I feel like in the LiveJournal days, and maybe earlier than that, it was much more likely that…that’s not true. Actually, some people who were BNFs wrote fic that was popular but I think bad. So I shouldn’t say bad. Not for me. [FK laughs]
You know what I mean though? I feel like there is a way now, with the Archive being separated from any social media structures, for people to be very prolific fic writers and popular fic writers and not necessarily have the, like, kind of flipside of a fandomy presence.
FK: Yeah, yeah. I mean I think that, I think that maybe the thing I would think about—and this is quite a, I guess it’s not personal, but this is drawing from my own experience of this, so please forgive me—is like, in the LiveJournal era you would…there would be some separation, but still like, Melissa Anelli—probably one of the biggest BNFs of Harry Potter fandom at one point, right—was still interacting with all of these people who were like, the, the relatively big BNF fic authors and so on. Right? Like, there was, you know…
ELM: Oh, wait, you’re taking this in a different direction than what I was saying.
FK: Well, what I meant was this was a fandom-engaged person, versus like, people who are writing fic as the main way that they become a BNF, like, versus someone who’s like, playing with like—talking about what’s happening in the story and so on.
ELM: I…I mean, I wouldn’t be surprised if that still happens, because on Tumblr you’re all kind of…I mean I don’t think there’s some sort of sharp line between like, “This side of Tumblr doesn’t like fanfiction and this side does.” I mean obviously we’ve talked at great lengths about how people, there has kinda been a collapse, specially around things like shipping. Like, a context collapse where you actually may have people who don’t have anything to do with fic and people, maybe people with different sets of values around shipping, people who really wanna see their ships become endgame, and then you have people who are off in ficland are being like, “When I say shipping I just mean I’ve read fic about these two, LOL!” You know? Like…
FK: No no no—that was what I was trying to point to, is the context collapse bit, because like, in the past there were these different contexts, but they were also like…because you were entering, you know, we talked about this a couple of episodes ago. Because you would enter through like “I’m into Harry Potter” or “I’m into Buffy,” and you would enter into a space where it was like, “well here’s some fanfic people and here’s some BNFs who are BNFs because they run the news blog,” right, you know. Melissa Anelli, if people don’t know, you know, ran for many years The Leaky Cauldron, which was sort of the big place to get Harry Potter news, it was sort of TheOneRing.net kind of an idea. You know what I mean…
ELM: MuggleNet erasure, Flourish.
FK: MuggleNet erasure! I’m sorry MuggleNet people. I love you too. So. Right, so you would have that, on the one hand you would enter into the fandom and you would know all of those different groups and they would all sort of interact with each other, but on the other hand there was also quite separate contexts.
Whereas now, it feels like people enter through AO3, and like you were saying, there are people who are like, maybe writing fic and doing stuff and are doing a lot within that context, and they may be quite separate from the rest of like—things like The Leaky Cauldron and TheOneRing.net and also like Twitter update accounts and stuff. Those still exist.
ELM: Sure.
FK: And yet there’s this context collapse in which those people don’t necessarily know the AO3 BNFs who are BNFs from writing their fic, they don’t necessarily have any contact with them, but they do actually cross over and comment more maybe. You know?
ELM: Yeah yeah, right, exactly. I mean—this is like maybe, maybe slightly aside from the, the broader context, but it’s like, I…it’s interesting because it’s like, so that’s what I’m saying, I get the sense that anon thinks very highly of this person’s skill as a writer. Right? And so I think that the idea of them leaving a kudos on your story, here’s what I would say is: there are some popular writers in every fandom that I’ve been in that I, I’m not particularly thrilled with the prose of. And I respect everyone who likes them but they’re not for me, and I don’t think that’s a controversial statement to say, I don’t have to sit here and say I love every work of fanfiction in the world.
FK: You do not.
ELM: And so I think, like, oh, if one of them—maybe not even in this fic that I’m posting or the fandom I’m writing in right now, but like, any fandom I’ve been in, if one of them were to come by and kudos my story or leave me a nice comment or something or say like “I read this,” sure. I think actually a little part of me would be like “Oh, they’re well-known!” You know? [FK laughs] I think that’s, that’s, I mean, when someone with a bazillion followers who doesn’t follow also a bazillion people, when someone follows like 500 people and they have 100,000 followers and they follow me back on Twitter, I’m like, “Oh! OK!” [all laugh].
Yeah, right? But that being said, I think that if there are a few writers, and unfortunately in the fandom that I’m in now they seem to be many fandoms on, because I’m writing in a fandom that’s relatively old. If, if they were to come by and kudos my story, the people that I truly think are incredible writers, I would feel thrilled.
That being said, some of the people I think are the greatest writers in every fandom I’ve been in have not been remotely popular. You know? And they have…
FK: Yeah.
ELM: …a few thousand hits on their stories, but I think that they’re very very talented. And so yes, I would definitely value that more. But I, I’m aware of that part of myself that understands that the popular person liking something would still give me an inherent sort of “Hey!” You know? Even if I’m, I, I don’t actually think that gives me any more artistic validation.
FK: Right, totally.
ELM: Does that, do you feel the same way?
FK: Yeah, I feel completely the same way and I think there’s also something about, like, when you get a comment from someone and you’re like, “Whoa. You seem awesome,” either because you’ve been following them before or you really like, you know, and you really like their writing or whatever, there’s also another kind of pleasure within that because then it’s like “Oh. This person just literally contacted me. We could be friends!” You know?
ELM: Yeah, sure!
FK: And I wanna be friends with this person! Because I’ve read all the stuff they’ve written and like, they seem great, and their worldview obviously aligns with mine in some way and like, let’s be friends! You know? So that’s another kind of pleasure.
And I think that there’s also something about that like, with people who are well-known in a fandom, because if you do—if they are well-known and you are not, and there’s like, you’re like “OK but I’m never gonna like reach out and try and be friends with this person because they feel like everyone reads this, and everyone knows about this, and everyone wants to be their friend,” that’s a different—that’s another kind of pleasure, right? It’s sort of like, here is the popular kid who I genuinely think is cool.
ELM: Right.
FK: You know? Not the popular kid in like a, you know, gross teen movie way. But in a like, “Yeah! Duh, obviously they’re popular because they’re awesome.”
ELM: Right.
FK: You know? “And I would love to be their friend.”
ELM: I mean is that an experience you’ve had a lot?
FK: Not in high school necessarily, but like…
ELM: No, I mean in fanfiction!
FK: Yes! Sometimes, I’ve had several cases where there’s somebody whose like, work I’ve followed and I thought that they seemed really great and they were much more, they were very well-known. And like, they like showed up to one of my fics and I was like “Oh we’re gonna be friends.” And then we were, you know? That’s been nice when that’s happened!
ELM: Yeah, but I think that makes it harder to sort of separate out if you’re excited because of the popular. If that Regina George…
FK: Oh, it’s complicated! It’s super complicated.
ELM: It’s really hard!
FK: It’s naturally complicated.
ELM: I, that’s why I kind of feel like it makes it easier when it is, you know, truly [laughs] when there is an alignment between, I mean, I, I just think—I don’t know. It’s like, it depends on what you’re in it for. And I feel like there are a lot of people who are in it for pure community weigh-in, for validation. And that’s not necessarily, you know, I don’t know what goes on in people’s heads when they are purely positive about every single story that’s coming out. I, there are stories that are popular in the fandom I’m reading in right now that I, that I…I just think are not good! [FK laughs] And people are like “I love this!” and I’m like, I don’t even know…you know?
FK: Yeah.
ELM: I always wonder, in [laughs] in a world of pure positivity, if other people have these feelings. If they truly love all the things. And I think that some people might! I think that they’re like, “I just want more content around my ship in the world. I love all of it,” you know? “And I’m here for the community. I’m here for more people being on my team,” you know?
FK: I mean there’s also the, like—I never leave any kind of negativity in any way and I don’t think I’ve ever, like, I mean I’ve said I don’t…not every fic is for me, but for a long time I have not, like, actively worked on thinking about why fics don’t work for me, just because I’m like…
ELM: Oh, how do you do that? I don’t think I could do that.
FK: I mean not that I, not that it doesn’t occur to me in the moment, but like I actively am like “OK! Boink.” You know what I mean? “Bye.” But it’s like, I don’t know. There is on some level where I’m like “Good! You tried. Happy to see you here,” you know. And that’s like the focus, do you know what I mean, as opposed to…
ELM: A little patronizing, the way you just said it. I don’t think you meant it that way but…
FK: It probably is a little patronizing! I’m not saying that this is a morally upright position necessarily or a kind position, just that like, you know, like, that’s the…
ELM: Yeah!
FK: When I read something I don’t like and I’m just like, I don’t need to analyze this any further, I’m just gonna bounce.
ELM: I mean I sort of feel like you…reading fic, sometimes when you talk about it I feel like it’s like you’re eating cookies.
FK: It is like eating cookies!
ELM: And most cookies are good and then occasionally there’s like, cookies that you’re like “ew gross.” You know? And you’re like… [laughing] “I don’t like these.”
FK: But thank you for bringing the cookies!
ELM: Oh, those cookies that people sometimes bring to your house when you ask “Hey, could you pick up something for dessert?” And they bring those super flat, crunchy cookies from the bodega. I know people who love these actually. They’re like called Tate’s I think?
FK: Oh, you know, those can be good.
ELM: NO!
FK: I like those.
ELM: I think a lot of people actually do like them! They must be doing fine.
FK: I do genuinely like them.
ELM: But like, if I ask you to pick up dessert…
FK: You don’t like them. I mean I wouldn’t bring them for dessert unless I brought like other stuff with them.
ELM: I also just feel, I’m gonna say this, I have been throwing dinner parties in New York City for 10 years: when you bring a bag of Tate’s to my house unless you are a true Tate’s fan it really says to me “I stopped at the bodega on my way here and they had these Tate’s cookies.”
FK: Well for what it’s worth I actually do like Tate’s but I would only ever bring it to you with, like, some ice cream or some fruit or something too, because Tate’s alone does not dessert make.
ELM: To anyone who doesn’t have Tate’s in their life, they’re just incredibly crunchy. And I don’t want that!
FK: Well, if you get the kind with big like chips, then sometimes the like, chip versus crunch thing is pleasant to me. Cause like big chips, you know?
ELM: Just not a texture I want in a cookie, but I respect that. So…
FK: What I was actually, just to redirect us…
ELM: Go back to the cookie metaphor! So yeah, I feel like you’re just like, “Most cookies are good,” and sometimes you’re like “This is an amazing cookie and I love it,” but you don’t sit there and think about like why the cookie was so great. You’re just like “I loved that cookie, I would totally buy, when that company makes a new cookie I would buy it.”
FK: I will buy the next cookie.
ELM: But generally you’re like…
FK: That’s my general attitude towards it, yeah.
ELM: “Cookies are delish,” and occasionally you’re like “This cookie’s not for me, no,” and you throw it away.
FK: Well, OK. Yes, you’re right about that.
ELM: My important metaphor.
FK: One thing that we haven’t talked about in this letter, which I would like to slightly redirect us from cookietown—
ELM: No!
FK: Cause I’m getting hungry now.
ELM: For Tate’s cookies! [laughs]
FK: Is, so, the letter-writer is talking about this like “in the age of a 10-year-old Archive Of Our Own,” and I think that they’re trying to get at something about like people being entrenched in the community, or having a long reputation, stuff like that. And I think that that’s kind of, um, it really made me think again about how in isolation this is also like kind of a normal social interaction. Not, not that it happens all the time everywhere, right, cause there’s not that many—I mean, there’s limited communities in which, like, people make something and then they get status for making something awesome.
But, but, it’s not like it’s, it’s not like that’s only a fanfiction thing. Right? There’s ways in which people get status in lots of communities by making things that are awesome. And having long-standing ties to other people in the community, and having like, made those awesome things for a long time.
So I guess I’m interested in thinking about, there’s also differences, right? There’s also ways in which fanfic is different from everything else, but I’m interested in thinking about like, well how is it like other community dynamics, you know what I mean?
ELM: I do know what you mean, but I actually am trying to think of an analogous example where the practitioners and the readers…like the consumers…sorry. I’m thinking about, you know, you’re involved in maybe like the knitting or crafting communities or any of these things. The sewing community.
FK: Yeah, yeah.
ELM: I’m thinking about comment sections, like the New York Times cooking section is famous, their comment section is famously good and it’s people just giving their feedback and their modifications and it’s really just people trying to help other people.
FK: Right.
ELM: The open source software community is all about collaboration and sharing and creating things for other people and then iterating and building on them. Fanfiction is not like any of those things. Because the vast majority of people are just reading. Not just reading. The vast majority of people are reading and not writing. Vast majority of people on the Archive.
FK: Well…so the knitting community is an interesting example because the way in which I would say that is closer to fanfic, I mean, it’s not the same. Right. Because there’s no like, knitting authority who’s like “this is knitting canon,” you know? I mean, some people might think they’re that but they aren’t. That’s not a thing.
But with knitting, I would say that people in the knitting community tend to knit, it’s true, but most people don’t design patterns. So like, pattern designers are sort of the equivalent in my head to a fanfic writer. They are create—because, I mean, you knit, you follow a pattern, you are making something but it’s not the same, like, it’s not the same as writing something…
ELM: But the patterns, it’s not as though people just look at the patterns and go “amazing pattern!”
FK: They totally do!
ELM: Oh do they?
FK: Yes!
ELM: And then they never use the pattern.
FK: All the time! Have you seen my list of patterns that I think are great?!
ELM: Yeah, I still don’t really think that that’s quite the same because there’s a potential for someone to use the pattern, I mean…like…
FK: I’m not saying it’s exactly the same but, but, but, I’m just saying that I think that, you know—
ELM: Fanfiction is maybe more analogous to, maybe other art communities as well. Where, not that knitting is not art, but like, visual art communities, right? Where you say like “I made this!” and everyone goes “Oh, amazing!”
FK: Right.
ELM: But it’s not like anyone could then…cause with the pattern, some people could go…I mean, all right, in fanfiction you could go remix the person’s story or translate it or podfic it or whatever, you know…
FK: Right, but that’s not the way that people get to be a BNF, you know, necessarily usually, right. Whereas in the pattern-making community it’s true that being on the, you know, being on the hot page of Ravelry and having everyone in the world make your socks…
ELM: Mm, well…
FK: You know, that’s part of how you get famous is that lots of people have made it and have liked it. Not all of whom made it. And then also made it.
ELM: But now you’re naming another way that it’s different: the hot page.
FK: It’s just the most frequently viewed. It’s exactly like being at the top of the kudos list.
ELM: Oh, that’s it? There’s no curation beyond that, there’s no featured, like a Tumblr radar kind of thing?
FK: Uh, there’s a, there’s a main blog on which they pick very few things and is just, it’s not like that.
ELM: OK.
FK: And there’s people’s effectively bookmark lists.
ELM: Oh, all right, OK that’s good. I thought that there was more like human curation highlighting stuff.
FK: No, no, there’s like, there’s like a main page in which they’re like “here are five beautiful sweaters that people from the community knit,” but it’s not, you know, it’s not like intended to be human curation. And then there’s like bookmarks that people bookmark, and then there’s the like “these are the patterns that have been viewed most often or made most often.” And then there’s like, actually quite elaborate—it’s very similar to fanfic in that there’s this quite elaborate like, you know, things you can like pick what needle size, what weight of yarn, what like, is it, you know, specifically…
ELM: I love that you’re comparing that as “very similar to fanfic.”
FK: Well no in the sense of like “here’s the pairing and here’s these tags that I want to have featured,” right, when you search for it!
ELM: I understand what you’re saying, I just think it’s funny.
FK: [wails] It is!
ELM: Yes and no! I still think you’d say most people on Ravelry, whether they’re now actively knitting, they’re aspiring to knit. They are aspiring to be practitioners.
FK: And most people have knit something at some point, although most people have not made patterns.
ELM: Right. Oh, sure. But I think they still—the vast, I think that it’s a real problem in fandom discourse—conversations, not discourse—that so much emphasis is put on content creation, you know. Cause I’ve seen people say “Oh, I don’t, I don’t, I don’t know how to, I haven’t actually written any fanfiction so I guess I’m not a real fan,” or “I’m not as good a part of the community” or whatever.
FK: Whereas it’s perfectly normalized as part of the knitting community that you’d knit based on other people’s patterns and not make your own. It does not make you less of a knitter, no one thinks that that’s bad, everyone agrees that this is the normal way that people do stuff.
ELM: Well, you’re still knitting, like, and I think we still see reading as something passive even if you are actively commenting.
FK: Right.
ELM: And writing is active. Whereas knitting is always going to be active because you are physically creating something, whereas when you read something…
FK: Right, right, right.
ELM: …it’s, you know, it’s a personal experience. It’s just eating the cookie, you’re not a baker.
FK: Right, and that’s another way in which the comments section of a cooking blog is like, these people are actually cooking the thing.
ELM: Right, and they are writing comments with the intent of helping other people cook the thing, whereas that’s not anything like…
FK: That’s not what fanfic comments are about.
ELM: No.
FK: And they’re not, they’re not about helping other people read the thing better, necessarily, you know? It’s not like…
ELM: No.
FK: “Here is a, here is a take on this that might inform your reading.”
ELM: Yeah! Though I mean I don’t know, have you gotten comments that kind of you do feel like would help inform the reader? Cause I have.
FK: Yes.
ELM: Yeah! I’m like “Oh I wish everyone would read this so they could see this person gets it!” [laughs]
FK: Totally.
ELM: Yeah. So, I don’t know. OK. I just, I just wanna go back to the term “cognitive authority.”
FK: Mm-hmm.
ELM: Can you define this?
FK: Not from an—not from an academic point of view. This is like not, this is actually like a real academic term that I’m not super familiar with, so please, anonymous person, give us feedback if I get it wrong. But my understanding is that, that a lot of—it’s like a term that means, so people will have two ways of thinking about stuff, they’ll like either know things from first-hand knowledge or from something that someone else told them, and then people who are granted cognitive authority are basically people who you think know what they’re talking about.
ELM: Interesting.
FK: So like a BNF has cognitive authority if you think, “this BNF’s taste is good and they know what they’re talking about is good fanfic.” Right? Or, you know, similarly I mean whatever, in Ravelry you know, I grant the cognitive authority to a, you know, whatever, a pattern-maker if I think that their patterns have been good and I trust them and their advice.
ELM: Right right. Well, that part I think is not strange at all.
FK: Yeah I think that’s a thing!
ELM: Going back to the idea of like “Oh, this person who kudosed you is someone who you think is a truly good writer,” right? You know? You have this in the writing world outside of fanfiction too. Right? Like, I mean…
FK: Absolutely!
ELM: Oh, you haven’t been in any writing workshops, right? But like…
FK: I…I mean I’ve taken writing, like, creative writing classes.
ELM: Oh I didn’t know, I thought you hadn’t. OK. Like, no offense to my former classmates but there was some feedback that I valued more than others, right? You know? Like…
FK: [laughs] I believe that this is a common thing.
ELM: Yes! You know? And like, some of it was, and it’s not always the one…maybe this is the way it’s different and it’s really kind of hard to get at this in fanfiction because it’s not like a structured, everyone has to write a certain amount of things and exchange them and you all read, et cetera et cetera. These are some of the imbalances. But in a writing workshop I knew everyone’s work, at least what they’re producing at the time, and I knew everyone’s capacity to critique. Right? And it wasn’t always a direct one-to-one, they’re great at giving comments and they’re great at writing.
FK: Right.
ELM: But if they’re great at writing, and their comments are pretty good, I think their comments are gonna get a little more weight, right?
FK: Yeah.
ELM: But I’m a literary critic, I stand firmly by the idea that not all critics should be practitioners and vice versa.
FK: They should not! [laughs]
ELM: I’m, not to say that you can’t do both. Some people do both. But most people are better at one or the other.
FK: Yeah.
ELM: Which, you know. So I don’t know. There’s a lot of different levels working here and I think part of the things in fanfiction is, is it is very jumbled. And it’s asynchronous. And it’s happening on different platforms and people may have different amounts of power in different spaces. And there can be people who are very good community members who aren’t particularly great writers, but they’re really giving it their all to the fandom or to the ship or to a particular corner of that ship.
FK: Yeah.
ELM: And they may have a sort of BNF status or an elevated fan status in that sphere. Just based on their ability to be a great beta or a great cheerleader and to, you know, you know? So it’s that kind of thing. And I think that’s really, I mean, it’s impossible for…this is always speculation when you’re looking at the way other people’s dynamics are in your fandom too, you know? But I think that makes it trickier, when you don’t have clearly defined rules and you’re trying to figure out, like, “Well, what do I like and also what does everyone else seem to like and do those things line up?” And…
FK: Yeah.
ELM: What actually brings me pleasure? And, I think it’s totally fine if you get pleasure from any, like, any of these things. Right? Even if it’s someone you don’t like the writing of, but it’s a BNF—it’s fine! It’s fine if you get excited that they liked you. Like, OK! You know?
FK: [laughing] And, and that’s the good word on this topic. [ELM laughing] Let’s take a very quick break and then let’s dive into our last topic.
ELM: OK.
[Interstitial music]
FK: All right. Final letter.
ELM: You’re readin’ all three letters cause you have them open.
FK: Yeah!
ELM: Thanks.
FK: That’s what I’m doin’! OK. Final letter. “Hi, Flourish and Elizabeth, I really love the podcast and love having a space to listen to discussions about fandom, fan behavior, and trends. I’m not sure if this is the space for this question, but trying to explain the subtext of fandom spaces to my therapist is…challenging.” [ELM laughs]
“I’m part of a closed, our-fandom-specific forum for RPF writers. There’s a person in the forum who sees it as her mission in life to explain the truth to me in an attack-y kind of way. Things she, a white neurotypical cishet Christian privileged American, has aggressively explained to me include:
“How toothache is a demonstrated cause of bipolar moods and autism.
“How childhood trauma causes queerness and transness…”
ELM: Sure.
FK: “How she’s morally superior to those of us in the fandom or forum who write porn of our real life characters.
“How the rest of us are engaging dangerously with the demonic for having a Halloween spooky fic challenge. Note, none of us wrote fics that were demon-summoning tutorials, they were mostly vampire and werewolf AUs and mine featured a Japanese urban legend about a homicidal ghost.”
ELM: Oh my God.
FK: “How my ships are not real and there’s no way those people could possibly be queer of any kind, because they are too manly and butch to be queer. This is despite one of my ships using the ship hashtag the fans made for them on Insta content of them doing stuff together outside of work, and both individuals doing it fully in the knowledge that people coined their portmanteau moniker for fanfic purposes.
“I didn’t join this forum to gain a nemesis, I joined it to get away from the drama that non-writer Tumblr kids cause with their, quote, ‘I hate it when writers do this really specific thing, they should go kill themselves because we don’t need their carbon dioxide heating our world,’ end quote, interacting. I would just block my unintentional nemesis but she’s a mod. I’ve tried linking her to a trauma recovery webinar and got attacked for sending her, quote, ‘an ad.’
“Does this kind of anti behavior happen in other people’s closed forums? Is she really on enough of a moral high ground to stand in judgment of the rest of us for writing porn? What do other people do in this kind of situation? I’ve resorted to inhabiting the DM threads of safe, trans-friendly, also autistic-or-neurodivergent-friendly people in the forum, but feel that’s not a super sustainable way to participate in a fandom.
“On the plus side, she’s stopped asking me to beta her fics!”
ELM: Oh my God.
FK: “With love, anonymous.” Oh!
ELM: This, this letter was such a journey.
FK: It’s a journey! And, and I left out parts of this journey because we were asked to anonymize it so I wanted to like, you know, go on the side of anonymizing. Oh, there was even more journey in the original letter, guys.
ELM: [sighs] Oh my goodness. All right. So, first of all, two episodes ago we revisited the topic of like the big open web versus closed spaces, and I think this is actually a prime example about how it’s not a, a binary between everything is chaos out on Tumblr or Twitter and then inside the closed spaces everything is very sedate and… [FK laughing] and controlled, because clearly, I mean, a closed space is you know, it’s like you threw a party and you can have a really really terrible host!
FK: Yeah! And like, welcome to small group interpersonal dynamics! It sucks sometimes! You know?
ELM: Well this is like…all the questions…
FK: This person sounds beyond.
ELM: The questions about like, “Does she have the moral high ground,” like, no. No.
FK: Like, let’s not even, no. Like, you don’t need us to validate you, anon, you know she doesn’t!
ELM: Power plays though…
FK: You know she doesn’t!
ELM: We are speaking, speaking our like, to a large audience right now. So we’re gonna validate.
FK: Yeah, OK, there we go. With our power, we hereby validate you. She doesn’t have the moral high ground.
ELM: No! I…this person sounds troubled. To put it mildly. And I really, I don’t like…I mean if it were me I would just, I would…
FK: “This person” being the mod.
ELM: The mod, no, not the letter-writer who sounds delightful. I mean of course they are the narrator, but I love them. Like, I, I…I don’t…if it were me personally, I would probably leave. Like, because…and I wonder if you would feel differently, because we have different approaches to the communal element of, you know.
I recently, I’ve had this problem over the years where I will follow people for various reasons because I felt like I should, when I join a new fandom, and then their content makes me hate the thing, and I just stubbornly continue to follow them and just complain in private to people. And they’ll be like “You can unfollow them, you know,” and I’ll be like “But I still want the gifs!” Or whatever. [FK laughs]
And I’ve recently practiced a policy of, if this is making me…not like I’m trying to shut out true critique of the source material or whatever…
FK: Yeah but if it’s not doing anything good for you and it’s just making you upset, then why?
ELM: And if it’s mostly people’s interpersonal problems, then it’s not like, and I don’t wanna say that “Oh, one hint of a discussion of, you know, like, some sort of discourse point, and I’m gone.” No, that’s not what I’m saying. But if it’s like, just people arguing with each other about their own…
FK: Yeah.
ELM: …headcanons or whatever, and then I’m like “This is making me like the thing less,” then…making me not wanna spend time here…I would just go. That’s me. But you have a more communal experience.
FK: But that’s also different because it’s a Tumblr case, right? You’re talking about having people in your sort of curated, like, I don’t need to read your Tumblr feed, right? Whereas this is more like here is a space that exists. And this is a prime example, I think, of how it’s hard to give advice on the internet, because I don’t know a lot of things about the situation, right?
Like: this person you have conflict with is one of the mods. Does she own the space? Is it her space? Or is it like, she is one of a group of mods that you’re continuously clashing with? Like, did this space exist before her? Was she a founder of it, right? Because to some degree, that changes it for me!
ELM: Does everyone, yeah, does everyone push back when she says this stuff, or do you feel isolated?
FK: Are there factions, are there some people, do you feel isolated, because it’s a much more complex question. Cause like a Discord or a Slack or something is not the same as someone’s Tumblr. It could be a fiefdom, a private fiefdom, if someone is clearly the only person in charge. But a lot of these have teams of people who are interacting and there’s, there’s kind of a complex thing. And I think that there’s a lot more reason to want to stick around if there’s a lot of different people in the space and it’s sort of a contended space, do you see what I’m saying, as opposed to someone’s like “This is my house my rules.” Which is effectively what someone’s Tumblr is, right. So…
ELM: But she’s one, she’s just one of the mods. And I’m curious to know what the other mods think, if they are on the same page as her. Because actually it sounds like a lot of the things she’s saying are frankly offensive, you know, if she’s saying things like, I mean, obviously people…queer and trans people, many have trauma in their childhoods, but to say, to do some sort of causation…that childhood trauma causes queerness or whatever, or bipolar…
FK: And also what context is she saying this in, right? Is she saying it in the context of her role as a mod? Is she saying this in the context of like your DMs with her?
ELM: Or just spouting off…
FK: Because like, actually that does make a difference in terms of like, what I would think about the community and those norms. Not that I would want to interact with her under any circumstances, but I might be able to stick around in a community if I was like “Well, she’s always kept this separate from her mod thing, and I don’t have to interact with her personally, I can just mute her and there’s other mods and they know that I’m doing this because we have this conflict and like, it’ll be fine.” Right?
ELM: Sure.
FK: Versus like, “I have no way of avoiding this, like, person talking at me.” So, you know, it’s complex!
ELM: Right.
FK: And I also don’t know about this, you know, I…like, anonymous, I’m sure you are a wonderful person, but I also don’t know how you’re interacting with her. Right? Because there is a case, like, I have definitely been in situations where I made things worse, and I don’t think that you’re doing that because I can’t know, right? Like…I can’t see into this interaction with you, I’m not a therapist, I don’t have any idea what’s going on.
ELM: Tell me how you made things worse!
FK: I mean I’ve been in situations where like I couldn’t let go of someone. Like, I knew that they had this negative opinion or whatever, this thing that was gonna bother me, and I kept poking them about it even though I really didn’t have to keep interacting with them about it, right.
ELM: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
FK: But it was like this tooth that I had to keep niggling and pushing at. I don’t think this anonymous person is doing that. Because again, I can’t know. Because…
ELM: I’ve done that too.
FK: I don’t know what this interaction is, right? So like…I’m not trying to say that they’re doing it, but it’s possible, which is why this would be, I wish therapists did understand the fandom context! [laughing] Cause this is exactly what therapists are trained to help people figure out for themselves, right.
ELM: Yeah, also like it’s a shame, I mean, I feel like you could say…I mean not the, maybe having to explain the RPF elements of it, but like…I mean maybe it is hard for some therapists to wrap their heads around the idea of like, that you could be, “Why are you in this forum?” Maybe their advice would be “You should just leave, this woman sounds awful.” But if you’re like “Well, this is where my community is” or “I’m interested in, you know, this is what the people who like the thing I like have gathered,” I think that can be harder for people to wrap their heads around if they’re not in fandom.
FK: Yeah for sure.
ELM: But a lot of the other things I feel like, I mean, yeah. It is hard without context I guess.
FK: Well no and again, I don’t think it’s hard to say this person sounds like they have a lot of opinions that I strongly dislike. They don’t sound great! They don’t sound like a peach to me. No matter what you’re doing. You know? Like…
ELM: Yeah.
FK: But it is, but again, you know, like, this is the same problem I have with any internet advice forum. Ultimately the only thing that, the only person who really knows what’s going on in that situation for you is you. And that’s the case anywhere you are with, with people, if you’re not talking to someone who knows all the players intimately and has been there for the interactions, you know?
ELM: Wait, what about the internet advice columns where they’re like “I think my mother-in-law is poisoning me,” and they’re like, “I think you’re right.” [FK laughs] And then she is.
FK: I mean…
ELM: That works!
FK: That works. It’s also possible that the person…I mean in that case I’m very glad [laughs] that person wrote in and they figured it out, right? But like again, that person could also have like…Munchausen’s by proxy or something, whatever that is…they could genuinely be delusional about what’s happening. You know nothing but what’s in the letter, right? So an internet advice column like that works really well…
ELM: I’m so glad you don’t have an internet advice column. You’d be like “Well, maybe your mother-in-law’s poisoning you, but…”
FK: No…the reason those are good is because it’s not advice for the person, I mean like in this case it was advice for the person who’s doing it and I’m glad that they didn’t get poisoned. But a lot of times it’s less like, it’s not so much “This is advice for the person in the situation,” it’s more like the people who read this learn about a situation that is presented to them.
ELM: You mean that one was more…
FK: And get good advice about that…
ELM: …entertainment about someone’s pain, you know.
FK: Yeah, OK. But like whatever, you know. And that’s, to me, that’s the value of an advice column. It’s less about actually advising the person who wrote in and more about, like, all the people who read the column.
ELM: Right, right.
FK: And so then in that respect it doesn’t matter what the person who wrote in’s actual situation is, because a situation was presented—it matters to them, but like, not for the purposes of the column.
ELM: Well, I don’t know, a fair number of those, and also the Reddit, subreddit Am I The Asshole, and similar ones where they’re asking people’s kinda collective opinions, and I’ve seen so many where they’re like “Oh my God, you’re in an abusive relationship, you should leave.” And they’ll be like updated and they’ll be like “I never would have thought that until literally all of you told me that based on this horrific story I posted.”
FK: Right.
ELM: “And I’ve, I’ve left the situation,” you know, so it’s like…
FK: I’m not saying it’s always like that, but then sometimes you also see things where you’re like: I can’t tell what’s actually happening in this situation, you know what I mean? There’s a range, there’s a vast range!
ELM: Yeah. Yeah. It’s true.
FK: Anyway, all I’m trying to say about this is, anonymous, you need not fear that you’re the asshole in this situation with regard to, you know, like, not being told that you’re…like…she’s got a lot of really bad opinions that are indeed offensive!
ELM: Yeah but what’s anon supposed to do?
FK: I think that that depends on the situation in that community!
ELM: Yeah.
FK: And that’s what’s hard about this too, right? It’s like, it’s actually quite different from Tumblr or something where you can say like “Well, I know what a situation is if you’re following someone’s Tumblr.”
ELM: I mean I, no.
FK: “Stop following it!”
ELM: I know that you’re trying to draw this distinction but I think for me personally, I would leave. I would quit.
FK: In that community.
ELM: If I was in this situation I feel like this woman’s toxicity would ruin the thing, the thing that I…
FK: Yeah yeah yeah, maybe.
ELM: She would bring me right down and I would probably come to resent the, you know, this whole thing.
FK: Yeah yeah yeah.
ELM: And I would leave. Because, you know, like…which can be good and can be bad. And I don’t want to tell anyone that that’s what they have to do.
FK: I mean, I might do that too. I just don’t know. You know? Like, it would…it would, like, how big is the community, who’s running it, all those things would make a difference for me.
ELM: Yeah, I don’t know.
FK: I don’t know. We don’t know, we don’t have an answer, we don’t have like an answer-advice.
ELM: We wish you luck!
FK: We do wish you luck because this sounds like it sucks, but also, this is, like you said, this is a perfect example of like how small group dynamics also suck in different ways than large dogpile dynamics, right?
ELM: Right, and also, yeah! And, and the way that power structures—to bring it back to the theme of this whole thing—are probably the most defined of any of the examples that we’ve been talking about, right, and everything I was just saying in the previous bit about how it’s really hard with fanfiction writers because the power structures aren’t defined beyond, they’re not defined. There’s like 17 different things going on at once. And so what you find value in is not necessarily the same thing as what I find value in or whatever, right? We have different…
FK: Yeah.
ELM: …feelings about cookies. But like…or maybe different metaphors, and mine is not cookies. But in this one, we obviously don’t know the specifics, but it is likely that the dynamics are much, not the, the power structures are much more defined. She is a mod.
FK: Yeah, because there’s a mod!
ELM: It’s a closed space.
FK: There’s a role!
ELM: A specific number of people inside that space, she has specific power, she has a context that we don’t know about in her relationship to the space. Whether she’s the founder or the owner or just a mod. You know? So that’s, in a way, I think can be more explicitly painful…
FK: Mm, yeah.
ELM: …cause you don’t have those grey areas to kind of wiggle in and out of, but it can also be clearer. Like if it’s her forum, and she always ran it, she sucks! Then that, the solution might be to leave. Because she’s not going anywhere, this is hers, you know what I mean? Like…
FK: Yeah, absolutely.
ELM: That kinda thing. And that’s never gonna, in an archive or in a big social media platform, there’s never gonna be anything that clear-cut.
FK: Right, yeah yeah yeah. Well, and also, similarly, if it’s not her forum that she owns, then it’s possible that there are, you know, that there may be a mod team, there may be other people that you can…
ELM: And you can approach the other mods and say…
FK: Approach, right? There may even be a structure.
ELM: “She’s really crossing a lot of lines and, like, you know, I’m trying not to, you know, trying not to let it bring me down or whatever but it’s really hurtful and harmful that she’s holding these opinions,” you know.
FK: And in a large, in a large, like in a large forum, historically, which is not—it doesn’t sound like this is like that, but in a large forum or a Discord or something often there would be actual structures for complaints and things like this. Which again, maybe some of these small groups will rediscover the need for this. [laughs] You know what I mean? In a way that 10, 15 years ago people…not everyone knew the need for it but there were certainly a lot of communities that had sort of, like, established processes by which people could make complaints or air grievances against the mod team.
ELM: I just had such a strong flash of ’90s style introductions. “Beers in the fridge.” Do you miss being welcomed into a chatroom, being told there were beers in the fridge?
FK: I do…I also was thinking about those like, you know, long introduction forms that you would fill out to say who you were.
ELM: I didn’t join them, I just looked at them. So I never had to fill out a form.
FK: You never did cause you were a lurker.
ELM: Mm-hmm.
FK: Well, OK, yeah. Good luck, anonymous, and we hope that whatever you decide to do it brings you less aggravation from this person.
ELM: Yeah, also makin’ us want to go write demonic fics.
FK: I don’t wanna do that.
ELM: You sure you don’t wanna do that?
FK: I’m sure. Maybe demon banishing? But like not…well, there could be demon summoning as long as the demon is banished at the end.
ELM: Wow you sound just like this mod. What’s wrong with demons, Flourish?
FK: Yeah, just like the mod.
ELM: I thought you were the Spuffy shipper!
FK: Uh, I mean…maybe. Maybe. That’s different. That’s a different kind of demon. Let’s, let’s, OK.
ELM: It’s not, that’s the point! That’s why it was such a mistake for them to have him get—like—it was such a stupid writing decision!
FK: I didn’t mean it like that—I meant it like, that’s a fiction demon in a fiction world of fiction demons as opposed to, like, a, [laughs] I don’t know, like a religiously described demon. I don’t know.
ELM: Is this what’s gonna happen as you become, like, like, carry on in your journey to becoming a priest?
FK: They’re different! They’re different!
ELM: You’re gonna start taking demons very literally?
FK: I do not take them very literally, I’m just saying that like, you know one of these is like clearly a “this is a fictional world in which these things live,” and clearly this mod fears actual demons. And I, I…don’t…really…but like…I don’t know, it seems different to me! You could write, you could write like a satanic in the sense of actual Satanism fic. I wouldn’t want to do that. But you could.
ELM: Because you’re a good Christian.
FK: Yeah! But I’m just saying if you think of it in those terms…
ELM: I feel like this is a journey that you’re going on right now. It’s interesting.
FK: I need to end the journey. OK.
ELM: Interesting.
FK: You know what Elizabeth? I think that we’re done with this topic. We should wrap up.
ELM: We’re clearly not quote-unquote “done” with this topic. We’re gonna keep talking about this topic.
FK: But not right now.
ELM: Yes. End of this episode.
FK: All right. What do we need to tell our listeners?
ELM: So first things first, as always, Fansplaining is brought to you by our patrons. I’m trying to think of a way to tie this to the topic of power dynamics and every time I go down that road mentally I change my mind.
FK: Yeah, don’t do it. Let’s just, just, just tell people what…
ELM: The power…well, as they always say on NPR, the power of the communal to produce this…no…
FK: [laughing] There was an attempt!
ELM: Patreon.com/fansplaining! So you probably know by this point, Episode 115, but if you have just hopped in on this one, you can donate as much or as little as you’re able to do if you have any cash to spare. A dollar, $10, $5,000 a month…if you, uh, you know what, Jeff Bezos could do it. If he cared.
FK: And he, and then I would knit him a Weasley sweater.
ELM: I…I was gonna say he doesn’t deserve that but no, if he pledged a $400 a month he would get that. So you could put a big J on it. [laughs] All right! So! Patreon is the way that we are able to continue making this podcast. As we always say, we do not break even but it is really helpful, any financial support. So if you are going over your finances at the end of the year and you find that you have a couple of hundred dollars a month that you would be able to spare, we would love that and in return we will give you things like access to special episodes, early episodes, you get it on Tuesdays not Wednesdays. At $5 a month you get a really cute enamel pin and I have a PSA actually!
FK: Mm?
ELM: We’ve now heard reports of two different people having their pins fall off.
FK: Mm.
ELM: I might suggest swapping the back out.
FK: Probably not a terrible idea, because we’ve had those reports.
ELM: Those two reports.
FK: That said…
ELM: Out of, out of more than 50 pins sent out. I don’t know…
FK: And I do think that in one case it was in a high-traffic area on the back of a backpack.
ELM: Yes. That being said, um, I would hate for anyone to lose their incredibly cute pin, which we both got to test out at GeekGirlCon. Actually you probably have worn yours in public sooner than that, but I did anyway.
FK: I have. I also accidentally ran mine through the washing machine and it held up fine.
ELM: Fine. This has been…
FK: With the back still on!
ELM: Wow!
FK: It stuck the whole way!
ELM: OK, maybe, um, take that for, for what it’s worth! I, I mean like, I don’t know how often you put pins on things but you know, pin backs…they can vary! It’s just like earring backs. So, it might work on certain materials and not others. If you’re worried at all, because you have like a thick canvas, maybe consider swapping it out for a strong back.
FK: Indeed.
ELM: Anyway, the pins are super cute, everyone loves them, even the people that devastatingly have lost theirs. They loved them when they had them. [FK laughs] So, yeah! Patreon.com/fansplaining.
FK: And you can also write to us as you’ve seen with this episode. We love receiving questions, comments, that’s fansplaining at gmail dot com or leave us an ask in our askbox on Tumblr. Anon is on. Or tweet at us, fansplaining at Twitter. Or send us an Instagram DM? I don’t know.
ELM: I don’t think that’s…
FK: We’re on all these sites as Fansplaining. It’s not great but you can do it, it’s open to you, yeah!
ELM: And I should note that one of these, the Sarah Dessen question came in through the submissions form on fansplaining.com.
FK: Which we also have!
ELM: And I think that, we’ve said this before and I want to reiterate: that’s a fine place to leave that kind of question cause it was just a request. But we’ve had people use that form to ask us questions and then not leave any contact information, and they were very much questions that asked for a response to them specifically.
FK: Yeah, and we were like “Oh, well…nope.”
ELM: So if you don’t leave your contact info and you want a response that’s not a good place to do it. So we would always advise fansplaining at gmail dot com. And we’ll always keep you anon. And did you say the phone number?
FK: I did not! The phone number that you can call to leave us a voice mail is 1-401-526-FANS. Was that right?
ELM: That’s right.
FK: Yeah!
ELM: You, the community, this is when we get full NPR, should call this phone number.
FK: Yep! 1-401-526-FANS. OK!
ELM: Well. We have just one more episode of the year!
FK: Oh man, we do. It’s been a good year, Elizabeth!
ELM: You know, I think it’s been a pretty all right year. I feel like the last two years we’ve been like, “this has been a year,” but 2019 has just been kinda strange.
FK: It’s been kind of strange but it has not been as remarkably bad as some previous years, maybe because we’re like the boiling frog. We’ve become normalized.
ELM: You know, you know what I think it is, partly, I do think that like, in 2017 the idea of like the next presidential—this is for Americans only, but like, the idea of the next presidential election being in 2020 seemed like, there’s kind of this like, looming wait of like, “That’s a thousand years from now.” And now it’s like, 11 months away. And while I have an extraordinary amount of dread, it’s a really different feeling than just waiting, you know?
FK: So, great, we’re gonna talk about that in our next episode probably!
ELM: I’m just letting you know where I’m at right now!
FK: All right. Elizabeth?
ELM: That’s fine.
FK: Go experience your dread somewhere else. I’ll talk to you later.
ELM: OK bye Flourish. [FK laughs]
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