superborb | (no subject)

Don't pay lip service to "oh we don't speak for all the diaspora" and then if someone disagrees call them names and say how much self hatred they have.

You do not speak for all the diaspora.

I try to always express myself cleanly and I'm always, always willing to change my views with more data (the sign of a scientist!). I was already hesitant to say anything bc it didn't sound like opposing views would be entertained at all, so I narrowed my arguments to the most major, (I thought) unobjectionable flaw. I doubt any of the more fuzzy ones about diaspora vs mainland politics, the element of the fantastical, or the transformative nature of our fandom would have been entertained at all!

I'm actually shocked at how upset I am over this. I'm so glad the mdzs/cql fandom let me meet new folks, but I can't say that it was a good experience overall.

(Xposted from twitter for posterity/archiving purposes)

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

jo_lasalle

I'm sorry, that's an awful thing to get hit with. I hope it won't sour your relationship with the fandom, or the parts of it that aren't like that.

From:

superborb

I was half expecting it from the beginning, so I'm a bit surprised that I'm... surprised lol. Whatever, I believe in everything that I said, so it's fine.

From:

rekishi

Oh, that's rough. I'm sorry.

Fwiw, I appreciate your posts a lot, but I'm obviously speaking very much from an outsider perspective.

From:

superborb

Leaving dreamwidth was a mistake lol. The only platform that I consistently get joy out of...

From:

rekishi

I think it's partially also the nature of the platform. To stay with the example (because I'm pretty sure I know which post triggered this, I also saw it), I think it's very hard to have a good and proper form of communication in something like Discord or Twitter or Tumblr. They're all very transient platforms and the setup simply doesn't foster communication. Even if you mutually follow each other, I'm not sure there's ever any real communication going on aside from making posts AT each other.

And since one is basically always talking AT people rather than WITH people...well.

And it also, if I understood the whole thing correctly, is connected to this 'credit everything' thing that we talked about a while ago. I understand what you mean now (I wasn't aware it was....like that, you know).

*sigh*

From:

superborb

Yeah, I think Discord probably is closest bc it does allow easy conversation, but it's so dependent on being online at the same time...

Though of course DW isn't perfect and there's been PLENTY of blowups on blogging platforms, so some of this is just inherent in like, groups of people interacting haha.

Yep, this is part zillion of that wank.

From:

rekishi

Lol, there has been plenty of wank on LJ and there will continue to be plenty of wank on DW, no doubt. There's FFA, ffs. But yeah, conflict is a pretty human thing.

You're right about Discord, which is more like IRC than it is like Tumblr. I was thinking of a specific bad Discord experience I had recently and that got sort or turned around in my head. I make it a point to only be on IRC during a specific time of day, as to not let it eat up my day (that tends to happen to me).

But still, I think Tumblr and Twitter especially tend to create an echo chamber. Sure, that's something that you CAN also recreate on DW, but generally I feel there is more....ogod I hate this phrase because CEOs use it to get around diversity hires so please don't think badly of me, but I do believe we have more 'diversity of thought' around here. I think all the communities and friending memes and stuff do help there.

But of course, there have been plenty of flounces over the years as well.

From:

superborb

I really think that the RT/reblog thing is the Source of All Evil. A bit tongue in cheek, but it just leads to that amplification of the same idea, and stifles original contributions. On DW, you can obviously link to something to share, but there needs to be more deliberate thought in it.

Comms are the biggest miss -- I'd think Discord servers are similar, but then all Discord servers really act as LOCKED comms, and the unlocked ones are often the most interesting.

From:

rekishi

Reblogging with adding nuance yeah, I think is an issue indeed. And it's so easy to just click a button, I guess.

With Discord, you need to FIND the Discord first. And it's not native to the system either, so there invariably is not the same kind of overlap. It's much easier to just make the jump into a com here than to seek out a Discord, because for that you need also have connections first.

Idk. Fandom is so big these days, but I guess a bit less echo chamber would be nice. But sure, wank will always be there.

From:

superborb

Oh yeah, I guess I've only really joined public discords that have links posted publicly? But it is hard to just check out a discord without fully joining it, and a lot of discords are private so you'd need the connection.

The thing is, it feels like an echo chamber, but I also think it's super fragmented, which seems like it'd preempt the echo chamber part...

From:

rekishi

Yes, but you need to. Find the links? Where they are posted? Yes this was similar in IRC days, but I always thought that was so much more accessible.

I can't tell since I am not ON tumblr (or twitter), I just read some tumblrs on RSS and there it feels very... I think it's this talking AT people. Idk, maybe people talk and I never see it?

Maybe I'm just complaining too much or it's my depression rearing its head, idk.

From:

superborb

There's a public list of servers here: https://disboard.org/, which is where I've always been linked!

Yeah, I followed via RSS for a while, but I think people will reblog with comments? And sometimes reply on the post? IDK I don't really understand tumblr still.

From:

rekishi

Mh. But there I don't find anything which I'm on currently or was on and abandoned for other reasons. None of the inception servers I was on nor my very public Farscape server. So mh. i dunno. ^^;;;;

Yeah I can't speculate on tumblr. I know there's whole tag culture thing going on but it's super confusing to me and apparently also rude to reblog gifs with comments added??? Idek, I'm not going there. DW can keep me busy, I will simply spectate that corner of fandom. And ignore twitter entirely, because that's doomscrolling.

From:

superborb

Maybe you have to list it and no one has? But most of the newer fandoms seem to be listed -- it's how to found NIF and MDZS discords (though I didn't really enjoy the latter). I guess there's a lot that aren't listed of course!

From:

rekishi

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Maybe? Idk. It't not consistent. IRC wasn't consistent either, but here I feel more removed.

From:

momijizukamori

Oh boy I think the starting post for this this showed up on my tumblr feed, too, and while I am very much an outsider here (white American and all), that post is uh... speaking with a lot of authority for something that claims to not be speaking for everyone.....

And I think in the world of social media Hot Takes it's becoming more frequent to pull the 'no true Scotsman' thing of 'the only valid members of [x] group are the ones that agree with me' - I have definitely seen it a lot with regard to queer issues, and with mental illness stuff.

From:

superborb

Yeah, that group loooooves to call people things like banana whenever they get pushback (according to the gossip). So it's definitely the same no true Scotsman nonsense.

From:

momijizukamori

YIKES. Like, that's the sort of thing you could call yourself or a close friend as a joke, maybe, but as an insult? Biiiiig red flag there.

From:

stultiloquentia

Yikes. I'm really sorry people are being gross in your direction.

I hope you stick around; I enjoy your meta very much.

From:

superborb

Thanks!

From:

lirazel

I am not even on the fringes of actual MDZS fandom but I did see a post on my Tumblr dash today that I think is what you're referencing. Is it that one that was criticizing making the Lans Jewish in a fic? From looking at your Twitter, it looks like your objection was mostly, "People are imposing Christianity on the text all the time, but it's only the Jewish people who get called out?" (Which seems totally reasonable to me.) Is that correct? And you got pushback for that?

If you don't want to talk about it, I totally understand.

From:

superborb

yes, yes, and yes. I did have more issues with the post than JUST that, but it seemed like the most unobjectionable issue with the post to me

From:

lirazel

I'm really sorry you had to deal with people being ridiculous. Sometimes it feels best just to hunker down here on DW to get away from everyone else.

From:

cortue

I found you through the NiF discord so I'm basically a stranger, but I wanted to say I'm sorry this happened to you. That sucks. I really appreciated what you pointed out. I had seen that original post as well, but I did not have the context (because I've read like 4 MZDS fics total) to know that there was a trend of both Christian influences and Jewish influences being introduced and only one gets called out.