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?
no subject
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 ^^