Rambling about ffa

[sqbr]

Man I'm still never entirely sure what I think about ffa (fail_fandomanon) I've been thinking about it recently after a friend of mine had to leave because the incredibly nasty things people say there about a group she's in were bringing her down. I wish there was somewhere I could go for active fannish conversations that was less likely to randomly dissolve into intense ableism/transphobia/whatever and that didn't assume anyone there was, by definition, "anti-sj". (I mean I am against "sjw"s by the definition of "bully or abuser who uses social justice terminology". Because I'm against all bullies and abusers! But there are plenty of people there who are against any serious attempt at social change, and/or whose definition of sjw includes me and many of my friends)

It took me a long time to learn to recognise the difference between trolls who don't represent the average views at all and more mainstream opinions. It's not fair to hold up the worst of the group as representative of the whole, and there's a pretty wide range of opinions even once you exclude the outliers. But (a)Knowing someone's a troll doesn't always remove the sting of what they've said and (b)The mainstream opinions can still be pretty awful. And that's just on abstract topics, once they start talking about individual fans it can get nasty, hypocritical and just WRONG (the reactions to my own meta haven't been too meansprited, but they tended to miss the point or focus on trivialities. Which admitedly can in part be blamed on my own lack of clarity)

Urg, I'm tired, I'm not expressing this very well. Guess I'm not up to much beyond reading ffa and feeling weird about it :/

Comments

[havocthecat]

once they start talking about individual fans it can get nasty, hypocritical and just WRONG

I used to go on there to read threads I was linked to. But then I decided to search for femslash in case I missed interesting conversations and saw someone trolling about me personally, and rethought f_fa entirely. Nope, not for me. (It kind of made me realize that I should've had more empathy for other people called out by name on there, some of whom may have done bad things, others of whom probably didn't and just got trolled.)

I think I know what you're saying, though, honestly. And if you choose to keep reading, though I did not, I understand. There have been some good threads on there.

[sqbr]

*nods* And some of those people have done SOME bad things, but don't deserve to be dismissed forever because they once got a bit strident about shipping or whatever. Which to me is the hypocrisy: one of the supposed "hallmarks of sjw" is bringing up past trangressions forever. I don't see why we should forgive someone for a wrong headed racist remark but not an equivalently wrongheaded (would-be) anti-racist one. (There are also people who really have done awful things and do deserve to be called out and kept track of, and obviously individual opinions will vary as to where the line should be drawn. My annoyance is with where the line is drawn for different kinds of people by the community as a whole)