Escapade Con Report Part 3
Mar. 10th, 2003 07:53 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tenayaSaturday started out with breakfast at the hotel and the unexpected meeting of a friend, both of which conspired to cause me to miss both Is The Personal Political? (what role do peace, gender and class differences play in slash fan fiction?) and the Palm Pilot tech panel. Damn and double damn.
But I did make Fannish Entitlement (No, actually "Write More!" doesn't count as a Letter of Comment.) This was a great panel. Very, very thought provoking on a number of levels. I'd say that entitlement is pervasive throughout all areas of fandom.
Fans feel they are entitled to product (stories, vids, art,) community, feedback, author written thank you notes to the feedback, access to the "cool kids," bitching, warnings, disclaimers, a certain type of story ending, not to be hurt by a story's content (with the reader defining what is harmful.) Warnings--are they an entitlement or a courtesy? A writer is entitled to not *have* to please her audience (but of course, she shouldn't be hurt when her audience is displeased. It's a two-way street.)
Fans feel they are entitled to a specific relationship (D/M, J/D...) and to clear rules concerning things such as the presence of het vids, story warnings and non-fannish content slipped into fannish venues. Fans may feel entitled to opposite things and get aggressive in their defense of their entitlement. Fans think they are entitled to a con called Escapade, for instance (guilty as charged here.)
If the product that a fan creates is given to the fannish community as a gift, then logically there should be no expectation of feedback or to thank you notes for the f/b or for any expectation of specific content.
But I feel fandom is a society and societies do have rules. It is a not unreasonable to expect compliance to the rules. The trouble is that as an ad hoc society, the rules are mutually agreed upon by the inhabitants of each little fannish village. The Bunny folk want story warnings and their characters together, unmaimed and reasonably sane. The fen who like gritty, depressingly realistic stories/endings don't want warnings and delight in stuff that makes them feel intensely.
Water will find its own level and fandoms predictably fragment into ever tinier sub groups whose members share similar values. At some point though, their numbers become small enough that their production level doesn't come close to meeting demand and so they moan that there isn't enough "quality" product any more--with quality defined by them, of course. Ninety percent of everything is crap, but it's plain what is one fan's crap is another fan's gourmet dinner. As people go out of their villages in search of quality fic, they invariably come across groups with different values and probably their fiction will be judged as having a much higher crap content.
And to continue with this rant, I have to ask why do people insist on reading what they classify as crap? Doesn't that just reinforce their perception that so much crap is around? Why aren't they using their time to writing "good fic?" BTW, that's rhetorical question; I have a very good idea why they do that.
But to get back to the panel, the quick conclusion was that one should expect nothing; you are not entitled to anything! This is so true but so hard to do.
My next panel was Stargate: What's Wrong With This Universe? Since the original title was: Stargate -- The hypocrisy: "The show won't be ruined without Daniel; it's an *ensemble* cast" vs. "Die, Jonas, die!" this was actually an improvement. So, determined to see what the current opinion of the show was, I took a seat...and was surprised to find I enjoyed the panel. There were 40 odd people there off and on, and spoilers weren't allowed for season 6, except for titles. The moderator asked what the worst episodes were and Nightwalkers won out over The Other Guys. There were complaints from the crowd about the Stargate being underused, that things were so bad that they were taping over the episodes instead of saving them, that the writing had declined. The M&Ms were mentioned and the mod agreed, stating it would take at least an hour to complain about them. Someone mentioned Jonas and the crowd groaned. The mod said, "wait" and asked if there was anyone who liked Jonas? One person said yes, and when asked what they liked, they qualified it and said he was less obnoxious now. It was pointed out that a character could be obnoxious and still liked, like McKay. Other descriptors for Jonas were limp dish rag, super boy, weasel, Wesley Crusher and that he was now Exposition Boy. The mod said she had heard some online fans said Daniel was boring; she was puzzled and asked if anyone felt that way. The dynamic group response was "no." People mentioned they did not like "Incompetent Fanon Danny" but like "Competent Canon Daniel." There was a mention of Luminous Daniel, but I was so caught in that imagine, I never figured out if this was a good or a bad thing. The mod asked if anyone actually liked Jack and there was hearty agreement that they did. The many facets of Jack was brought up and Dumb Jack wasn't liked so much. I *think* there was an observation that 6th season Jack was Capt. Dunsel (from the Star Trek reference). I could be wrong about that though. Someone was mentioned to be Capt. Dunsel though.
There was a brief discussion earlier about the fan fiction favorite scenario of Daniel being raped by someone in the SGC. I kind of got the idea that there were two camps here. One camp dismissed that as unlikely to ever happen and if it did, Daniel certainly would NOT hide the assault from Jack and he would actively press charges. The second group brought up the current scandal at the Air Force Academy and put forth that maybe it might be a possibility and a real threat after all. Personally, I'm not sold on the idea that Daniel would go straight to Jack or Hammond or immediately file charges. That's a question of characterization of a complex character in a complex situation. And if he didn't come forward that does not automatically make him Fem!Daniel, either.
But enough of that! The next panel was Whose Fandom Is It? The rights of the individual vs. the right of the group (such as it is.) The moderators related an interesting account of how some Smallville fans took out a banner ad on Television Without Pity to advertise a SV archive (slash, I think.) Since Television Without Pity is frequented by Hollywood types, the fear of being on their radar made a number of authors pull their stories. The good intentions of some fans ended up infringing on the space of other fans and threatened their activities. Fandom seems to be an anything goes environment except for doing something that brings the "outside world" into our space--that seems to be the ultimate taboo. Our perceived sense of safety was questioned, that it was really an illusion and that fans had different strategies to achieve safety. For some, it is being invisible and for others it is being "out" and visible and challenging the copy write laws. I remember the profound statement that fandom is either being fed or it is being starved...but now I can't recall how that fit into this discussion!
Oh, then there was a whole thing on shunning the folks that had committed offenses against our society. That shunning was a great thing, but it didn't really work in this situation. From the examples given, I'd say that if the person violating the rules was supplying a product of some kind (stories, zines, etc...) that person would more than likely retain their status and not be shunned by enough people to make a dent in their behavior.
My next panel was Minotaur's Gay Boy Tells All. He was as helpful as ever, and started off polling the audience on kinks as he was preparing to update his site. He has the domain of slashdom.com and is intent on building quite a site there. He also recommended www.mgleather.com.
I went to half of the computer vidding workshop and took lots of notes, but now, two weeks later, all I'm left with is the impression of how complex it all is. And after seeing some awesome vids that weekend, I'm definitely feeling dubious about constructing and show vids in the future.
The vid show on Saturday was delightful and well-run. It started on time and efforts had been made to mix up the show for mood and content. My favorite vids were Voodoo (incredibly cool looking) and Closer (stunningly edited.) Other very impressive vids were Acceptance (very poignant and emotional), Learning to Fly (love to see this again as I have a hard time absorbing all the multiple levels on the first showing) and Salome. Bawitdaba was unique cause I don't like the song or the show, but nevertheless was impressed with how well crafted it was. Just don't ask me to view it again!
Humorous stand outs were the opening credits, I Kissed A Girl, Green Acres, Something to Talk About and Ouch!
I was glad to be able to show my vids at this show. There were enough positive comments on the comment cards that I feel my vids will be appreciated when they get to the right audience. I'm a niche producer so I'm happy if a few people manage to enjoy my projects. I have to share the funniest comment though: "Too many Stargate vids--other shows are around guys." Talk about entitlement! I must have missed my memos from the Vidders Cabal, not to mention foolishly not archiving multiple other shows just to provide variety to the viewers. When I think of all those other vid shows where I sat through an hour of other fandom shows just to see the one or two I really was into.... For the record, there were 31 vids, of which 7 were SG, two of which were very short and funny. 22%. This comment still makes me laugh two weeks later.
That takes me up to the end of Saturday night. One more post to go....
But I did make Fannish Entitlement (No, actually "Write More!" doesn't count as a Letter of Comment.) This was a great panel. Very, very thought provoking on a number of levels. I'd say that entitlement is pervasive throughout all areas of fandom.
Fans feel they are entitled to product (stories, vids, art,) community, feedback, author written thank you notes to the feedback, access to the "cool kids," bitching, warnings, disclaimers, a certain type of story ending, not to be hurt by a story's content (with the reader defining what is harmful.) Warnings--are they an entitlement or a courtesy? A writer is entitled to not *have* to please her audience (but of course, she shouldn't be hurt when her audience is displeased. It's a two-way street.)
Fans feel they are entitled to a specific relationship (D/M, J/D...) and to clear rules concerning things such as the presence of het vids, story warnings and non-fannish content slipped into fannish venues. Fans may feel entitled to opposite things and get aggressive in their defense of their entitlement. Fans think they are entitled to a con called Escapade, for instance (guilty as charged here.)
If the product that a fan creates is given to the fannish community as a gift, then logically there should be no expectation of feedback or to thank you notes for the f/b or for any expectation of specific content.
But I feel fandom is a society and societies do have rules. It is a not unreasonable to expect compliance to the rules. The trouble is that as an ad hoc society, the rules are mutually agreed upon by the inhabitants of each little fannish village. The Bunny folk want story warnings and their characters together, unmaimed and reasonably sane. The fen who like gritty, depressingly realistic stories/endings don't want warnings and delight in stuff that makes them feel intensely.
Water will find its own level and fandoms predictably fragment into ever tinier sub groups whose members share similar values. At some point though, their numbers become small enough that their production level doesn't come close to meeting demand and so they moan that there isn't enough "quality" product any more--with quality defined by them, of course. Ninety percent of everything is crap, but it's plain what is one fan's crap is another fan's gourmet dinner. As people go out of their villages in search of quality fic, they invariably come across groups with different values and probably their fiction will be judged as having a much higher crap content.
And to continue with this rant, I have to ask why do people insist on reading what they classify as crap? Doesn't that just reinforce their perception that so much crap is around? Why aren't they using their time to writing "good fic?" BTW, that's rhetorical question; I have a very good idea why they do that.
But to get back to the panel, the quick conclusion was that one should expect nothing; you are not entitled to anything! This is so true but so hard to do.
My next panel was Stargate: What's Wrong With This Universe? Since the original title was: Stargate -- The hypocrisy: "The show won't be ruined without Daniel; it's an *ensemble* cast" vs. "Die, Jonas, die!" this was actually an improvement. So, determined to see what the current opinion of the show was, I took a seat...and was surprised to find I enjoyed the panel. There were 40 odd people there off and on, and spoilers weren't allowed for season 6, except for titles. The moderator asked what the worst episodes were and Nightwalkers won out over The Other Guys. There were complaints from the crowd about the Stargate being underused, that things were so bad that they were taping over the episodes instead of saving them, that the writing had declined. The M&Ms were mentioned and the mod agreed, stating it would take at least an hour to complain about them. Someone mentioned Jonas and the crowd groaned. The mod said, "wait" and asked if there was anyone who liked Jonas? One person said yes, and when asked what they liked, they qualified it and said he was less obnoxious now. It was pointed out that a character could be obnoxious and still liked, like McKay. Other descriptors for Jonas were limp dish rag, super boy, weasel, Wesley Crusher and that he was now Exposition Boy. The mod said she had heard some online fans said Daniel was boring; she was puzzled and asked if anyone felt that way. The dynamic group response was "no." People mentioned they did not like "Incompetent Fanon Danny" but like "Competent Canon Daniel." There was a mention of Luminous Daniel, but I was so caught in that imagine, I never figured out if this was a good or a bad thing. The mod asked if anyone actually liked Jack and there was hearty agreement that they did. The many facets of Jack was brought up and Dumb Jack wasn't liked so much. I *think* there was an observation that 6th season Jack was Capt. Dunsel (from the Star Trek reference). I could be wrong about that though. Someone was mentioned to be Capt. Dunsel though.
There was a brief discussion earlier about the fan fiction favorite scenario of Daniel being raped by someone in the SGC. I kind of got the idea that there were two camps here. One camp dismissed that as unlikely to ever happen and if it did, Daniel certainly would NOT hide the assault from Jack and he would actively press charges. The second group brought up the current scandal at the Air Force Academy and put forth that maybe it might be a possibility and a real threat after all. Personally, I'm not sold on the idea that Daniel would go straight to Jack or Hammond or immediately file charges. That's a question of characterization of a complex character in a complex situation. And if he didn't come forward that does not automatically make him Fem!Daniel, either.
But enough of that! The next panel was Whose Fandom Is It? The rights of the individual vs. the right of the group (such as it is.) The moderators related an interesting account of how some Smallville fans took out a banner ad on Television Without Pity to advertise a SV archive (slash, I think.) Since Television Without Pity is frequented by Hollywood types, the fear of being on their radar made a number of authors pull their stories. The good intentions of some fans ended up infringing on the space of other fans and threatened their activities. Fandom seems to be an anything goes environment except for doing something that brings the "outside world" into our space--that seems to be the ultimate taboo. Our perceived sense of safety was questioned, that it was really an illusion and that fans had different strategies to achieve safety. For some, it is being invisible and for others it is being "out" and visible and challenging the copy write laws. I remember the profound statement that fandom is either being fed or it is being starved...but now I can't recall how that fit into this discussion!
Oh, then there was a whole thing on shunning the folks that had committed offenses against our society. That shunning was a great thing, but it didn't really work in this situation. From the examples given, I'd say that if the person violating the rules was supplying a product of some kind (stories, zines, etc...) that person would more than likely retain their status and not be shunned by enough people to make a dent in their behavior.
My next panel was Minotaur's Gay Boy Tells All. He was as helpful as ever, and started off polling the audience on kinks as he was preparing to update his site. He has the domain of slashdom.com and is intent on building quite a site there. He also recommended www.mgleather.com.
I went to half of the computer vidding workshop and took lots of notes, but now, two weeks later, all I'm left with is the impression of how complex it all is. And after seeing some awesome vids that weekend, I'm definitely feeling dubious about constructing and show vids in the future.
The vid show on Saturday was delightful and well-run. It started on time and efforts had been made to mix up the show for mood and content. My favorite vids were Voodoo (incredibly cool looking) and Closer (stunningly edited.) Other very impressive vids were Acceptance (very poignant and emotional), Learning to Fly (love to see this again as I have a hard time absorbing all the multiple levels on the first showing) and Salome. Bawitdaba was unique cause I don't like the song or the show, but nevertheless was impressed with how well crafted it was. Just don't ask me to view it again!
Humorous stand outs were the opening credits, I Kissed A Girl, Green Acres, Something to Talk About and Ouch!
I was glad to be able to show my vids at this show. There were enough positive comments on the comment cards that I feel my vids will be appreciated when they get to the right audience. I'm a niche producer so I'm happy if a few people manage to enjoy my projects. I have to share the funniest comment though: "Too many Stargate vids--other shows are around guys." Talk about entitlement! I must have missed my memos from the Vidders Cabal, not to mention foolishly not archiving multiple other shows just to provide variety to the viewers. When I think of all those other vid shows where I sat through an hour of other fandom shows just to see the one or two I really was into.... For the record, there were 31 vids, of which 7 were SG, two of which were very short and funny. 22%. This comment still makes me laugh two weeks later.
That takes me up to the end of Saturday night. One more post to go....
(no subject)
Date: 2003-03-10 03:01 pm (UTC)My personal take on that--take or leave it as you will--is that the deciding factor for Daniel would be that an unreported rapist is free to act again. Does he really want that to happen to someone else?
As always, YMMV.
(no subject)
Date: 2003-03-10 07:37 pm (UTC)Not that wouldn't be a lot of angst involved, of course.
Actually, I'm willing to read any scenario as long as the author "shows their work."
They just need to convince me
(no subject)
Date: 2003-03-10 08:22 pm (UTC)But yes, there are a variety of plausible responses, depending on how they're written.