thebratqueen: Captain Marvel (glasses)
[personal profile] thebratqueen
I got into a conversation with [livejournal.com profile] stakebait about LJ and fandom and egos and I started to ramble in the email so instead of boring her with it I'm going to bore all of you. Aren't you glad?



Okay, so the conversation started about the general concepts of how things are perceived in fandom, particularly the ideas of egotism and self-centeredness and when is it ego vs doing what actually makes sense in that situation? For example, I have a mailing list for people who want to get copies of my newest stuff sent to their inbox. Is the pure fact of having that list an egotistical thing to do ("Man is she full of herself for assuming anyone would want her fics mailed to them") or is it just a natural extension of trying to provide another method to post my fic since why write it if I'm not going to show it to anyone? (Or arguably both: It started out as a natural extension of me not being able to remember who had asked me to email them copies of my stuff, but perhaps then crossed over to ego when I posted that link in my sig and on my website as a way of advertising its existance to those who hadn't asked about it. Or option D) none of the above?)

And it's not just things like mailing lists. Here in LJ land, for instance, there's the wonderful world of icons. Is someone with an icon that refers to a fic that they themselves have written being egotistical when they use it ("Get her trying to advertise her writing" or "Get her assuming we all read her stuff and therefore know what she's referring to") or are they just having fun? After all it's their LJ and their avatar. What else should they use if not something that represents themselves?

And ditto sig files, and web sites, and LJ communities and so on and so forth.

Personally I find myself with mixed feelings. I would love to argue for intent counting for everything (speaking as a person with a mailing list, a website, and at this particular moment 3 - no, wait, 5 icons which either reference my fics or my in-jokes or both) since Lord knows I never intend any of my things to come across as "I am the mighty TBQ, all bow down before my huge yet detachable penis" unless, of course, I'm telling you directly to get out of my way because you're annoying me but then I send the letter to George Bush and I'm good with it.

But at the same time if somebody who didn't know me perceived my actions as egotistical I can't say that I would argue that assumption. An icon which references something that I've written carries the prerequisite that for a person to fully appreciate the icon they both read and remembered the thing in question. If I'm using that icon outside of my own journal, that carries the appearance that I assume everyone either knows the in-joke or would be dying to find out. My intent is that I don't care, because I know what the icon means and the picture itself tends to carry the jist of the meaning even if the person who is not me has never read my stuff before. Angel scratching his head in confusion is Angel scratching his head in confusion. If you know what "Box?" refers to there's a giggle in it, but if you don't no harm no foul.

But again, I don't think I would fault someone for assuming that having icons like that means I have an ego. (Granted that it's a true assumption regardless, though for my point of view not because of that evidence ;) ).

I think the point I get ishy on is when does the automatic assumption of ego go too far? When do people start to dismiss too much out of hand because of people being full of themselves?

Case in point, this classic anti-BNF argument: "God she's so full of herself. All she talks about in her livejournal is her her her".

Err - yeah? Journal. The point of these things tends to be to talk about ourselves. The creation of this thing was so that people could talk about themselves and then other people who were interested in that ("friends" if you will ;) ) could choose to opt-in on the listening. To me complaining about somebody talking about themselves in their own journals is like complaining that Baskin Robbins is really fetishizing that ice cream thing. In other words we've missed the raison d'etre as it were.

So if we're creating some kind of Kinsey scale of ego, perhaps talking about yourself in your own journal is on the side of "normal". What, then, is the opposite side? What's ego that nobody can deny?

Abuse of BNF status - or the perception therein - would probably come close. But then again how to prove it? What's actual abuse and what's people perceiving abuse? There's a fine line of difference between - say - "God Mary Sue BNF is so full of herself she demanded that nobody at Fill in the Blank Con come near her if they weren't wearing the right perfume" and "Did you know Mary Sue just got over a raging allergy attack because her lungs stop working if she breathes Chanel No. 5?"

I'm reminded of the MTV show Rich Girls - shut up - where I read an article about how one of them, I forget who, is so snotty that she dismisses someone at a party by saying that she doesn't talk to people she doesn't know. However when I watched the episode - shut up - to me it was a tough call. Was she being a snotty bitch who thinks strangers are beneath her or was she wisely keying in to the fact that a lot of people were going to pretend to be nice to her now that the MTV cameras were there? And if the latter is the case, why shouldn't she tell them to take a hike?

I have to admit I honestly don't know the answer. I definitely have mixed feelings. And it's strange when you consider that logically I'm not sure why some things strike me the way that they do.

Case in point, ad blurbs for fanfic. Way back in the day of one of my earlier fandoms (get me with the vagueness) there was one writer who, when posting their fanfic, included ad blurbs for it. Quotes from feedback that they'd gotten (supposedly) talking about how great the fic was. "I loved Aftermath! This is the best characterization of _______ ever!" that kind of thing.

I have to admit, my gut reaction to something like that is dear God what an ego. Post the fic, don't brag about how much people liked it. Let the damn thing stand on its own.

However - how is that any different from posting awards gotten, something which doesn't bug me? If that same person had, instead of posting ad blurbs, instead posted "Winner of the Best Smut Award in the Best Little Whorehouse Winter Contest" I wouldn't have even batted an eye. You win an award, you tell people about it. It makes sense.

And, frankly, why not post reviews? I read movie reviews to find out if I'm going to like a movie. I subscribe to rec journals and rec lists to know what stories people recommend. Why shouldn't the author feel free to eliminate the middle man and attach a review to the piece? I honestly don't know.

Which reminds me of another grey area - icons and whatnot for people who aren't the author. Linking banners are, I think, a fairly safe area since if you post a story on the net you presumably want people to read it so why not create a pretty picture to use? Especially since people tend to prefer having pictures to use anyway, so it's more like saving them the trouble than it is bragging about yourself (said the girl who often begs people to make her graphics ;) )

But what about, say, LJ icons? We've got tons to choose from. Which ones cross the line? I personally see tons of minion/spouse/sex slave/whatever icons out there and hardly bat an eye because my whole net experience has always been about creating various forms of online families that twist and turn and make geneology software break down into bitter, bitter tears [waves to [livejournal.com profile] catscradle, [livejournal.com profile] flambeau, [livejournal.com profile] damoyre, [livejournal.com profile] cin1607...]. I've seen it elsewhere too. It's just one of those things that keep creeping up organically.

Then there's icons that refer to group concepts. Zen fen, for instance. Those don't bug me. I don't look at those and go "Ahh, clearly this is an elitist egotistical cabal of people who think I give a shit about their emotional state when using the internet" I, most often, look at those and go "Ah, pretty." and move on. But I have to imagine that somewhere out there are people who don't like it. Who don't want to see another Zen fen or fill in the blank cabal or other form of group in-joke that, to them, carries the implication that the people in the group think those not in the group actually care about whatever the in-joke is.

Moving over yet another step, there are people who have icons that refer to a piece of fanfic that isn't theirs. In other words they like the story so much that they have an icon for it, as opposed to the author posting the piece. Is this a concept we're comfortable with? Do we look at it as a natural extension of the wife/minion/other thing or do we look at it as a shameless encouragement of the egotistical mindset of the author? (And obviously that first part assumes that people were fine with the wife/minion/other thing since obviously that could be doing the exact same encouragement)

I have to admit I don't know what I think about icons like that. I haven't seen enough of them to form an opinion. I know the first time I saw it I went "Huh, okay, not what I was expecting" and that was about it. Possibly I'll get a better feel for this if I see more in action but admittedly I don't care enough to go all David Attenborough about it.

This reminds me, though, of another facet of the BNF/ego thing which is the concept of the BNF minions. Where's the line on the stereotypical mindless drones who flame anyone who dares sneeze incorrectly near the area of their BNF master and the people who are simply friends doing what friends do? Much like mailing lists I think this is a place where perception and intent can become very hazy.

Which isn't to say it doesn't happen. I've definitely sat back and watched as people swarmed to attack somebody for daring to argue with their BNF of choice, and I've also sat back and went "Eeesh" when I saw a BNF post about a conflict in her journal only to get dozens of replies back of "How dare that person speak wrongly to you! They should die!" which seemed a little harsh and lacking in irony for what had been a very minor slight like unto pointing out that there had been a spelling error in the BNF's fic.

And again it tied into that ego thing because it made me wonder why the BNF in question would even want responses like that. Lord knows if anybody did something like that in reply to me I'd find it creepy. Yeah, sure, I want my pats on the back when I'm unhappy about something but that's about comforting me, not tearing somebody down sight unseen because they dared make Misstress TBQ frown. People are allowed to piss me off. My nametag aside I'm not always God. If I'm wrong I want people to tell me - or at least do me the courtesy of finding out what happened and giving me an informed opinion.

But of course that's yet again a perception. I'm assuming the BNF in question wanted comments like that. For all I know she was squirming in her chair at home wishing like Hell people would stop saying that stuff but had no way of actually asking them to without, catch-22 alert, seeming like an egotistical jerk who couldn't even be bothered to accept the kind sympathy of her fans.

So what can we do? Is there something to do or is this just going to be a phenominon that sticks around and keeps reinventing itself like the slash debates and people who think it's original to bring an argument around to a comparison of Hitler?

I dunno. I just type here.

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thebratqueen: Captain Marvel (Default)
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