This icon is getting a lot of use...

[lyssie]

So, anyway. People who are far more eloquent than I (Jim Smith, Mike Smith and ViciousWishes) have talked at length about the recent lj kerfuffles.

I'm here to talk about the one that's apparently coming. The apocalypse.

Yes, you heard it here first, LJ might, possibly, maybe, in the future, consider, deleting or stopping or raising hell over or banning fanfiction. Not that they've ever actually said this. Or that doing so would be easy (what constitutes fanfic? What if I type three paragraphs of silly Kara/Sam conversation--is that enough? Does it have a word limit? What if it's a one-word fic?)--just think of it this way. Anything you post could be fanfic. Sometimes, I post random bits and pieces from conversations that get used later on. Does it count if I'm just talking about it? And who is going to be manning the journal suspend/delete buttons at SA SUP?

Just think about that for a moment. The man hours and time that would have to be spent on making sure not a single piece of fic escaped onto LJ, to forage in the wild.

The only way to do it would be to purge every single LJ that was ever associated with fandom. Now. I don't actually think fandom actually amounts to as much of LJ's user base as we'd like to think. But I do still think we're a sizable chunk, and there's a lot of us who pay, because we like shiny things like icons and polls.

And once they've purged those users, then they have to watch account creation, and hope they got all of us, and then hope that they'll be able to tell when someone joining is Jewish (shit, I just Godwinned myself) a fanfic writer or reader... There will be paranoid code monkeys, sitting there, watching every request for a (plus, of course) account come in, checking the minute details and then stealing the last piece of pie to decide if the person deserves an LJ or will bring infamy down upon their heads.

And then what are they going to tell the advertisers and companies who paid them money for the numbers of fandom people they no longer have? "Oops, we had to get rid of them."?

Oh, I know. Server crash.

Some other things I've been thinking of...

1. Fandom is not just fanfic. Fanfic is a part of fandom, but it's certainly not the whole of it, and continuing to act as though it is is short-sighted and off-putting. Fanfic isn't even the largest part of fandom.

2. Dire warnings and screams of oppression are counter-productive, attract the wrong kind of attention and make you look like entitlement whores who aren't happy with the cool million they won in the lottery. Not to mention making those of us who think you're wrong and who do write fic look as though we're just as nit-witted as YOU are.

3. LJ is not some haven/god/creatrix of fandom and never has been. Fandom didn't just spring up because LJ was around. Fandom has been around for fucking EVER. LJ is simply another iteration of chat rooms, message boards, mailing lists and mySpace, facebook, newsgroups, IRC, random websites, message boards, blogs, and etc. Fandom is all over the place, LJ just happens to be convenient.

And that's just the online activities.

In short: the Commies are not gonna take our fic away, mother-frakkers. So shut the flonq up.

Comments

[lyssie.livejournal.com]

Amusingly, the kerfuffles are happening... on my flist, in some places. Well, and the news comm.

And normally, I'd ignore this, but someone just had to tell me they were afraid LJ was going to ban fanfic, and, dude... WTF.

Don't ever change.

If I do, you can be sure I'm a Cylon. ;]

[greycoupon.livejournal.com]

BUT are the TERRORISTS going to take FREEDOM and our fic????

I put the words in caps to show how important they are. Why do you hate America, lyssie?

[lyssie.livejournal.com]

*dies laughing*

[nique.livejournal.com]

She hates it because she's a goddamned commie! A commie who hates fandom!

...or something. *snicker*

[karma-aster.livejournal.com]

Well, really, we all knew that.

[surreallis.livejournal.com]

Right. And next you'll be telling us that tinfoil hats DON'T reflect the alien mind-control rays. HELLO.

[lyssie.livejournal.com]

*snickers*

[frolicndetour.livejournal.com]

Where is all the flipping out happening? In the news posts? I'm so out of it I hadn't even heard of the interests censoring.

Reading through your links is quite an eye-opener. I had no idea fanfiction was so deviant, heh. My parents even know that I write it, since I had to explain why I was attached to my laptop with a late ficathon entry over Christmas break. They think it's odd, but cute, which is how they view me in general, so whatever. ;) Of course my stuff is all pretty G-rated...

But yeah, I wish the crazy minority wasn't so vocal and ... emblematic. And I'm glad my fandom has no kids and almost no blood-relatives, and Adama/Lee hasn't really caught on...

[lyssie.livejournal.com]

The news posts, I think, and a few on my flist. Apparently, there is going to be a day of non-posting. In protest. Or something. (it makes me headdesk)

My family knows I write fic, they've read bits and pieces (mom liked my LotR fic, iirc). They don't know the extent of, my, ah, delinquency into porn, though. And they'd be very unhappy about the lesbiansormore sex I write sometimes.

[kkglinka.livejournal.com]

I'm going to join the Canadian Secret Services and prepare for the upcoming US invasion!!!

Oh, wait, LJ is going to try and ban fandom. Seems to me that would only require making it a pay only service, since we fans flock to free. Should be interesting where-ever we group up next. *yawns*

The FEDERAL FROGS are coming! (They live in ponds and work for the gov't).

[lyssie.livejournal.com]

Whoot! Party with the frogs and the service!

[thekatebeyond.livejournal.com]

I think the idea that LJ would ever try to eliminate fic or fandom is absurd. I hadn't heard anyone spouting that, and I think it's crazy.

However, that has nothing to do with why it upsets me that LJ is censoring the interests list. The only reason I can imagine for that is to hide things that they see as potentially damaging from advertisers and/or investors. That's deceptive and unethical. I simply don't like it when companies I do business with are unethical.

[scarfman]

Yes: the issues here are censorship and customer relations. Fanfiction isn't even the primary target of the censorship, homosexuality is; fanfiction is targeted as a significat side-issue.

[thekatebeyond.livejournal.com]

I agree. This issue is getting blended with the Basic Account issue and the perceived disrespect to the content added by fandom, and the core problem here is getting lost.

[karma-aster.livejournal.com]

But, as has been pointed out, this really seems less like homophobia and more creates an interesting dialogue about fandom's fetishization of queer people.

Although that's usually the point at which I am informed that I'm homophobic and I don't "get" slash.

[scarfman]

You don't have to be homophobic not to get slash. I don't.

[lyssie.livejournal.com]

Until this kerfuffle, I'd never heard of the 'most popular whatever' list.

[thirdblindmouse.livejournal.com]

Fandom is not just fanfic. Fanfic is a part of fandom, but it's certainly not the whole of it, and continuing to act as though it is is short-sighted and off-putting. Fanfic isn't even the largest part of fandom.

YES! ...Um, I don't really care one way or another about LJ or follow the kerfuffles, but whenever anyone brings this point up for any reason: YES!

[lyssie.livejournal.com]

I think Jim mentioned it, too. But, dammit, I'm so sick of people acting like attacks on fanfic destroy ALL of fandom. Because it really isn't.