i'm avoiding my actual work

A few days ago, whilst reading poisontaster's meta, Why Is There Not More Shunning, I hit a comment that I'm still thinking about. And not even due to Care Bear trauma for distraction.

vee_fic wrote here (partial quote):

On the other hand, I tend to agree with cryptoxin describing the JournalFen cluster of comms as the "rogue judiciary" -- especially now that UnfunnyBusiness is up. You show up on F_W, it's because you acted wanky; you may know what is silly behavior by what shows up on F_W. You show up on UFB, it's because you acted in a way that makes rage; you may know the borders of fandom's anger by reading that comm. The existence of the two places -- and the distinction between them -- are educations in the (changing) parameters of acceptable behavior within fandom.

One, I'd like to find the post that cryptoxin discusses this in, because wow, that is kind of the nutshell of what I haven't been able to articulate.

I kinda agree. I know Unfunny Business isn't one of the direct wank offspring as stated: more the unacknowledged bastard hate child of OTF by way of Deep Thoughts during a drunken one night stand, but it *does* have the same feeling. In retrospect, I'm also surprised it didn't pop up a lot sooner; the borderlands between snark at pretentious and anger at stupidity can be narrow and crossed easily most of the time, and I think a lot of people go both ways when we get hit with something and we'd like to indulge both. Miss Scribe (bad_penny comm) was funny as hell, but it was also, for those intimately involved, hideously painful either in present or in the past.

Examples: OSBP was enraging and also hilarious by turns depending on what time of day it was, because you couldn't help staring at the arguments and wondering if some of them really were aware what they were saying*. The SPN stealth-comm takeover arrangements leading back to a history of comm-coups in SPN. SVA Vs JKR in all it's weird glory.

Usually, I can get the general tenor how fandom is thinking if I hit Fandom Wank, UFB, Wank Report, and MetaFandom by turns and not just on the fandom-eating issues. Sure, every once in a while, like OSBP, something hits us out of nowhere, but also, I'm not really sure it does. I'd bet money if you traced metafandom over six months, you could work out a fairly good predictive model for blow up probability. Whether it goes all-fandom wide or not is trickier**.

It becomes trickier when I think of dogpile versus shun and why we wince when we see it or do it, and I'm not entirely sure it's Cult of the Nice or Geek Fallacy or even World of Women that's the base theory behind it. I think it's the same reason Miss Scribe lasted so long, why some fanpeople can get away with a *lot* of shitty behavior, and why most of us won't and don't even consider doing a reveal of someone we know who screwed us over outside filter and likely do it only over AIM to loyal parties only. Sometimes, I think no one wants to start a war and find it turned on them. It's a lot safer to wait for critical mass to get hit and have a comm pick it up.

Pretty sure I had a point here. When you find it, that is totally what this entry was about. Not rambling at all.


* - for the rest of my life, I will never understand how the OP could talk about the shy, insecure women who tentatively asked for breast-enpowerment through groping and not realize how fucking creepy that was. I don't think any phrase ever skeeved me as badly as that one in how it was both worded and that it existed at all. And there is no way that could have been worded by anyone that it wouldn't have set off every alarm I have installed, both pre-installed and society-created models.

** - I've often wondered if the explosion in OSBP is related to the Mary Jane debacle that some of us walked out of feeling vaguely shell-shocked and nauseated by turns. At least for me, seeing the same reworded statement in defense of the former that were posted in the latter under anonymous (and those charming flames, fun) was enlightening. I don't often go from zero to DIAF that fast.

Comments

[fairestcat]

'd bet money if you traced metafandom over six months, you could work out a fairly good predictive model for blow up probability. Whether it goes all-fandom wide or not is trickier

Oh yeah, definitely. Some week when I have a lot of spare time I want to use metafandom and the del.icio.us tags to trace the evolution of one of the big recurring fandom conversations over time, because I am fascinated by how the discussion does shift and prevailing opinion changes, it's just very gradual.

[ithiliana.livejournal.com]

Speaking as an aca-fan, I'd love to work on something like this, just to see the patterns, in able to write about them without pointing at any one poster or person--in fact, I was doing something that way, slightly, with the racism imbroglios...