Fandom Eats Its Own

[lizvogel]

Note: Although this was inspired by the recent AO3 fallout, it's really an open comment on fandom in general, past, present, and future. I'm not a member of the OTW, I only use AO3 if that's where a story I want to read happens to be, and I don't know any of the people involved. But I've seen this kind of crap many times in many places, and I've been on the receiving end enough that I now do a lot less for fandom than I otherwise would. I see the damage that it causes.


It's an unfortunate truism that Fandom Eats Its Own. Anyone who has ever produced something for fandom at large (and the larger the something, the worse it gets) knows this. You work your heart out on making this shiny fun thing, be it a website or a fanzine or a convention or whatever, and you do your best to make it work as well as possible for the wide variety of people who are going to use it. You generally do it for free, and you do it in whatever spare time you can steal away from all the other demands in your life. You do it because you think the thing, whatever it is, is cool, and because you want to give something back to the fandom that you've gotten so much out of.

Most people who use it, whatever it is, will just use it and never say anything, and that's okay. Their use is your reward. But of the people who do say anything, the ones who say "Thanks!" will be overwhelmed by the whiny, self-absorbed, entitled jerks who will verbally eviscerate you because the thing you made isn't perfect. For them, that is. You didn't place their personal preferences above all other considerations, or you aren't telepathic enough to know what they want when they couldn't be bothered to tell you, or you didn't alter the laws of physics to prevent them being temporarily inconvenienced in pursuit of their hobby. (Ghu help you if you made an actual mistake, which being human you might have done. Although actually, the response is pretty similar whether you objectively goofed or not. You're still a horrible person who has Ruined Their Life as far as most of the people you'll hear from are concerned.) And worst of all, you haven't fixed it all Right Now.

And the more you do, the bigger and better and shinier a thing you try to make, the more abuse you will get for it. Succeed, by whatever standard, aim as high as you can envision, and that thankfully-small but loud and persistent section of fandom will do everything in their power to tear you down. They will eat you alive and then complain that there's nobody left to make things for them, and never see the connection.

It's a rare person who can work their heart out on something, take that kind of crap in return, and come back and work their heart out some more. Most people go through a round of this, maybe two if they're stubborn, and stop volunteering. They may stop in a public, showy way, or they may simply go away and not come back. And whatever else they would have made for fandom... doesn't get made. The convention they would have run, or the website they would have created, or maybe something as small as the minor bug fix or how-to document they would have written. And yes, maybe someone else will step up and fill in those holes, but that's time and energy the someone else is then not spending on whatever they might have made, if those holes had already been filled. The end result is still a net loss for fandom as a whole.

I have tremendous respect for the people who can keep coming back, year after year, making new things for fandom or keeping old things going, despite the crap. They're an impressive breed. But that doesn't mean that the people who go away, whether crying or shouting back or just silently, didn't make a valuable contribution and wouldn't have continued to do so if some of the people they made it for didn't make it so thoroughly unpleasant.

This isn't an exhortation to thank the people who make what you use, although that's certainly a good idea. Nor I am urging fans on the receiving end not to point out problems; I used to work in IT, and I know the value of a good bug report. But there's a difference between saying, "Hey, this is broken or could be better" and ripping someone a new one because they dared to be not perfect. And there's a world of difference between suggesting a personal-preference tweak to something that works pretty well most of the time for most fans involved, and howling and flinging crap because everything is not perfect for the unique and special snowflake that is you.

What I want is to take all those whiny, entitled jerks, the ones who write diatribes trashing the volunteers who make things for them, to an alternate universe where people like them don't exist. And I want to show them the fandom there, where hard work is appreciated and where mistakes or opportunities to do better are pointed out with courtesy and understanding. I want them to see all that fandom could be, all the beautiful shiny toys and the long-lived fannish institutions -- for five minutes. And then I want to bring them back here, where fandom staggers along, doing pretty good most of the time in spite of people like them flinging crap at it, but constantly having to compensate for the people whose willingness to pitch in has been eaten. I want them to see what they could have, if only it weren't for, well, them.

I can't think of a better punishment.

Comments

[goodbyebird]

Thank you for writing this.

[lizvogel]

:| Ta. Wish it wasn't necessary.

[nightrider]

Great thoughts. :) I've linked your post on my journal. More people need to read this.

[lizvogel]

Thanks.