Signal Boost: The vidshow challenge deadline is three days away!

 

trelkez posted: The vidshow challenge deadline is three days away!

 

This is the last reminder before Sunday that self-curated vidshow challenge playlists are due on Sunday, February 3rd. 

If anyone is struggling with the challenge and needs help, please let me know

 

Signal Boost: January Talking Meme: Day #26

 

settiai posted: January Talking Meme: Day #26

 

I've seen fandom go from people having to put disclaimers ("not mine! don't sue!") to people having no idea where something like that comes from. I've seen FF.net go from being the pinnacle to the Pit of Voles. I've seen the rise of the AO3.

I've seen fanvids go from being a very niche part of fandom that took a huge amount of investment (and multiple VCRs) to becoming something anyone can easily try to do if they want. I mean, I got into the vidding part of fandom when online vid downloads were just starting to become a possibility to... well, the age of YouTube.

Fandom changed. And, well, it hasn't at the same time. It's very cyclical, and the longer I'm involved with it? The more I see that.

There have always been people who've said "don't write this!" or "you can't draw that!" There have always been people who've used things like "think of the children!" or "don't you have morals?" as a way to pretend they have the high ground. Yes, the current version of fandom is better on some things. (I very much remember when it had to be rated PG-13 or R if it had a m/m relationship, even if it was nothing but G-rated fluff. Or when so many fics featuring f/f or m/m or even graphic f/m was only posted under lock.) But it's backslid on others.

Fandom is fandom. It's always changing, and it will never change. That's part of why it means so much to me.

 

Signal Boost: Books! Free books!

 

squidgiepdx posted: Books! Free books!

 

here's a ton of free stories and books available, so if you're interested, the link is below. There are hundreds of stories and books available. All the author asks when you get one of their books is to join their mailing list. Authors rely on their email lists to let you know about new book releases, etc

 

Fandom has always had its fair share of Good White Christian Moms .....

Source: https://twitter.com/aroundab00t/status/1085922285704409089

"And, not unrelated, I also see a lot of Fake Woke purity policing popping up in the same breath. "You can't ship X because its Problematic" and "They aren't blood related but they're close to each other so its incest" and now "Multishipping is prompting infidelity!"  

Fandom has always had its fair share of Good White Christian Moms showing up to tell you whats Good and whats Bad. nearly fourteen years ago I got my first "Harry Potter is the Devils child and repent for writing HP fic or you're going to hell!" message on ff.net  

But I think its something to consider that its often the places where people 25, 35, 55+ are being pushed out that we're finding a lot of the tumblr woke bad hot takes. People without the life experience are coming together and deciding not to learn from fandom history,

Deciding not to look for the lexicon of language that has been there for years to describe and explain why they dont link a thing, and not to learn the commonly accepted practice of what to do when you find fanworks you dont enjoy  Instead of saying "I dont ship X bc its my notp" or abiding by "dont like, dont read." Spaces where that long fannish culture arent considered appear to become echo chambers where "we dont like X so now we need to come up with a justification for why" is the new normal,

And anyone who doesnt think the same way is Problematique™. And that Problematique™ content should disappear!!! Fiction impacts reality!!! If your content could hurt me it shouldnt exist!!!

Its easy to burn that torch when you've never been impacted by the loss of geocities, or by strikethrough, or heard stories from people who watched entire fanspaces burn overnight. Policing and witchhunting content bc it personally doesnt agree w you is always a factor of-

These purges. Think about tumblr, and how accurate their dragnet has been while trying to make a "safe" sfw space ......[snip]

All this to say, stop, consider what you're saying and why. If you have Strong Feelings about multishipping, maybe you're just a monoshipper. That doesnt make people who arent Bad or Wrong, and it doesnt mean you're lacking or Better either. You just have a preference, one that 

Is perfectly okay for other people not to share.  

Tl;dr: learn from the people who were in fannish spaces b4 you. Learn that its okay to just like or dislike things, & that your preferences dont have to be law or supported by "evidence". Curate your experience.
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 In one of the replies:

The root-cause of all this nonsense is that a good swath of the younger generation doesn't seem capable of seeing fandom for what it's always been -- an escapist place for *personal pleasure.* Instead, they see it as an *activist space & safe-space* rolled into one.