my thoughts on yaoi

[salinea]

The OTW :
I support it. I think it's kickass and the right way to handle the issue. It's proactive in giving us some tools to fight against the way mainstream society does and will opress/marginalize/hinder fandom and way better than the ostrich strategy. Some of the criticisms against it are fair, of course, but I think the potential good totally outweight the bad sides.

On the other hand, all the meta about the OTW is BORING AS HELL. Seriously, can we get back to some interesting meta, now*? I miss when reading metafandom was fun :(


* okay, you can have some OTW meta too, just try to have some other kinds of (fun!) meta as well

Comments

[modillian.livejournal.com]

Sorry, all I can bring to the table is more where did my fourth wall go and where is this leading in a bunch of fandoms meta, which apparently everyone else has already blown through and decided it's all cool. Eh. We can has new issues 2008?

[etrangere.livejournal.com]

Hmmm is that the fourth wall? feels like a whole other dimension.

It is fascinating. I don't think it's bad thing overall. To say that we, audience and authors are all people, that we might enjoy the same thing. I don't think it's entirely new either, even if it might be for fanvids specifically.

what are you finding scary about it (if I read you right)?

Yes! new issues! (preferrably not the 2007 recycled with a new themesong)

[redcandle17.livejournal.com]

I'm completely lost here. Do you mind informing me what OTW is and why it's an issue?

[etrangere.livejournal.com]

Organization for Transformative Work

basically after a series of wank, in particular that time when a compagny called FanLibs tried to make money out of fanfictions, and that time when LJ decided fighting pedophilia meant deleting fan's accounts when they do fanfic/fanart which may posibly be interpretated as portraying underage people in sexual situation, a bunch of fen people decided to do something to protect fandom. 1st, creating An Archive Of Our Own to archive fanworks, all of it, without fearing for it to be deleted by random change of policy. 2nd, be a public interlocutor and advocate when journalists and the like want to know something (instead of talking to Henry Jenkins who is sweet, but not a fan person). 3rd constitute a found of money and knowledgeable people to defend fans legally when they recieve Cease & Desist letters and the like. The things grew out from there.

Check out for more information at otw_news and their website. As for the discussions I was mentionning, just read the last two weeks or so of posts at metafandom ^^

Ah. Thanks.

[redcandle17.livejournal.com]

My extremely shallow thoughts: the word "transformative" immediately makes my brain shut down. The point of fandom, for me, at least, is fun. Words like "transformative" are no fun at all.

Re: Ah. Thanks.

[etrangere.livejournal.com]

see, that's one of the criticism which people have brought up ^^

And the answer is : The word "transformative" is used in their name to make a legal point. It's meant to be fannish people explanating things slowly and in big, impressive word to mainstream society. Their agenda isn't to remove the fun away by calling fanfics transformative, but to protect the fun by telling people that fanfics are legit because transformative works have a better chance to be protected by fair use laws.

Re: Ah. Thanks.

[etrangere.livejournal.com]

also I'm one of the weird people who find transformative rather fun ^^ but I found my philosophy classes of high school fun too, so I may not be one to talk.

[cafecomics.livejournal.com]

Ouiiiiiiiii. Mais il y avait quand même quelques liens intéressants sur la terminologie (slash/femslash, AU).

[etrangere.livejournal.com]

c'est vrai! heureusement :)

[laurus-nobilis.livejournal.com]

Well, I'm not exactly against it, but... I fail to see the point.

First of all, I'm wary of anything that wants to speak for fandom as a whole. Fandom is both extremely huge, and a very individual and personal experience. So this is still about some people's perception of fandom. They talk about preserving "fandom's values" - whose?

But most of all I just think it's taking fandom to a whole new Serious Business level. It's a hobby. Why does it need to be "recognized as legal"? What does "predominantly female" have to do with any of their other points? If they want to make it "as accessible as possible to all", why are they making things overly complicated.


But, then again, I've never cared in the least about what mainstream society thinks about fandom - it's a hobby, it's personal, and mainstream society has nothing to do with it. I've never felt oppressed or marginalized at all, unless that means people saying "you do that for a hobby? huh, weird". Which isn't serious business at all.

... and I'm getting all rambly in your LJ again. @_@

[etrangere.livejournal.com]

I'm wary of anything that wants to speak for fandom as a whole.
I think that they actually state that they can't speak for everyone. Read up their website. And I agree with you it'd be problematic if they claimed to do so. However when the people journalists&co turn to when they want to talk about fandom are not people from fandom, it's even more problematic. So I've no issue with them having this role. I agree with you about fandom's values.

But most of all I just think it's taking fandom to a whole new Serious Business level. It's a hobby. Why does it need to be "recognized as legal"?
You need to remember they are reactionary. We need to be recognized as legal because otherwise plenty of people out there can hurt us. It's happened in the past, it will happen again. Cease&Desist letters that get websites to close. The LJ pedophilia debacle. Sure we overall manage to survive. We rebuild elsewhere and stuff. But we also lose a lot of people/fanworks/connections when things like this happened. Protections against this = good. It doesn't mean making fandom Serious Business. It's means having a healthy sense of self-protection.

What does "predominantly female" have to do with any of their other points?
Fandom, in the widest sense of the world, has a history. This history shows that fannish activities which are traditionnally done by male fens have a greater chance to be well accepted, recognized and even seen as cool than fannish activities done by a majority of girls. Coincidence?

If they want to make it "as accessible as possible to all", why are they making things overly complicated.
I'm not sure I understand what you mean.

I've never felt oppressed or marginalized at all, unless that means people saying "you do that for a hobby? huh, weird".
Well, that's good. And I'm not sure anything more serious than that happened (to individual people in their day to day life, I mean). But if it did happen... I mean, if people did lose their jobs/didn't get a job because of their fannish activities, wouldn't you agree it's serious business? If during a divorce, a husband used his wife's fannish activity to claim custody of their children, wouldn't you agree it's serious business? Is it bad to try to protect us fans against the eventuality that such things may happen?

I love it when people ramble in my LJ ^^

beware the tl;dr

[laurus-nobilis.livejournal.com]

I think that they actually state that they can't speak for everyone.
I know they don't mean to do it, but it certainly feels that way. Especially for those of us who just aren't interested. I agree that it's better than having people who aren't in fandom at all speak for us, though. But still... things like "launching an Archive of Our Own" make me a little uncomfortable.

Cease&Desist letters that get websites to close. The LJ pedophilia debacle.
I know this is an EXTREMELY unpopular opinion, but I don't think the Strikethrough thing is quite the same as stuff like cease&desist letters. First of all, because it wasn't about fandom: the fact that fanworks got deleted was a side effect. And second because, even though I disagree with what they did, it's their site and if they suddenly said "no more [insert whatever here] on LJ" they'd have every right to do so. It's on their ToS that they can delete any content they don't see fit without previous warning, but apparently no one reads the ToS.

... anyway, long story short, I think a lot of people got the idea that a problem that was about child pornography was about fandom. And that wasn't the case. And I get the same feeling in this case, that people are looking for problems where there aren't any, or the ones that do exist aren't about fandom in an of itself.

It's means having a healthy sense of self-protection.
I agree about the need for a sense of self-protection, but I disagree about the way it's being used here. My main problem with this whole issue is that it's taking things that I see as individual choices and making them social. To me, self-protection means "don't write fanfic for authors who said they don't want it" or "use f-lock on NC-17 rated fics", not "let's make fandom legal".

This history shows that fannish activities which are traditionnally done by male fens have a greater chance to be well accepted, recognized and even seen as cool than fannish activities done by a majority of girls. Coincidence?
No, not a coincidence at all. I expressed myself wrong up there - I know the problem exists, what I mean is that it's a separate issue. It seems completely out of place among their other points. That, and I think that "we value being predominantly female" and "we value infinite diversity" is a bit contradictory.

If they want to make it "as accessible as possible to all", why are they making things overly complicated.
I'm not sure I understand what you mean.
What I was trying to say is that, even with the best intentions, this isn't making fandom any more accesible. On the contrary. I can just imagine myself as a newbie and stumbling into a site like OTW - I'd start backing away slowly. It makes it sound extremely complicated. Transformative works, infrastructure, commitees, legal defense, forming alliances, refereed academic journal, long-term plans... a bit too much when you're simply looking for a fun hobby. It doesn't make it sound accessible at all, on the other hand, it sounds overly organized.

if people did lose their jobs/didn't get a job because of their fannish activities, wouldn't you agree it's serious business? If during a divorce, a husband used his wife's fannish activity to claim custody of their children, wouldn't you agree it's serious business?
It'll sound cruel, but I'll be honest: I'd think those people seriously needed to sort out their priorities. If you let a hobby come to the point where it becomes such a problem, you're doing something wrong. Not "wrong" in a moral sense, "wrong" in the sense of lacking organization. And possibly even lacking common sense. It's the same thing I said above about the self-protection. Stay in author-approved fandoms, don't try to make money from fanworks, lock your porn.


I'm not against OTW, because I don't think it can have any negative consequences for fandom. But I really, really believe it's just making things overly complicated. It's like people think the Big Bad World is out to get us, when most of these problems can be easily solved on an individual basis.