What Happens Next: A Gallimaufry

melancholic romantic comic cynic. bi & genderqueer. fantasy writer. sysrae on ao3.

psa: on distinguishing fan entitlement

fan entitlement is:

- sending abuse to creators;

- sending abuse to other fans;

- abusing anyone who disagrees with your interpretation of the story;

- actively seeking out people who disagree with your interpretation specifically to abuse them;

- demanding creators maintain a 100% perfect public persona (by your definition) and savaging them the second they slip up, regardless of context or history;

- behaving as though creators, actors and anyone else involved in the production of a narrative owe you, specifically, their time and attention, just because you’ve paid for it/read it/watched it.

fan entitlement is not:

- being critical of creative decisions;

- being critical of fandom;

- sharing your own interpretation of the story;

- debating with others about various theories and interpretations of the story;

- holding creators accountable for their content and public behaviour;

- advocating for fan theories, diverse narratives, headcanons and the discussion of toxic tropes, or engaging in any other form of criticism.

                                                           *

If it seems like a lot of these points are similar, it’s because they are, and by the same token, I’m not going to pretend that there’s never a YMMV element to determining which thing is actually happening. The key distinction, rather, is one of conduct: the difference between talking about and talking to

For instance: there are some ships I think of as not only gross, but representative in their popularity of wider social and cultural issues both within fandom and more generally. Discussing those problems and those ships in particular, in my own space, on my own initiative, or by joining an existing conversation? That is talking about, the backbone of meta and criticism. But leaving hate on every fic that features those ships or sending abusive messages to the people who write them? That is talking to, and if you’re addressing someone directly, on a personal level, the golden rule is this: Don’t Be A Dick.  

Note, please, that the golden rule also extends to addressing creators, and that there is an actual salient difference between criticism and abuse. Criticism is a response to something a person has done: a comment directly addressing their works or actions. Abuse is simply attacking them, and while I’m not going to pretend a creator’s actions are never directly responsible for eliciting fan pushback, I guarantee you that the issue itself, whatever it might be, is pretty much never served by responding with abuse. By all means, talk trash and vent online about the shitty things that happen, but talking about in the general sense (posting on your blog, in comment threads, in private chat) is still very, very different to talking to (@ing a creator’s Twitter, emailing them, sending then private messages). Even though both forms of discourse can be equally visible, I promise you that the distinction is an important and relevant one.

Here’s the thing about fandom trends: we’re all influenced by the cultures in which we live, just as fandom, in turn, is influenced by us. Having opinions about fandom doesn’t mean neglecting to be courteous to fans and creators; it means refraining from ad hominem attacks. The problem on tumblr is that the reblogging mechanism makes this something of a liminal space, discussion-wise, such that it’s difficult to make hard and fast rules for interaction in this medium. By virtue of posting a thing that can be, not just commented upon, but reblogged into a multi-essay thread, and where it’s essentially held that “successful” posts invite this sort of discussion, the personal and the general - which is to say, the contextual distinction between talking to and talking about - tend to blur.

This is why tag wars happen, why we end up in regular, cyclical arguments about the exact nature of the boundaries we’d each like to impose on what is still, ultimately, a public space. It’s a fundamental basic of discourse that engaging in criticism opens you up to having your position criticised in turn, and yet a lot of people are shocked and outraged when it happens to them, as though they imagined they were speaking from some unassailable, automatic high ground. And at the same time, you’ve got people who never learned the difference between abuse and criticism; whose culturally-trained biases are so ingrained, they honestly don’t recognise that attacking the person is not the same as attacking the person’s argument. 

I’ve been a dumbass online before. I doubtless will be again. But lately, I’m just exhausted by the number of people who cannot manage the simple fucking distinction between talking about and talking to, and who think it’s okay to engage in abuse in any case, so long as they really and truly believe they’re right. 

Here’s a simple rule of thumb: if you can imagine Jared Leto doing or saying it to prepare for his role as the Joker, it’s not actually edgy; it’s just a dick move. Don’t be Jared Leto. Don’t be a dick.

(Which is, by the way, an example of talking about instead of talking to. See how easy it is?)

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