(no subject)

[reenka]

Skimming the comments to this post about the increasing potential for slash mainstreaming, it occurs to me that there's a difference between not liking to read slash as a genre ('cause you're just so painfully hetero it hurts or are a canon whore... and I say that lovingly) and not supporting it. :/

Maybe I've just lost what little patience I had after seeing this post by Mairead/Aristide (one of my favorite Highlander/Sentinel writers) about the homophobia rampant in Santa Barbara. I know it's unrelated, but it's exactly the sort of thing that's related to absolutely everything, every little detail in terms of how people think on many issues. Prejudice in general, no matter what kind, is such a wide-ranging and complex issue; you can't pinpoint it and eliminate it in one place-- it'll always pop up in another. And people are so well-meaning these days, so blase and PC about it, but that doesn't change my feeling that you should support slash (with whatever literary caveats) just on principle. Just to say it's, you know, okay and not take that for granted.

I dunno.

On the other hand, I don't want slash to go mainstream; I don't want the media attention, and even moreso the courts' attention. Then again, I don't think we -need- the mainstream-- it's not like they can give us anything we don't already have quite enough of, 'cause the people who were going to find that obscure little manga fandom probably would anyway and the 25-30% new laypeople into HP or like, House or something who might join... uh, well, I'm not so enamoured of fandom size/loudness/etc that I think it should grow and multiply like the proverbial Blob from Outer Space. Plus, the more mainstream you go the more people try to make money off you, and that... they already do enough of that. I mean, in many ways, fandom (the cons, the self-produced zines, the net community-- all of it) is by definition a grass-roots sort of thing; it's 'for the people by the people', and going mainstream definitely means tempting The Powers That Be to mess with this dynamic & our freedoms. Privacy isn't even an issue here; give the mainstream media a bone & they'll take your leg off, that's the issue. :/

Oh, and I feel the mainstreaming of BL manga & manga in general is totally different-- it's not a grass-roots thing by nature so much as necessity; while I still prefer to get my manga for free and feel there's still not enough diversity & market competition to make sure I get the translation/editing quality & selection I want to see-- manga is by nature a product. I like the BL fandom but can really take it or leave it-- I mean, it mostly consists of fangirl squeeing about hotness anyway. Slash is qualitatively different; while it's not original the way one's own novel would be, the writing/reading is only one part of a triad-- watching/reading canon, interacting with fans and fanfic/vids/art. With manga scanlations, there's just... y'know, manga, whether or not it's professional or amateur (sort of the way you have amateur porn even though there's tons of 'professional' porn, ahahah).

Comments

[theredwepainted]

HAHAH well there are crazy people in the world, unfortunately. That said, I generally agree with you, I'm just being all technical and stuff. Ignorance is problematic in general, because people who are ignorant are generally unaware of their own ignorance - they can't really think "gee, I'm a moron, I ought to fix that!" because they don't really realize they are. And then often, by the time they do know, they're so set in their views that they're more likely to assimilate than accomodate.

I never feel communal at all, HAHHA. It's kind of funny, because I follow metafandom and there are all those discussions about what fandom, as a community, should do and what fans, as part of a community, owes to other fans? And recently there's been some discussion of the fact that not all fans even accept that they're part of a community and I'm like yep, that's me. I'm all for the Lockeian state of chaos wherein no fan owes anything to any other fan and we all have to look out for ourselves. (Brian would be so proud?)

[yourpoison.livejournal.com]

Well... not to put too fine a point on it, but it's not that I'm about entitlement-- I don't expect or demand anything, I just think it would be nice & get irritated by... irritating people. Plus I -have- had more experiences with fannish community-type enclaves 'cause I've met enough fandom people & gone to a con & such. I -feel- connected 'cause I simply know a lot of fans even if by reputation & even if a few fics, I'd read in a good number of fandoms. So I don't think I -can- maintain that sense of distance-- it's like, I know these people too well, or something -.-;;

[theredwepainted]

Well, I think in a lot of ways it's just an outlook thing, not to mention a function of personality. I never feel connected to people, even when I actually, physically, hang out with them all the time. I feel very much like... okay just because we share an interest or two doesn't mean I'm part of some kind of community. But this is because I'm like cold and asocial, so that's fine.

(At this point I was thinking sort of in terms of warnings and the recent 'people shouldn't take their stuff down because they owe people the opportunity to read it when they want to' kerfluffle, though.)

[yourpoison.livejournal.com]

Heheh, in this we're actually pretty similar, with me being only veeeery slightly more social/less introverted, so I dig ya. Really comparing our levels of introversion is like comparing to REALLY REALLY slow turtles. Like, sure, one turtle is slower than the other, but how much of a real-world effect does that difference have?? hehehe

I think being Fi matters more in terms of the connection I -feel- but not the connection I actually exhibit in either behavior or expectation, except that I don't think I'm asking for that much, really? I mean, I don't need sonnets, but some basic courtesy/understanding seems... nice? heh

[theredwepainted]

I think it depends on what we're talking about courtesy/understanding OF, really. Because like, if we're talking about things like not being disrespectful of a person then that's just general manners, but if we're talking about what they can do with their own writing on their own webspace/journal or what they should put in their own fic headers then it becomes more problematic.

Also, in some cases, it's really a matter of practicality because you're never going to get everyone to agree to the same standards so assuming that they'll do what you (general you) consider reasonable is never going to be anything but frustrating. And at this point we've totally drifted from the original point with regard to communities, but mostly because I'm not sure what kind of courtesy/understanding you're talking about so I can't really comment.

(And you're right, HAHHA. about the turtles.)

[yourpoison.livejournal.com]

Oh yeah, with me it's just always implicit that 'courtesy/understanding' will never impinge on personal freedoms. In general terms, I just believe in 'do what you will an' it harm none', y'know :> And sometimes just 'Do What Thou Wilt', a more dangerous philosophy, but this is in the Crowlean sense of first fully knowing what you Will. But anyway, that's a tangent; suffice to say, a moralist I am not :))

I do sometimes have residual problems with wanting people to be reasonable, but then, uh... I think it's hard to avoid that no matter what; people will always find a way to somehow surprise you by being even worse than you expected them to be, no matter how low your expectations :)) People are talented that way :)) But yeah, I just meant thinking about one's audience, being somewhat educated/aware of the issues in terms of fandom that you're commenting on... unreasonable, I know :>