fail_fandomanon

Most people on-meme agree wholeheartedly that "social justice is worth fighting for, and I don't think there's anything wrong with being assertive about it." What we dislike is the trend, which has cropped up in a lot of fandom and/or social justice spaces in the past few years, of using the terms of, say, anti-racism in the service of self-righteous yelling and not making any actual anti-racism progress.

Here are a couple of links I've saved involving POC feeling harassed, marginalized, and mocked by the very actions and "activists" that purport to be on their side:


http://fail-fandomanon.livejournal.com/18956.html?thread=82541068#t82541068 -- link to an incident on fandsomecrets -- verbal abuse of a POC under the assumption that they're white

"this OP and secret here are proof that white people do sound white. they are ignorant, racist, and disrespectful to every other culture and ethnicity but their own stinking white-privileged asses. [...] OP isn't white, as we find out in the first few comments of the secret thread."


http://ontd-feminism.livejournal.com/516979.html?thread=36237939#t36237939 -- subthread of a larger conversation with lots of such comments

"As a black woman I don't feel that many of the loudest participants in these discussions give a damn about equality. They want the accolades, they want the popularity, they want the capital to be as self-righteous as they wish. Posts like [user]'s happen because people rush into these discussions with stars in their eyes, thinking that someone or several someones will proclaim them a hero if they yell loud enough and act indignantly enough."


http://godofwine.livejournal.com/99593.html -- Asian user discussing a conflict in which a kind of event that happens in her life is dismissed in fic as the product of a racist author.

"I'm posting because I'm not racist nor do I perpetuate racism just because I understand irony."


http://ontd-political.livejournal.com/6736631.html?thread=414457079#t414457079

"I spoke with an girl at a con this weekend who was more or less chased out of the community when on her very first comment she was accused of being privileged over something relatively innocuous, responded that she was not white and did not have white privilege, and then was snarked for that because she was confused over what privilege she was being accused of, and now she's been lurking and not leaving any comments at all for some time because she wants to learn but is too afraid to say anything."


http://ontd-political.livejournal.com/6736631.html?thread=414140151#t414140151

"I'm a Black, Puerto Rican and Native American woman who is in the middle of questioning her sexuality. I'm really new to academic race/sexuality/feminism discussions and sometimes don't understand one view point and when I ask to have it explained, it's always "Pick up a book" and questions of "Well, what book would you recommend" are often met with laughter."


I limited the links to race-related ones to keep the number manageable, not because there aren't similar situations happening around sex, gender identity, sexuality, disability, nationality, survivor status, and so on. Many FFAers are here because we have these complaints personally, and I'm sure there are other anons who would be willing to add their own un-favorite links to the list. (We tend to be a very earnest bunch.)

Hey! I really, really appreciate you putting this together! I feel like I'm not understanding some of the basic background where people are coming from in these conversations here, certain things sound ludicrously OTT to me, but I probably just don't know what's historically made them feel that way. I have to leave my computer for a bit, but look forward to perusing all this.

NA - you may want to poke around the meme wiki a bit too. Just so you know to not inadvertently mention onions or something.

Which was the one where winterfox said "are you white?" to a poc? Was that 50_books? (I do remember that that was the one that asserted saying "This isn't 4-chan" was racist.)

SA

(Oh, wait. It was "you sound white", I think. Which... is actually much more 'problematic'.)

Yeah, those both happened in the same discussion. She accused hesychasm of white women's tears and deleted it tout suite and acted like nothing had happened when she realized that she'd said it to another POC.

Thanks for this, it's rather glorious! I'd try to find links about US-centrism, since this meme's lack of the US viewpoint being the default is one of my favourite things about it, but I need to go to bed and will therefore just dump this classic here:

http://sf-drama.livejournal.com/3113520.html

Ha, I was just thinking of that one too. Perfect example of SJW.

Speaking as a non-USA anon, the tendency of people on this meme to pretend that things like racism, sexism and all sorts of other bigotry are just a US-specific thing and their countries are perfect and issue-free is really annoying.

Yes, but there are also anons here that go overboard in the opposite direction and get really angry and "omg quit being so SJW!!!!" whenever someone mentions that, for example, x fandom is really misogynist toward y character or x canon treats y issue kind of badly, or if anyone links to what they think is a pretty good resource to discuss an SJ issue.

True enough, but I think that mostly happens when the people mentioning that "x fandom is really misogynist toward y character," or who link to what they think is a good resource to discuss an SJ issue, do it without making a case for the misogyny or whatever. It's when we get proclamations that something is *ist, and anyone who disagrees is *ist too, possibly with a suggestion that the person disagreeing should go read a 101 post that will explain how wrong they are, that we get that kind of explosion. When people are actually talking to each other about the specifics of what they're seeing and feeling, we usually stay pretty civil.

Earnest, sure. But civil.

na

While I agree with the gist of your comment, I'd just like to note that some of the incidences you referenced are more complicated and nuanced that just 'PoC feeling attacked by the SJWs.'

For example: the godofwine thing is more about two PoC having a disagreement over an issue (the person who originally thought the fic is racist is a PoC who was objecting to a specific stereotype in the UK about her minority, and godofwine, who is Asian-American, was disagreeing that it was racist) than a SJW type ally attacking the fic author and godofwine. Also, just to note, in that case, it wasn't really a case of godofwine and the fic author being dogpiled. In fact, I wouldn't classify either inception race wank as a dogpile, because in both cases there were plenty of people telling the fic authors that they had done nothing wrong, and people (including anons from her) who went and trolled and insulted the women who objected to the fics.

Nuance? In a discussion of SJ and SJW on this meme?

How dare you! The SJWs are all evil and bad, this meme is the last shining ray of hope for the glorious reasonable minded folk out there, don't you know?

I think they might have been referring to Aja's comment on that post where she says the poster has the privilege of ignoring racism, despite the fact that the OP said they were Asian.

Aja did apologize later on, though.

OP

Fair points! I understood the point of disagreement differently than you do, but either way I also wouldn't call it a dogpile. And certainly fighting with SJWs is not a guarantee of sterling behavior. Actual bigots do it plenty. The Arkh Project people still get awful racist vitriol thrown at them in between the legitimate criticism.

I wasn't trying to go into all the nuance with this post, since it was written for anons who just got here. The godofwine link in particular was included because it shows two basic reasons why More Social Justice (or "Social Justice") is not always Better. As seen in the post: a POC saying "I disagree with this invocation of racism, and do not think it would be helpful for the author to follow the script that is often held up as the Only Socially Just Path. Not only that, I'm going to explain in great detail why." As seen in the comments: at least one white person saying at great length, "let me explain why you don't understand the racism here as well as I do."

Just want to point out, in that first link, in the ffa conversation, somebody seems to claim that "racism against white people" is a thing. That is possible.

Hmm? Like do you mean that there's no such thing as racism against white people but someone in the ffa thread is claiming that there is, or that there is racism against white people but someone in the thread is claiming there isn't?

New!anon again! I've read through all these, and I'm quite sure that, if you mean that most nonnies here come down on the sides of these discussions that I believe you mean they do, then this is not the meme for me. So thanks again for compiling this, and I guess I'll see you around! But in other parts of around.

OP

...Well, that was frustratingly vague. I can't tell if you think (for instance) referring to a POC's "ignorant stinking white-privileged ass" is a good way to advance social justice, or if you think the meme thinks that's a good way to advance social justice, or if you're interpreting the whole thing some way I don't see.

(The meme is not a monolith(TM), and everyone draws the line differently between "that's legitimate anger/criticism/disagreement" and "now that's just SJWing." But I did try to pick links where there was pretty clearly something Not Cool going on.)

NA

It's not like there's any "meme-approved" stance you have to take on most things, so don't feel like you're being rushed out the door. If someone wants to debate an argument without devolving down to "me and my friends decided you're a racist racist who races" or a "I've decided you're a misogynistic misogynist who misoges because Knapsack! Derailing for Dummies! *squawk*" (and we're LJ Noting you!)" just because someone didn't recite the party line or made a slight misstep out of ignorance, then you'll be fine.

(Seriously, I said this before but I'll say it again because it was so damn mind-blowing, but sf_drama dogpiled a poc because she used the layman's definition of racism and said her mother, who was white, had reverse racism happen against her in India. And she had said this in agreement with someone else in the thread. She wasn't being a dick. She wasn't being a whitey cracker who scoffs at racism. She was just joining the conversation. And she still had the hordes descending on her, salivating because she used the phrase "reverse racism".) So, yeah, debate vs dogpile and you'll be fine. One of the few things that is universal here is that we use our words. A lot.

"Most people on-meme agree wholeheartedly that "social justice is worth fighting for, and I don't think there's anything wrong with being assertive about it." What we dislike is the trend, which has cropped up in a lot of fandom and/or social justice spaces in the past few years, of using the terms of, say, anti-racism in the service of self-righteous yelling and not making any actual anti-racism progress."

Exactly.

What I like most about the meme, re: SJ issues, is two things. One is that we generally don't like the vicious bullying conducted by some of the SJWs like the sf_drama crew and winterfox. The other is that we can actually have nuanced discussions about works and isms within them, instead of a BNF SJW declaring whether a work is or isn't offensive on some axis and that anyone who disagrees with them is clearly a fan of that axis's oppression (see, for example, Sady Doyle's comments on ASOIAF, and her responses to Alyssa Rosenberg's praise for the series. Or anything Winterfox writes on Requires Only Hate).

Here, Anon A may think a particular scene in a book is offensive on some axis, and Anon B might disagree. Anon B isn't automatically a supporter of the kyrarchy who doesn't care about oppression as long as the book is fun to read. Anon A isn't automatically a rabid SJW or the PC police. They can both present their points and arguments, and maybe at the end they still won't agree, but it's acknowledged that neither one is Pure Evil, and it's considered somewhat out of bounds for either of them to call each other stupid fucks or utter sociopaths or other personal insults, no matter how strongly they believe that they're right. This is something that the meme has that the SJW sites don't. If you disagree with a mod or a BNF SJW on sf_drama or Tiger Beatdown or Shakesville or Ars Marginal, you're automatically in the wrong. And once you're in the wrong, you're an evil supported of oppression. And once you're that, people can say whatever they want to you and offend you, bully you, and accuse you all they want, and it's okay, because to object would be the "tone argument."

That's what a lot of this meme rejects, and that's why (at least in this nonnie's opinion), we're able to have interesting and intelligent discussions about media and fandom and whatnot.

NA

I think it's also useful to note here that there are some anons here who absolutely will use the same rhetoric and tactics of SJWs. I'm not sure what percentage of them is people who really believe it vs. trolls who have figured out that it is the express highway to starting a wank explosion with meta-arguments about whether the meme has changed or not or is full of racists or not.

I do think it's the case that the crowd here is way too heterogeneous to automatically fall in line with anyone who does use SJW style arguments though. You'll get some agreement and some disagreements, but no massive hate fests (except directed at RM, winterfox, [Emma Bull's husband], etc. We get a little hatey there.)

I got even more disillusioned by SJ as it appears on LJ when I came to the insight all this has happen before and will happen again... It's nothing new, it's just happening for more people to see now since it's online.

Also, for more on the 'critquing the bullying of SJW' that was discussed by this comm, see the Kynn thread at: http://fail-fandomanon.livejournal.com/17880.html?thread=76927192#t76927192

Long thread and I'm sorry if it's already been mentioned, but another instance of obnoxious SJW-ism was the recent fanficrants thread wherein one poster was dogpiled and insulted by the mod for being too polite to another poster when they told them not to use the word "retarded" on the comm. Apparently the tone argument now means that you're a... what was it, "dickweasel"? ...or something, if you're not abrasive enough to someone using -ist language.