I’m sure you’ve all heard about this Strange Horizons column already. If not, go read it, then come back and read what I have to say (or don’t…up to you). As I pointed out by way of a link-laden question the other day, I really don’t understand what the frak is going on in the SF/F community right now. It’s like a whole group of fans, writers, and bloggers decided they’d all take crazy pills as part of a New Year’s resolution, and unlike every other resolution (to lose weight, to drink less, to tell your significant other that you’ve fathered (or mothered) nine children with an alien from Mars), they seem to have actually gone through with it. And the crazy really hit the fan this month.
So here are some random thoughts about everything, written as such to avoid treading too far onto ground so many others have already covered:
Authors Commenting on Blogs
Honestly, I’ve never had an issue with authors commenting on this blog, though I haven’t stated as such before. But I’ve also never had (at least, in recent memory) one of those experiences where an author shows up and has a hissy fit in my own space. If authors feel inclined to post here, they are free to do so (encouraged, even), but under the following caveats:
- You understand that you do not control interpretation; it is the domain of readers.
- You avoid being an asshole.
(Note: this only applies to posts about the author or the author’s work, of course; outside of such posts, the only rule I have is “don’t be an asshole,” but that applies to everyone, not just authors.)
Do I think there’s necessarily anything wrong with an author posting in spaces where his/her work is being discussed? No. I also don’t think it’s a terribly good idea, in most cases. It all comes down to how you engage, really, and I’m not the type of person to tell someone the proper method for engaging in such scenarios. I can only tell you what not to do (see one of the sections below).
The Big Deal?
Maybe it’s just me, but I never interpreted what Renay said as absolutist. Even if what she said was absolutist in form (there are some lines here or there in the comments that give that impression), it doesn’t follow that she’s necessarily right (obviously, she and I don’t agree on this point) and it doesn’t mean you’re somehow beholden to what she says authors should do. After all, Renay is just a reader and a fan (a great reader and fan, I might add); she’s not God. The idea that her words should be viewed as gospel seems anathema to the concept of a fan writer, or a semi-pro zine featuring articles by fans.
So when the reaction to the whole scenario devolved into name-calling (yous bullies and idiotas!), misdirection, merry-go-round arguments, and, eventually, threats of sexual assault against Renay and others, I couldn’t help feeling a bit lost. What exactly did these folks say to justify such behavior (in the minds of people who think such behavior could be justified, of course)?
In other words: WTF?
The lesson writers and readers should have taken from the whole thing seemed obvious to me: some people are uncomfortable talking with authors about their work on their own blogs, and those that are comfortable are probably pretty obvious about it (see the above section). And, well, the point Renay tried to make (and what others also tried to point out in the comments sections at various places) got completely lost. It’s not about whether an author is allowed to comment somewhere, but whether doing so is a good idea. And there were a number of interesting reasons for why authors shouldn’t:
- Authors can stifle honest, open discussion (public blogs provide the illusion of this; our culture is so voyeuristic, that all one really needs is the appearance of privacy, since all of us know, on some level, that we’re always being watched…)
- Authors can sometimes impose their interpretation of their own work onto the reader, which can present a conflict between reader and writer (namely, a conflict about the appropriate interpretation). This can also stifle discussion.
- Authors can sometimes be assholes. Really big assholes.
I’ll cover that last one in the next section.
Basically, in the relationship between “reader” and “author,” the positions are not equal — at least, not in the minds of some folks (their perspectives are valid). While I understand Ben Aaronovitch’s contention that “he’s just some guy who writes books,” I think he (and I) sometimes forget that in the universe of books, authors are our celebrities. I’m sure a lot of movie stars would love to get ignored like the rest of us in their everyday lives, but we all know that won’t happen. They’ve reached a different plane of existence(?) that, however artificial, puts the movie star above the movie viewer. The same thing happens with authors.
In fact, I still struggle with this myself. I’ve admitted before (here or on
The Skiffy and Fanty Show) that I sometimes have a hard time talking to authors in person. This is mostly true for authors whose work I’ve been following for a while. I get nervous. Yes, they are all “just people” like me, but they are also the folks who have made things I love. They are Joss Whedons in a book world. While that’s changed a lot in the last few years (mostly by actually interacting with authors I admire), I still understand that there are sometimes unequal relationships.
That’s not the way it has to be, of course, but it’s crucial to understand that for some readers, the hierarchy exists, even if only on a psychological level. Some of us will move beyond it, as I’ve worked to do over the past few years, but others may choose to keep the distance for their own reasons.
Appearances Are Weird on the Internets
Here’s the thing: there’s really no easy way to know who someone is based on what they write on the Internet, with some exception. We can probably figure out who Orson Scott Card is as a person based on the things he writes in his op-eds and what not, but that doesn’t really tell us much about how he behaves in public, just what he thinks inside his head and what he feels comfortable telling us (which, weirdly enough, seems pretty open).
Are Ben Aaronovitch, Gavin Pugh, Jonathan McCalmont, the folks at Booksmugglers, etc. assholes? I have no idea (here, I’m going off the idea peddled around on Twitter that all of these folks have acted poorly; this is not my personal judgment). I don’t know any of them personally (as in, I haven’t met them in person). Maybe they’re all giant buttfaces in real life. Maybe they’re all soft spoken and like hugs and green tea with lemon. I don’t know because I don’t know them, and neither do most of you. (For the record: I’m pretty sure they’re not all buttfaces in real life, but that’s based on intuition, not hard evidence — this is a fan blog, not a bloody scientific study.)
What does that mean? Well, I can only judge them based on what they say, and sometimes what these folks say ruffles feathers (mine, yours, someone else’s). And in the comments sections on Renay’s article and elsewhere, it seemed to me that some of these folks were acting rather, well, childish. Douchey, even. Part of this probably has to do with the fact that their feathers got ruffled too (over what I see as “not a big deal,” to be honest), and, as we all know, when the feathers get ruffled, people tend to act in ways that aren’t conducive to civil conversation. That became clear to me in the comments section on Renay’s article: things quickly devolved into accusations, merry-go-round argumentation, and so on, such that whatever useful arguments were being made seemed to fall on deaf ears…for some.
All of this is about perception. It doesn’t really matter whether these folks are jerkfaces; to certain parties, they will seem as such regardless of the reality. And when that perception is catalyzed (i.e., group A has decided that group B are assholes, and that’s that), it further fuels the existing fire. In cases like this, I don’t see the point in fueling the fire, because the content of the argument never seemed to match the vehement opposition that followed. It almost felt like someone had said authors should be shot in the face for commenting…only that didn’t happen in the real world.
Anyway.
The point is this: it all comes down to perception, and perception comprises a huge portion of the problem that Renay (and others) tried to identify. When authors enter certain spaces, sometimes (read: not always) their involvement is perceived as stifling, negative, assholish, etc. That’s just the reality of perception. And while you can disagree with any perception you might encounter, that doesn’t make it invalid, nor does that naturally open up the opportunity to correct said perception, especially when trying to do so will likely make things much, much worse — discretion is advised. Sometimes you can challenge a perception, but I think that depends a great deal on sound judgement. In the case of authors responding to reviews and critiques, I tend to think the better option is to say nothing at all unless you have thought long and hard about the best way to approach the matter. It’s entirely reasonable for an author to engage reviewers without pissing on the parade; it just doesn’t seem to happen very often.
And I think I’ll just leave it at that. The comments are yours.
Like this:
Like Loading...
Related
That Readers vs. Writers Thing on Strange Horizons (or, Some Disconnected Nonsense From Me)
Reading Time
I’m sure you’ve all heard about this Strange Horizons column already. If not, go read it, then come back and read what I have to say (or don’t…up to you). As I pointed out by way of a link-laden question the other day, I really don’t understand what the frak is going on in the SF/F community right now. It’s like a whole group of fans, writers, and bloggers decided they’d all take crazy pills as part of a New Year’s resolution, and unlike every other resolution (to lose weight, to drink less, to tell your significant other that you’ve fathered (or mothered) nine children with an alien from Mars), they seem to have actually gone through with it. And the crazy really hit the fan this month.
So here are some random thoughts about everything, written as such to avoid treading too far onto ground so many others have already covered:
Authors Commenting on Blogs
Honestly, I’ve never had an issue with authors commenting on this blog, though I haven’t stated as such before. But I’ve also never had (at least, in recent memory) one of those experiences where an author shows up and has a hissy fit in my own space. If authors feel inclined to post here, they are free to do so (encouraged, even), but under the following caveats:
Share this:
Like this:
Related
Shaun Duke
Follow Me
Newsletter
Support Me
Recent Posts
A Reading List of Dystopian Fiction and Relevant Texts (Apropos of Nothing in Particular)
Why would someone make a list of important and interesting works of dystopian fiction? Or a suggested reading list of works that are relevant to those dystopian works? There is absolutely no reason other than raw interest. There’s nothing going on to compel this. There is nothing in particular one making such a list would hope you’d learn. The lists below are not an exhaustive list. There are bound to be texts I have forgotten or texts you think folks should read that are not listed. Feel free to make your own list and tell me about it OR leave a comment. I’ll add things I’ve missed! Anywhoodles. Here goes:
Share this:
Like this:
Duke’s Best EDM Tracks of 2024
And so it came to pass that I finished up my annual Best of EDM [Insert Year Here] lists. I used to do these on Spotify before switching to Tidal, and I continued doing them on Tidal because I listen to an absurd amount of EDM and like keeping track of the tunes I love the most. Below, you will find a Tidal playlist that should be public. You can listen to the first 50 tracks right here, but the full playlist is available on Tidal proper (which has a free version just like Spotify does). For whatever reason, the embedded playlist breaks the page, and so I’ve opted to link to it here and at the bottom of this post. Embeds are weird. Or you can pull songs into your preferred listening app. It’s up to you. Some caveats before we begin:
Share this:
Like this:
2025: The Year of Something
We’re nine days into 2025, and it’s already full of exhausting levels of controversy before we’ve even had a turnover in power in my home country of the United States. We’ve seen resignations of world leaders, wars continuing and getting worse and worse (you know where), the owner of Twitter continuing his tirade of lunacy and demonstrating why the billionaire class is not to be revered, California ablaze with a horrendous and large wildfire, right wing thinktanks developing plans to out and attack Wikipedia editors as any fascist-friendly organization would do, Meta rolling out and rolling back GenAI profiles on its platforms, and, just yesterday, the same Meta announcing sweeping changes to its moderation policies that, in a charitable reading, encourage hate-based harassment and abuse of vulnerable populations, promotion and support for disinformation, and other problems, all of which are so profound that people are talking about a mass exodus from the platform to…somewhere. It’s that last thing that brings me back to the blog today. Since the takeover at Twitter, social networks have been in a state of chaos. Platforms have risen and fallen — or only risen so much — and nothing I would call stability has formed. Years ago, I (and many others far more popular than me) remarked that we’ve ceded the territory of self-owned or small-scale third party spaces for massive third party platforms where we have minimal to no control or say and which can be stripped away in a tech-scale heartbeat. By putting all our ducks into a bin of unstable chaos, we’re also expending our time and energy on something that won’t last, requiring us to expend more time and energy finding alternatives, rebuilding communities, and then repeating the process again. In the present environment, that’s impossible to ignore.1 This is all rather reductive, but this post is not the place to talk about all the ways that social networks have impacted control over our own spaces and narratives. Another time, perhaps. I similarly don’t have space to talk about the fact that some of the platforms we currently have, however functional they may be, have placed many of us in a moral quagmire, as in the case of Meta’s recent moderation changes. Another time… ↩
Share this:
Like this:
Categories