The problem of antis
Oct. 18th, 2018 12:15 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
enemyofperfectIt's not that I think it's okay to attack people for their ships or their fictional kinks. It's just that I feel like it isn't great to yell at unhappy teenagers either.
Let me back up a little.
So, there's a post that's going around on tumblr. Mostly by this point it's a resounding defense of the AO3 as a remarkable project operating on a shoestring budget, but it started out with a 15 year old complaining that the Archive has exceeded its latest fundraising goal, while at the same time being a website that lets you post porn about characters who are under 16. Unsurprisingly, this led to a lot of shouting.
What gets me is that this kind of happens all the time. Not this exact situation, obviously, but there are so many tumblr fights along these lines that both sides seem to view as generational: there's the damn kids (who run from their mid-teens to just over twenty, as far as I can tell) arguing that some things are too awful to write about, and then there's the evil corrupting ancient adults, meaning the rest of us, who find that idea variously laughable, offensive, and/or dangerous. That's how the battle lines are drawn.
And I feel like I understand why the children's crusade contingent sometimes behaves badly, because I too was once a young person with more moral fervor than common sense, but what I can't wrap my head around is why so many people in their thirties and above seem to think it's okay to respond with mockery and personal attacks.
Sometimes the justification is that the teenagers shouldn't be vocally wrong in public if they aren't ready for the kind of heat that brings. But what the heck? Since when is fandom a pro-victim blaming space? What is or is not prudent for an emotionally vulnerable teenager to do has nothing to do the question of what's ethical for grown adults to do in response.
And these teenagers are emotionally vulnerable, or at least many of them openly identify themselves as such... which I guess could be dismissed as a rhetorical ploy, but I'm not really in favor of deciding people must be lying about their mental health just because I disagree with them.
I don't know. I'm wringing my hands on DW instead of wading into it on tumblr because I have no idea what an actually constructive response to any of this would look like.
I'm solidly in the evil corrupting adult camp -- I've written noncon, and I believe passionately that it's important to be able to explore through fiction things that frighten or harm us or that can't be safely explored in other ways -- but I feel for these kids. They're young and full of ideas and they're probably a little bit terrified, don't you think? If white Christian middle-aged men were stirring up a moral panic about the depravity of fandom, that would be one thing, but half the time, these are literal minor children grappling with the social norms of the online culture they're still in the process of growing up in.
I get that existing in fandom isn't volunteering to be someone's surrogate mom. I get that a lot of fans have reason to put up hackles in response to being told to self-censor or play nice. I just wish that, for as much as we repeat the words "don't like, don't read", we could extend that same courtesy when the temptation arises to be cruel to a bunch of teens who are still figuring out what to believe.
(I wish I knew a way for those kids to feel safe.)
Let me back up a little.
So, there's a post that's going around on tumblr. Mostly by this point it's a resounding defense of the AO3 as a remarkable project operating on a shoestring budget, but it started out with a 15 year old complaining that the Archive has exceeded its latest fundraising goal, while at the same time being a website that lets you post porn about characters who are under 16. Unsurprisingly, this led to a lot of shouting.
What gets me is that this kind of happens all the time. Not this exact situation, obviously, but there are so many tumblr fights along these lines that both sides seem to view as generational: there's the damn kids (who run from their mid-teens to just over twenty, as far as I can tell) arguing that some things are too awful to write about, and then there's the evil corrupting ancient adults, meaning the rest of us, who find that idea variously laughable, offensive, and/or dangerous. That's how the battle lines are drawn.
And I feel like I understand why the children's crusade contingent sometimes behaves badly, because I too was once a young person with more moral fervor than common sense, but what I can't wrap my head around is why so many people in their thirties and above seem to think it's okay to respond with mockery and personal attacks.
Sometimes the justification is that the teenagers shouldn't be vocally wrong in public if they aren't ready for the kind of heat that brings. But what the heck? Since when is fandom a pro-victim blaming space? What is or is not prudent for an emotionally vulnerable teenager to do has nothing to do the question of what's ethical for grown adults to do in response.
And these teenagers are emotionally vulnerable, or at least many of them openly identify themselves as such... which I guess could be dismissed as a rhetorical ploy, but I'm not really in favor of deciding people must be lying about their mental health just because I disagree with them.
I don't know. I'm wringing my hands on DW instead of wading into it on tumblr because I have no idea what an actually constructive response to any of this would look like.
I'm solidly in the evil corrupting adult camp -- I've written noncon, and I believe passionately that it's important to be able to explore through fiction things that frighten or harm us or that can't be safely explored in other ways -- but I feel for these kids. They're young and full of ideas and they're probably a little bit terrified, don't you think? If white Christian middle-aged men were stirring up a moral panic about the depravity of fandom, that would be one thing, but half the time, these are literal minor children grappling with the social norms of the online culture they're still in the process of growing up in.
I get that existing in fandom isn't volunteering to be someone's surrogate mom. I get that a lot of fans have reason to put up hackles in response to being told to self-censor or play nice. I just wish that, for as much as we repeat the words "don't like, don't read", we could extend that same courtesy when the temptation arises to be cruel to a bunch of teens who are still figuring out what to believe.
(I wish I knew a way for those kids to feel safe.)
no subject
Date: 2018-10-20 04:41 am (UTC)Because you're absolutely right that this is about morality on both sides, if only the moral right to be left alone as long as you aren't hurting anyone, for those of us who feel that we aren't hurting anyone. Except then I wonder if maybe I could be, accidentally, in some way that I might be able to address, but it's hard to get a clearer sense of things when the conversation is simultaneously so diffuse and so absolute.
(To be clear, none of the controversy has made me think that I shouldn't write what I want to write -- but if more detailed author's notes could provide helpful context for more troubling subject matter, say, then I would very much want to provide them, just like I try to provide accurate warnings.)