I have had similar problems to winterbird in terms of dealings with anti shippers, though not to the same brutal extent. To the point where I think disclosing your survivor status is a really, really bad idea in fandom spaces right now.
For the record, I'm not a survivor of sexual assault (which I'm fairly open about), but had I been I have zero doubt that would have been weaponised against me (it was in fact weaponised against my bully before she went after me). The fact that I am not and write darkfic was used as a club repeatedly for months.
I don't think we should not talk about representation in the media, but I do think that assuming that the person writing is or is not #ownvoices is getting us down a bad path. The pressure to disclose, and the pressure for everyone to have exactly the right talking points and buzzwords is really harmful, and it's most harmful TO the #ownvoices creators. It's also harmful to the quality of the art produced. I've heard more than one person say they're afraid to write about their own identity for fear of getting cancelled and/or forced to disclose.
A lot of it is about the debate space, where a lot of this is happening on tumblr and twitter, as context gets stripped away and short, angry and clickybaity are promoted by the algorithms. And the whole dog pile thing.
I've been thinking a lot about how to ethically talk about representation in fandom lately. There was a lot of discussion of it at WisCon, plus the latest round of discussion of racism, which came right on the heels of that.
The twin problems I have around using specific works and creators as examples in this community are 1) a specific works is much more illuminating when you're trying to highlight damaging tropes, you can just show so much more when doing basically litcrit on a fanfic, rather than talking about generalised problems. 2) it's also painting a target on the author's back in a way that I find genuinely unethical in current fandom climate. Criticism of a specific work will spill over to attacks on the author. If one has to talk specifics, maybe doing it in a locked space would be better?
My conclusion has been to de-centre any particular work from the discussion, especially if we're talking about work by peers. Naming and shaming is just never going to be good inside this community. It's not going to make people listen and change. It's either going to cause doubling down, or just leaving the community (some think the latter is fine; I do not). Talking more generally about trends you're seeing, emphasising not engaging directly with the author of the work, getting friends to say "hey buddy, what you doing?" in private.
With public works, where it's more talked of as punching up, I have fewer qualms about discussing specifics, but I would still like to NOT assume that someone isn't from a marginalised community right off the bat, and not jump on twitter cancel bandwagons. A lot of people went after the Attack Helicopter piece without having read it, based on hearsay. I also think that talking to each other, talking to the person, and talking to the studio all feel like different things, but I haven't really worked out how to balance that.
no subject
For the record, I'm not a survivor of sexual assault (which I'm fairly open about), but had I been I have zero doubt that would have been weaponised against me (it was in fact weaponised against my bully before she went after me). The fact that I am not and write darkfic was used as a club repeatedly for months.
I don't think we should not talk about representation in the media, but I do think that assuming that the person writing is or is not #ownvoices is getting us down a bad path. The pressure to disclose, and the pressure for everyone to have exactly the right talking points and buzzwords is really harmful, and it's most harmful TO the #ownvoices creators. It's also harmful to the quality of the art produced. I've heard more than one person say they're afraid to write about their own identity for fear of getting cancelled and/or forced to disclose.
A lot of it is about the debate space, where a lot of this is happening on tumblr and twitter, as context gets stripped away and short, angry and clickybaity are promoted by the algorithms. And the whole dog pile thing.
I've been thinking a lot about how to ethically talk about representation in fandom lately. There was a lot of discussion of it at WisCon, plus the latest round of discussion of racism, which came right on the heels of that.
The twin problems I have around using specific works and creators as examples in this community are 1) a specific works is much more illuminating when you're trying to highlight damaging tropes, you can just show so much more when doing basically litcrit on a fanfic, rather than talking about generalised problems. 2) it's also painting a target on the author's back in a way that I find genuinely unethical in current fandom climate. Criticism of a specific work will spill over to attacks on the author. If one has to talk specifics, maybe doing it in a locked space would be better?
My conclusion has been to de-centre any particular work from the discussion, especially if we're talking about work by peers. Naming and shaming is just never going to be good inside this community. It's not going to make people listen and change. It's either going to cause doubling down, or just leaving the community (some think the latter is fine; I do not). Talking more generally about trends you're seeing, emphasising not engaging directly with the author of the work, getting friends to say "hey buddy, what you doing?" in private.
With public works, where it's more talked of as punching up, I have fewer qualms about discussing specifics, but I would still like to NOT assume that someone isn't from a marginalised community right off the bat, and not jump on twitter cancel bandwagons. A lot of people went after the Attack Helicopter piece without having read it, based on hearsay. I also think that talking to each other, talking to the person, and talking to the studio all feel like different things, but I haven't really worked out how to balance that.