superborb | (no subject)

Recapping and expanding on my thoughts from Erin's recent tweets, I'm actually thinking about how the norms of academic have a point wrt requiring literature review and knowledge of the wider field before contributing, and how that relates to the new norm creation of "credit for everything." Also, worrying about how like-- one of the key parts of grad school is learning those norms and how that serves as a gatekeeping mechanic, if this is going to have a chilling effect on fandom.

There are two discussion points: 1. how fandom memory is so short and having to keep having the same conversations over and over and 2. this new norm of crediting everyone who is involved in the creation of a creative work. (No value judgement on #2 is intended)

Because one of the results of the current infrastructure of fandom makes it hard to do a lit review, to make a longer complete post that people can refer to and discuss, thereby making it harder to be having the same conversation across large swaths of fandom. Having to have the same conversation over and over is exhausting, but like, the audience keeps changing, so is the repetitiveness a net gain or loss?

I'm thinking specifically here about Racefail and its aftereffects, when it's a painful or traumatic topic to keep dredging through. Racefail happened when I was still young enough that the surrounding essays and meta introduced me to many new concepts and is fundamental to how I frame difficult discussions. Without long term fandom memory, when we go over the same arguments again, it'll introduce new people to those concepts.

But at the same time, in academia, we would point people to a review article that summarizes everything, which enables the conversation to be carried forward. We get mired in relitigating the same points because we don't have that fandom memory and it's difficult to link someone to a zillion tweet threads.

However, we don't have this existing norm to cite everything in fandom, and to pretend that it already exists is a bit disingenuous. I'm not going to argue one way or another about if it's good to have an extremely robust citation system, but the way fandom infrastructure is set up, it's hard to do so if this becomes the fandom norm. It also privileges those who do come from academia and have that intrinsic instinct to packrat away references. Lit reviews are hard work!

I am worried that presenting such strict new norms will have a chilling effect where non-diaspora fandom will avoid engaging with diaspora meta or the fandom as a whole because of the ambiguity of if You're Doing It Right. I'm not opposed to a norm change -- as Erin pointed out to me, Plagiarism Is Bad was not actually total fandom consensus it is now before Cassie Clare, and fandom trends are 100% always present in every fandom.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

minoanmiss

What about Fanlore and their efforts to document fannish history?

From:

superborb

Fanlore's coverage for anything post LJ history is pretty spotty, and it doesn't really seem like anyone in the tumblr/twitter fandoms uses it... (of course, it's a vicious cycle there)

From:

minoanmiss

nod That makes an unfortunate kind of sense.

From:

lirazel

A fascinating post. Thank you for sharing.

1. how fandom memory is so short and having to keep having the same conversations over and over

Goodness, yes.

Racefail happened when I was still young enough that the surrounding essays and meta introduced me to many new concepts and is fundamental to how I frame difficult discussions.

I had actually just graduated from college when RaceFail happened, but I had had extremely little education on the topic of race (I'm from an evangelical community in the southern part of the US), and even now I have a hard time balancing the fact that I learned so much from the entire conversation with knowing that the conversation caused so many people so much pain.

From:

superborb

Yeah, like the fact that just this week someone was just randomly talking about how important Racefail was in shaping their view -- it really had such long term effects on people! I do wonder if we didn't have to keep having similar conversations over and over -- if pulling out pain just the once was enough -- if that would change the scales on how "worth it" the pain was.

From:

lirazel

I do wonder if we didn't have to keep having similar conversations over and over -- if pulling out pain just the once was enough -- if that would change the scales on how "worth it" the pain was.

That's a great question.

From:

rekishi

Thank you for sharing your thoughts. It's a fascinating topic, and I was a bit tuned out of fandom during that time and read up on it later.

I wonder often how to make this conversation wider, because while we all speak English in fandom, unless we go specifically to our language corners, certainly not all of us are American. For example, it took me an embarrassingly long time to understand privilege as a concept, because it kept being explained to me in terms of skin colour and religion and academic background and I didn't get it.

Because these are very American versions of privilege. No hear me out, I agree that being PoC in any European country is probably just as difficult as it is in America, but local racial context matters. A person who may be 'white' in America is not necessarily 'white' or 'the majority' in Europe. At the same time, someone who may be considered PoC in the US is abolutely 'white' in Europe (Sicilians do not see themselves as PoC and the rest of Europe does not see them as PoC either, while Turkish people absolutely are perceived as 'other'). In the same way does it not bring me any advantage if I am Christian in many European countries (unless I want to work for any of the churches, different topic of course).

And that understanding adds an additional layer of 'this is complicated' to those of us not in American society, both those of us who are 'white' on both sides of the ocean (because we have a different understanding of racial context) and those here that experience xenophobia against them (because in America they would absolutely be simply 'white' ... or not).

And this is *just* the European side, I'm sure if we add people elsewhere we'll get a whole different set of answers. (Because of course, no one is PoC in their own country usually, heavy colonialism not withstanding.)

Fwiw, I don't have a solution to this either, but we often disregard the heterogeneity that is around simply because everyone usually ignored the rough edges where we rub against weird things. I mean, even my graduate school experience was vastly different from how I know grad school in the US works, but because I know how it works there I can transpose what we're talking about.

I am worried that presenting such strict new norms will have a chilling effect where non-diaspora fandom will avoid engaging with diaspora meta or the fandom as a whole because of the ambiguity of if You're Doing It Right.

This is very true, but also the question is how would you enforce it even? Like who will enforce the norms? I've seen a lot of this 'anti movement' especially against AO3, as well as the attempt to police fandom (not that I'm saying that is what you're doing mind you). And I, with over twenty years of fandom under my belt, can smile and tell whoever I want to sod off, but I also realize that I'm not the norm and I can do what I want as long as I don't infringe on other people's personal freedom.

Besides, I feel it's at least partially generational, every new fandom generation goes through growing pains and sometimes I will yell at them to get off my lawn but often it's simply easier to ignore what's going on.

Which, I realize, is also not the solution but certainly easier. I do admire people who will stand like rocks in the onslaught and aptiently explain again and again... But that's not me.

Thank you for posting! Something more to be conscious of for sure.

From:

superborb

Yes, you're right. Americans are often unthinkingly US-centric about this, but privilege takes such different appearances everywhere in the world. I don't think there's anywhere where untouched by this, but it takes different forms, and it's important to keep in mind the different contexts people may be coming from. (I actually also find it really interesting to read about regional forms of privilege bc it's interesting what is the same or not)

Well -- yeah, basically it is unenforceable except once certain norms get accepted by enough of the population it does sometimes become self reinforcing. The thing that's a bit surprising to me right now is nearly everyone involved seems have been in fandom for some time, so it's /not/ a new fandom generation. Not sure if that really changes the result though, which is still that fandom is heterogeneous

From:

rekishi

Idk, I think The Untamed fandom skews younger in some places. Just an impression I've gotten from trawling through tumblr RSS feeds. *shrug*

I agree, there's no place untouched by privilege. At least nowhere where the population is in any way heterogeneous, and even if your population is all the same, then there's still income inequality and lifestyle etc and there's still privilege even if it probably doesn't get defined that way. I mean, I'm sure if I brought that discussion up at work - all highly educated people - it wouldn't be understood even if they must be subconsciously aware that not all is equal. It's a polarizing topic for sure!

From:

superborb

Oh yeah, I really should have been more clear in my DW post, which I kind of treated as a one page version of my tweet thread -- the "cite everything" argument happening is all in an older segment of fandom, though the fandom as a whole def skews younger!

From:

rekishi

Ahh! Well. I can assure you, I went to grad school (more than once, as the US counts it) and have written multiple theses (because in order to obtain an undergraduate degree we have to write a frickin' thesis) and I can assure you, I do not keep a ledger of what all went into my fics. Fandom is what I do to get away from the dreadful work of citing things. So if you don't do that either: you're not alone. :D

I may, at most, make mention of very very specific things if I'm using a whole line of something I read somewhere (I can think of one instance in the pumpkins fic where I'll do that because I more or less lifted it from a tweet so that's fair), but not a "I read this headcanon in passing and something similar may have ended up here and I don't even remember I read it in a headcanon". Also because I don't actually go trawling for that stuff and then save it away for later use.

But interesting, I wonder if we'll see it more in the future as well.

From:

superborb

Yeah, I'm not sure if this is going to be a sustainable mov't, bc as you pointed out, citing everything is hard work!!!

From:

rekishi

Also might be a stumbling block for creativity. I mean, writing academic papers for peer review is such a slog.

From:

momijizukamori

It's interesting that you're seeing a move towards 'credit everything' as a norm, because hanging around tumblr, and seeing the rise of uncredited-repost culture, makes me feel like we've gone backwards in terms of crediting creators.

(And I wonder how much the terrible searchability of all the big social media sites plays into this, heh)

From:

superborb

Ah, so this is specifically in reaction to stuff going around on twitter, so I'm unsurprised it hasn't reached tumblr.

But yeah, the terribly searchability is part of the infrastructure issues

From:

momijizukamori

Ahhhh yeah, wonder if it'll show up in a few weeks on tumblr. Lack of searchability and an algorithm that favors divisive Hot Takes definitely does lead to having the same debates over and over.

From:

jo_lasalle

I don't have the bandwidth to get into all the points you're making, but you're highlighting a thing I've been wondering about after seeing a lot of mentions of bibliographies and footnotes and stuff, so I hope you don't mind if I zero in on this specific point.

I am worried that presenting such strict new norms will have a chilling effect where non-diaspora fandom will avoid engaging with diaspora meta or the fandom as a whole because of the ambiguity of if You're Doing It Right.

I did wonder about that too. FWIW, I say this from the POV of being very pro-credit and I've never been reluctant to thank people for where they've contributed to my understanding of something, and it would never occur to me to not thank someone who's put work into helping me. I'd personally want to err on the side of over-crediting. But I also think this is a matter of judgement - people move in a shared space where headcanons get thrown around and there's banter and "oh, is that how that's spelled?" and people putting forth info or opinions (or a blur of both), and we're all writing the same fifteen tropes over and over again anyway, and I don't think a community norm of having to credit every person who has ever enhanced your knowledge in a shared space, akin to citation rules of academia, is reasonable or sustainable.

There are threads I don't click into or posts I don't read because I'm very wary of accidentally encountering overlap with something I was perhaps planning to write, or of something sparking a thought in my head that perhaps is based on someone else's idea. If I can at least say with a clear conscience that I didn't read Fangirl X's take on, say, a dungeon fuck-or-die based on the Wen indoctrination camp, that feels... safer. This is mostly about plots and headcanons and stuff, and I will also say that I've always been a bit concerned about this, not just in MDZS/CQL fandom. But that's why that paragraph jumped out at me. If there's an emerging community norm where every time you pick up cultural information regardless of depth, you need to make a footnote and credit the person who made the post/tweet/thread/throwaway comment, I think your question of whether there could be a chilling effect and whether some non-Chinese-disaspora people might avoid reading that meta, clicking on that thread, or asking that question, is absolutely one I'd wonder about too.

I also want to be clear that I'm not building up a strawman here where any complaint about credit not being given where it should have been given leads to "oh no, people will avoid reading meta!" And, again, I personally err on the side of pro-credit ANYWAY. But with ideas of ownership in this fandom in particular being a little intense (and IMO not always reasonable), I look at the idea of academia-style crediting and... wince.

Like, to make this concrete: if I wanted to write fic based on someone's "hey wouldn't it be neat if" Twitter thread (not actual FIC, but an idea outline), I would absolutely ask them if they mind**, and I'd ask them if and how they want to be credited. If someone basically functioned as my cultural adviser and we bounced a lot of questions back and forth and they helped me with research, I would absolutely credit them.

But then there's the in-between stuff. Example A: I asked you for your gauge on a meaning/translation question of what Granny Wen is called in canon. You helped me out, in what was like a twice-round exchange, I wanted to thank you, we put a note in the next chapter note where this becomes relevant. When we posted the following chapter, we took that chapter note out again because in general we don't like reading flow being interrupted by chapter notes, and we didn't amend the general note at the top of the story. This was not intended as a slight on your help or on negating that you'd given us some info; it's a judgment call, where the degree of credit and thanks seemed in line how much we bugged you here. If you now tell me that us taking out the chapter note after a week without adding you to the main note feels bad to you or like we're not giving you appropriate credit, we can absolutely add you, and I'd ask you not to be shy about telling me! But a community norm where that sort of judgment call means we are "exploiting the help of Chinese diaspora fans without giving proper credit" is one that I personally would find overblown, and, indeed, chilling about asking people next time.

Example B: someone pointed out to us that we'd (accidentally and subconsciously, it turned out) written imaginary dragons in A Narrow Bridge as Western dragons. We looked both into Chinese dragons (we're not big dragon afficionados; we check some things we're aware we should check for, and this hadn't been on our radar as one of them!), and how much we'd need to edit, and then edited the imaginary dragons to be less contradicting of Chinese dragons. We didn't credit that commenter for pointing this out to us. Would that violate a community norm where everyone who educates you about a cultural thing needs to be credited? Would it violate that norm if the comment had been the same, but the commenter had been Chinese/Chinese diaspora?

I'm not bringing in personal examples because I feel defensive about any of them - I genuinely don't - but to make concrete how to me this is about judgment calls. I'm very open to assessing whether there might flaws in how my measure is working here. At the moment, I tend to run this on a "do unto others" basis - I wouldn't expect someone to give me credit for a two-line quick plot fix idea, a translation of a German sentence, or quick info on just how ubiquitous Döner stands are in a major German city, which I would consider comparable to Examples A and B. I made these calls in good faith, and if they were wrong, then... they serve as examples of how you can make judgment calls in good faith that don't please everybody!

And that's the direct interaction stuff. Not stuff someone put on a blog or on twitter presumably because they want it read, because they want people to have that knowledge, but not because they were personally solicited, which is a different kettle of fish again, but seemed, as far as I could tell, part of the crediting discourse this time around, too.

The question of what you "have to" credit mixes in issues of plagiarism (which is bad), fandom's occasionally very poor understanding of plagiarism (which is sad and sometimes worrying), people being pissed if they're mined for cultural info and that labor is just taken for granted (which is very understandable), questions or vibes of cultural "ownership" (which, very, VERY tricky), and questions of idea and plot ownership (also tricky, and trickier and way more charged if it blurs with the culture question), combined with traditionally high emotions in fandom because WE ALL CARE SO FUCKING MUCH, and I don't actually have a clear conclusion here - just that some clear cut community norm of "everyone who ever gave you any info ever needs to be credited" would be, at least, quite the shift to what I'd intuitively expect in a shared creative space, and seeing some of the footnoting and crediting stuff gave me similar thoughts to yours about a chilling/blocking effect.

This was just about one aspect and got long already (sorry!), but I hope it was coherent.

** Footnote: cards/table, from a theoretical POV, I don't actually think anyone would "have to" to do this. I don't think ideas and plots can be owned like that, and if you put stuff out in public, people, and people's writing brains, are going to respond to that, and as opposed to opposing ACTUAL plagiarism - copying an existing story that you didn't write and passing it off as if you wrote it - I think fandom isn't doing itself a favor if it cultivates the idea that "whoever suggested this plot first in public now owns it forever". I've been finding some of the turns fandom has taken on what it defines as "plagiarism", while everyone is writing transformative works of other creators' canons, worrying, and sometimes exasperating. But, again, in actual practice, I err on the side of giving credit, giving credit that makes other people feel valued is no hardship but rather a nice thing, and in a social setting, this is not a hill of principle I would want to die on. It's also more about fic ideas than cultural knowledge. I'm just saying it for completeness' sake.

From:

superborb

Yes, I think I basically agree with what you've said -- we might draw some lines about credit in slightly different places, but overall agreement.

Your bringing in specific examples is really helpful bc we can talk all we want about vague ideas, but the concrete example really highlights how much of a judgment call it is. I don't think anyone can look at those examples and say the current fandom consensus is that all of those should be cited! Though certainly there are people who would cite in both cases, I hardly think it is consensus.

Like, I do think academia style crediting /may/ help with the issue of having the same convo over and over, but it's a huge ask, would be very difficult to maintain, and I agree, would interact poorly with how this fandom conceives of ownership of ideas.