No ficlet today... instead: Discussion Question!

[hells_half_acre]

I'm not doing a ficlet today, because
A)I can't think of anything to go with today's prompt. (Which seem to be a song about being on a city bus.)
B)I'm behind on work and I'm thinking I'll probably have to work until 11pm or something ridiculous to make up for it.

On the one hand, I could just churn out anything so that I successfully post a ficlet on every single day in April... but I find that I actually do care a little bit about the quality of the fics, so I don't want to do that.

So, instead, how about we discuss something...

My younger sister thinks that I should share my fanfiction writing (not this blog, but my AO3 account) with my friends/family on facebook. I'm against this for various reasons, but she thinks they're all stupid reasons and I should do it anyway. Now, my mum already knows about and reads this blog, and I've already shared my AO3 account with my eldest sister. My other older sister knows that I write fanfiction (she's seen the bound books that a fan made of my demented'verse), but she's never asked to read it (or maybe she has, and I sent her the link and I've just forgotten.)

Now, my reasoning is that if people that already know that I write fanfiction were interested, they would ask for links (as my eldest/youngest sister have done.) My younger sister argument to that was that she assumed because I didn't OFFER the links, that I didn't want her to read it, and it made her sad. But, in my mind, if you want a book, you go buy it from the author - you don't wait for authors to show up at your door and offer you their books. Anyway... that's a whole separate argument and really reflects more the differences in our styles of interactions with the world around us.

What I DID want to ask though was how you all felt about the whole Fandom/IRL divide?

Do you keep your fandom life and your "real" life completely separate? (As I try to.) Why, why not? Do you think they SHOULD be separate?

Personally, I like to keep them separate. I (rarely) friend fandom friends on facebook, since I see FB as mainly a place to keep in touch with old-school mates and family. Twitter is a bit more of a hodge podge though, but because of that I'm never exactly sure what to say on it.

I used to have a non-fandom LJ, but it's been inactive for years, because there's more engagement over here - and I think I also just grew out of the narcissistic stage in life where I thought people might care about my inner thoughts. (Blogging is so '00s).

Now, the reasons I like to keep everything separate is because...

A) I've always liked to keep things separated from each other. I even have different groups of RL friends, and I get really uncomfortable when they come into contact with each other.

B) Since I first found online fandom back in the 90s, it just seemed like something that was supposed to be a secret.... like fight club. :P I don't know if that's a product of the whole "fan shame" thing or if it's a product of the fact that people who aren't in fandom just honestly don't understand and/or care about anything fandom related. (My younger sister argues that they would care about my fanfiction because it's my WRITING and that's interesting - but I think she just says that because she's very sweet and she cares about my writing despite not watching the shows that I write about... other people wouldn't, I don't think.)

C) When I HAVE told other people about my fanfiction/fandom activities, they've sometimes started trying to figure out how I can monetize it.... which, you know, it's nice that they're trying to figure out how to get me a career that I actually enjoy, but that goes against like ALL THE CODES OF CONDUCT OF FANDOM, and sometimes I've had  quite a hard time getting that message across. You can monetize fanart, not fanfiction, and unless I start putting in years of study, I'm not going to suddenly become a monetized fanartist. (And seriously, "just change the names of the characters in the fanfiction, it worked for Fifty Shades of Grey"  - and then I've gotta explain the difference between AU-writers and canon-writers.... and it just goes on and on. So, maybe this reason is: TOO MUCH EXPLAINING IS ANNOYING!

D) I'm a very weirdly selectively private person. I mean, I'll happily answer basically any question honestly, but I don't like offering information about myself... especially when it comes to my family for some odd reason. Like, I just don't want them to know things about me. It's really really weird. Basically, I probably have psychological problems when it comes to issues of vulnerability or some such psychobabble. I like to live secret lives... I think it's part of the reason I don't date - I honestly DON'T want to share my life with anyone. :P

Anyway, I'd be interested to here how you feel about the issue. Should we be coming out of the fandom closet, or is that door there for a reason?

Comments

[ria-oaks.livejournal.com]

Sometimes I really just want to sit down and explain to people who don't get it, just what exactly fandom and fic means and how it is empowering. I mean, there's been lots of academic research and shit done on fandom - back in university I took several Popular Culture classes out in Ontario, including one called 'Audience Studies'. We had several classes on fandom (in which the prof mis-used the term slash and made me go ARGH, because Clark/Chloe is not slash! It's het! Slash does not mean the same thing as ship!). I did a seminar presentation on slash (actually I did a couple that year, lol) - now that was interesting... got a lot of blank stares.

But really, in an academic setting you think people would've been more open to learning about it. I talked a lot about how slash (especially in the early days of Kirk/Spock) is a way of resisting the hetero-normativity of most mainstream media by recognizing and building on queer subtext. Even though many fans are straight cis-women, many are definitely not and also most of us straight cis-women care a lot about things like gay rights and empowering queerness and all of that. Not saying that slash has to be political or anything, but I think a case can be made that there's sometimes an element of that. We want more gay people in our TV and dammit we will write fic since we don't get it in canon. ;) (I also talked about how writing erotic fiction is a way of empowering female sexuality because we are being open about our desires and communicating them through our writing... now that got blank stares!)

Anyway, my rambling point is that I want to claim fanfiction/fanart/etc as something we do that is empowering and creative and awesome, and explain it to people that way. Because what is shameful or weird about engaging critically and creatively with the media we consume? Would people prefer if we just passively sat back and stare at the TV without thinking about what we're consuming? And by creating fic and fandom we create a strong community full of creative, smart, and open-minded (well in general/ideally!) individuals. Transformative works are awesome things and I want more people to understand why! (I also wrote a paper on fan charities that year of university - wanted to prove that fandom can have 'real-life' positive effects too!)

And yeah, the secret club thing is always an issue when small things go mainstream... and it's an understandable reaction, really, because people LIKE things that are exclusive and special and that other people don't know about. It can be nice, and that's not always a bad thing. But really, more people liking the stuff we like should be a good thing, not a bad one, even if our gut reaction is sometimes to say "I was here first, go away!" lol.

god I'm talkative tonight. Sorry. I've had these thoughts boiling over for awhile.

[hells-half-acre.livejournal.com]

Don't apologize, they are good thoughts!

And I completely agree with all of them. It'd be nice if people just understood - if you could somehow sit them down and EXPLAIN everything to them and have them go "Oh! I get it!" and they actually do.

I don't know, maybe one day someone will write a book that we can just hand to our non-fandom friends/family and say "talk to me after you read this" :P

(Sidenote: it drives me nuts when people call het slash.)

[ria-oaks.livejournal.com]

Haha we should write a book like that. ;) I mean there are academic essays/studies done on fandom and various books, but we need something short and pithy that explains it. Course everyone's experience of fandom is different, but I think there are some commonalities that most of us could agree on...

I just need to get better at defending it in person - I'm not very good at debating because I don't really like conflict. But I want to stand up for myself and say "No, this is not some weird thing I do! It is awesome and empowering for X-Y-Z reasons!"

(also massive agreement to the person below who said that they don't want to deny something that is a big part of their personal identity or hide what they do with most of their spare time. In part because it's really hard for me to think of hobbies/things I like that AREN'T related to fandom! "Umm, I like travel. And drawing. And I used to do martial arts? Yeah I'm out." At least drawing is an easy one if I don't say WHAT I draw. "gay porn? what gay porn?"

[hells-half-acre.livejournal.com]

Yeah, a little pamphlete or something we could just hand people. :P

I think that's the problem with a lot of fans though (especially women) we don't like conflict, so people make comments and we just let them and then change the subject and we don't educate.

And yeah, it IS hard to explain your hobbies and not be honest about fandom. "I write" - but no one ever sees any of it. "I read" - oh, what are you reading? - "uh, just romances mostly, you know... nothing too interesting." :P

[ria-oaks.livejournal.com]

Lol, it is hard to explain that I DO read, just... not often books. My Kobo is full of fic. Well and Game of Thrones right now, but that's one of the relatively few novels I've read in recent years, which is kind of sad actually.

I was just thinking more on this (re: some of the comments below about being open about vanilla stuff and closed about porn), and yeah, that is definitely a valid point. For all that I am happy to be 'yay fandom and fic!', when it comes to certain stuff I draw... Tony/Steve vaguely homo-erotic drawings are one thing, the very X-rated RPF I drew in my fakenews/pundit fandom thing are another. ;) Even within fandom RPF can be a hot topic still, and I really don't want to explain to people outside of fic fandom that I drew Jon Stewart/Stephen Colbert porn. Or that the reason I like Anderson Cooper is more because I used to read/write fic and draw fanart about him and less about actually watching his show (though I do like and respect the real man too!). And even within fandom - actor RPF has been recognized and pretty accepted for quite awhile, but even I was surprised to find out there was Anderson Cooper porn lol. I adjusted quickly. ;)

Point is, if my drawings of characters came out that is one thing... drawings of real people, esp x-rated ones, is another. Pity, because that was an amazing fandom full of really awesome, smart, and creative people, and I spent a great 2 years in it. It was one of the most accepting and intelligent fandoms I've ever been in.

[hells-half-acre.livejournal.com]

Yeah, it's an interesting divide - and there are divides with in the divides. :P

I actually keep a whole separate LJ for porn. Not only because my mum knows about this LJ, but also because (although I didn't originally intended it) this LJ became about resources and gen fic (or only extremely mild slash)...and I kind of like it that way. I like this LJ being G-rated and "clean" - I will DISCUSS and REC kinky things on it, but I don't write kinky things... that I do anonymously.

So, yeah, divisions within divisions. Even our secret clubs have secret clubs. ;)

[nic]

Just jumping in to say I read this entire discussion and loved it and agree with pretty much everything you both said!

[hells-half-acre.livejournal.com]

Thanks! I've really loved this discussion too. And great minds think alike... ;)

[claudiapriscus.livejournal.com]

Something that's always interested me about academic views of fandom and slash is that there are so many explanations for it and arguments for what it represents. (I suspect that's because there isn't just one driving factor behind it). I've seen arguments about pushback from heteronormativity, about reclaiming a 'female gaze', about internalized misogyny, about the way that female character in mass media are rarely given the same centrality and depth as the male characters, and they all seem to be accurate for a least some cases, but there's a lack of a single overarching narrative that can tie it all together.