So, there has been another disquisition on fandom

[mme_hardy]

See here if you want details. (Why do you want details?), and God have mercy on your soul.

Here is what I know as a 60-year-old person.

I have been involved in knitting communities, SF communities, communities for individual fandoms, communities for broad categories such as "SFF" and "comics", communities for historic costume.

As an insider, they all look alike. There are people who want to welcome you and help you squee. There are people who want to judge you and see if you are worthy of being in the community. There are people who want to help you get better at being in the community.

As a polyamorous fan (thanks, Shrift and Nestra), the patterns look the same. There are people who want to be intense. There are people who want to benefit from the people who are intense. There are people who just want to hang out. There are people who want to make new stuff.

From my perspective as a person who gets intense, then dips out, they look pretty much the same. I am profoundly grateful for the people who share information. I tiptoe quietly away from the gatekeepers. And I squee with the people who just want to squee.

Fandom is the sea I float on. And I am grateful for all the other people who uplift me.

Comments

[sara]

I'd heard about this but hadn't realized she lives in the vicinity. Ugh. I hope not to run into her at parties.

Particularly since, looking at her contributors' list, I'm all of one social degree away. Well. Via someone whose parties I last attended in the 1990s.

(Is there any content in this thing that isn't namedropping? Aside from the article about going to the King County dental clinic, which...I mean, I'm sympathetic, when a person needs a dentist they need a dentist, but myself, I wouldn't write that up for a fanzine. But what are these folks fans OF?)

[malkingrey]

Fanzines produced by old-line (as in, back in the pre-internet and even pre-computer days) sf fans were often full of casual essays on just about anything besides science fiction, and were mostly the way that a small and far-flung community kept in touch. Discussion of their shared obsession was optional.

[sara]

When I started at LJ my rule was to never write in detail about going to the dentist. 15 years later I'm sticking by that rule....

[sovay]

See here if you want details. (Why do you want details?), and God have mercy on your soul.

I wanted details because I hadn't heard there was any disquisition going around, but—I looked in the trap, Ray.

[recessional]

.....sweet good gods.

[julian]

Just because I'm Like This, Scalzi responds, in calm and measured fashion. (Which I know you've seen because you're there.)

Some collected other responses.

I long ago figured out Ulrika's style of fandom and mine don't work well together. She's a perfectly reasonable person, just more gatekeepery than I like, is all.

[sabotabby]

At 40, I feel much the same. I like fannish people and fannish things. I like fandom drama when I'm well outside of it and it's things and people that I don't give a shit about. Generally speaking, my life is consumed with work and politics and at the moment, my own writing, so anything fandom related has gotta be fun or I nope out of there.

I read the first few sentences and this is the kind of drama that I'm uninterested in.

[muccamukk]

My main reply on skimming that is "Who the hell is she, and why does she give a shit about a fan hugo ten years ago?" Being pissed at Scalzi is soooooooo 2012!

Reading the 770 comments, I haven't really changed my mind on that.

[recessional]

Yeah no that's about it, with additional "...you know, you appear to be 75% of what I hate about convention based fandom."

[muccamukk]

If knowledge of this much inside baseball was what made up the true heart of real fandom, I'm glad Scalzi* killed it.


*or you know, it was a collective effort involving the move away from mimeographs and into the 21st century.

[recessional]

Right?

Especially given how incredibly inaccessible that model of "fandom" is. Etc. I have thoughts but really.....

I mean my emotional reaction is also "...you seem nice." at the essay author.

[mme_hardy]

Wow, check this comment from File770.

She was insufferably rude the various times she sniped at Scalzi on his own blog for winning the damned Hugo. Apparently she hasn’t improved, but is grasping, desperately, for new depths to sink to.

[muccamukk]

There's some serious Yikes in those comments, including that and her putting down any safe space/code of conduct moves because she survived just fine.

Definitely taking her opinion seriously, yes.

[kore]

Yeah, it seems to be "If you are not me or my personal friends, you are not a Trufan," which just....what? In 2019? Really?

All I can think of is that she wanted the clicks.

[muccamukk]

It came out in May, and is only getting clicks now because someone linked Scalzi, who linked everyone. As far as I can tell anyway. Otherwise, I suspect no one on earth would actually read it.

[kore]

Oh, I thought it had just come out! Bzuh.

[muccamukk]

It's dated May, but maybe it was mailed then, and only put online now. Hard to tell.

[nestra]

That's a whole lot of wah wah wah.

[edenfalling]

Well that sure was a rabbit hole of WTF and niche alternate word definitions!

[mme_hardy]

I KNOW. Especially the fans you were supposed to know about because they published a zine in the 1970s.

[kore]

That honestly looks like a whole lot of Mean Girls exclusionary gatekeeping bullshit to me and I have less than no time for it. Wasn't fandom supposed to be inclusive? even back in the very early days?

[green_knight]

Why do you want details?

I want details because I'm not really in fandom, so I only hear bits and snatches, and they made no sense, so seeing what started this kerfuffle helps me to make sense of the world.

Apart from the fact where 'Scalzi paved the way for the puppies' makes no sense at all, but that's another discussion.