skywaterblue

So many truths about fandom and marketing stated so boldly here.

This crazy logic also makes me want to cry, because it ignores the power differential at work here. Having men in a fandom *legitimizes* that fandom. Having women in a fandom that still has men in it just means you’ll sell more shit. But having *mostly women* or the *perception* of mostly women in a fandom does indeed mean a loss of respect; your fandom is taken less seriously, even if it sells like hotcakes and makes lots of people lots of money (romance genre, fan fiction, anyone?).

[...]

Because what ends up happening with a fandom (or a job trade) that men want to have more respect for following? They start to push the women out of it, so it gets taken more seriously. Instead of addressing the sexism and saying, “Hey, we can all like this thing and it’ll be great!” what you start to see is dudes shoving out the women who were there all along.

Scrubbing Women from My Little Pony fandom.

This is the story of Star Trek fandom in its entirety. A woman saved Star Trek, women have largely driven the fandom since the 1960s, but when it comes time to market it, Star Trek is for men men men and don't you forget it.

Last night, Ide @ WORA discovered this Kickstarter project, 'The Written Word' which "[...]is a multiplayer storytelling game which lives on the internet."

Your first thought may be mine: those already exist, and have for thirty years. We call them MUSHes.

The project proposal goes on: "Well, Massively Multiplayer Write ‘em up is a pretty new genre, But it also picks up on a bunch of stuff you probably understand already.

You might have heard of text adventures - they call them Interactive Fiction now. Even if you’re not as geeky as us don’t worry - basically you’re going to be taking it in turns to tell a story."

So naturally, I was kind of pissed. We've seen this kind of co-opted male-washing of female fandom activities before, where a primarily male-led team charges in to find a business model making money by ripping off the work of female-led fandom. I kicked it to my Facebook and Twitter accounts, where I know lots of female fen outside of MU*ing circles and those who are current/former players. Most seemed to agree with my sentiment and picked up on other disturbing signs.

Here, then, is a complete copy of the private discussion I've been having with Simon of 'The Written Word'.

( Complete message thread under this cut )

He's not an unreasonable spokesperson for his project. My concerns remain that he and his group are deliberately writing their Kickstarter goal without addressing the fact that his project firmly exists within a continuity of activities that stretch back to the earliest days of the Internet while presenting itself as something revolutionary. I find it troubling (but not surprising) to learn that he is aware of MU*ing but chose not to mention it even in passing in the project proposal, and I think there's an unpleasant whiff of Internet gender bias in that presentation. I still believe that Simon believes his project is somehow fundamentally different from what it appears to be for me - a new flavor of MU* server.

While I don't object to people turning their hobbies into paying gigs, and support Kickstarter as a great way to finally harness the power of the Internet to do that, I feel like 18,000 dollars is awfully steep.

Simon's promised to check in on this post and address concerns you want to raise. I promise to be a dutiful minder of the discussion and step in if things seem to turn south.

Your turn, ladies! (And gents!)

EDIT: To fix the initial reporter on WORA, and to remove my real name.

1. Fandom Fist Smash over this female character chart.

Because: 1a. All characters in media inherently meet some sort of 'trope' because there are only SO many ways to tell a story and make it satisfying to an audience. I mean, don't take Joseph Campbell that seriously or anything, but ... yeah, you know what, fucking read some Campbell and then get back to me on this?

1b. Yoko Ono is not a trope. She's also ten times more awesome than you, which is unfortunate for everyone reading this but inherently true. Get back to me after you survive Japanese firebombing, tell your parents to fuck themselves to move to the West and go to Sarah Lawrence eschewing your inheritance and discuss music theory with John Cage and perform with him at Carnegie Hall.

Then, IF you meet someone as equally talented as John Lennon and decide to say 'fuck everyone' and fall in love, YOU MIGHT be AS awesome as Yoko Ono. Like I said, get back to me on that.

1c. Tearing apart the women who do appear on TV because they're not YOU is an inherently stupid way to discuss their potentials as feminist/not-feminist. Let's start over, and you can read up on agency and the cliff notes of 'The Second Sex'. Then we can come back and talk about which characters pass and which fail.

2. Doctor Who filming in Utah. Anyone know where? I kind of want to go see it, though not having a license or car is kind of... fail. On the other hand, we can go stay with my Aunt, so I can provide a cheap base of operations?

The Back Stage pics of Bradley Whitford and Janel Moloney? I know SOMEONE has the digital copies. In fact, I should just email kiss_me_cassie and bexatious, as they probably have them.

(My yellowed copy of this is one of my favorite things BY THE WAY.)

To make this worth everyone's time:

( A Giant HQ Picture of Naked CJ Cregg )

The reason wanking is annoying is because it is not a productive activity. It replaces that energy with angry self-righteousness, which is an emotion that is SO SATISFYING, but is actually empty calories.

In other news, I spent most of my night in a depressive funk about my unemployment, but I did go out to dinner with my dad and then my brother and I watched Persepolis in an attempt to spark discussion about Iranian politics. It did not work, but I did discover that Persepolis has an English language dub. I had no idea.

Look! This woman has a pet capybara! Cute pictures!