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My Thoughts on Yaoi/the OTW
Firstly, I have to admit that yes, I did volunteer for the OTW. My reason for doing so was neither my belief that what they do is the best thing that ever happened to fandom, but rather my realisation that it was time to stop whining and do something. I have been in online fandom for almost five years now. But really, I drew fanart long before that. It all started when I googled for news on the fifth Harry Potter book and I ended up reading a fic about Harry and Draco having sex. I was appalled at first. But still, I could not wait for the next book, and so I looked for other, less slashy stories. I was hooked, and I stayed. During these five years, I witnessed a few skirmishes with TPTB, and neither of them ended in favour of the fannish side. The fans whined about it and migrated elsewhere. This flexibility is one of the things I admire fandom for, but my admiration never stopped me from wishing there would be no more migration, that we would all live happily ever after in our own perfect place. And that, in essence, is what the OTW offers. That does not mean that I agree with all their ideas, but I realised that I did not improve things by quietly whining in my own little corner of fandom, but that I have to work with them to make sure they take the direction I want them to. I have seen a lot of people criticising them, but only a few of them made an effort to talk to them.
“But I don’t want to get noticed by TPTB!”
I think we all agree on that one. But the problem is that they notice us anyway. I stumbled upon fandom by using google. Has anyone of you ever tried to google their own name? I have, and it is really amazing what you find that way. I found out that someone had copied one of my poems to a Lord of the Rings forum, for example. What do you think authors will find when they google the titles of their books? I suppose the results might shock some of them. And then they’re going to pull an Anne Rice on us. That’s not some remote possibility, it happened already, and it will happen again, sooner or later.
TPTB are also trying to make money off of us. There are authorized fanfics for TV shows, not to forget the rest of the merchandize. They know about us, and I think they are very well aware of what exactly we are doing. They just don’t care in most cases, as long as we spend money on whatever they are throwing at us. I think especially novels for TV shows are a way for TPTB to invade our territory. If you’ve ever read one of these, you will notice that they are really nothing but fanfics. Some fanauthors even write better than the ones who get paid for it.
So, in essence, we’re not as invisible as we think. We might be a subculture, but the more of us there are, the harder it gets to go by unnoticed. When I started reading fanfic five years ago, the site I frequented had about two to four pages worth of updated fic every day. The last time I looked it was about ten to fifteen. A friend of mine said that we are probably about to become mainstream, whether we want to or not.
This doesn’t mean you have to think that the OTW is the best way to deal with what’s coming, but I think denial won’t help either.
“I don’t like the term primarily female culture!”
Well, neither do I, but that’s because my professors love gender studies, and this is simply an academic term, as far as I’m concerned. I suppose a lot of people who have no experience whatsoever with this particular field of studies won’t understand it the same way I do. Maybe my interpretation is wrong (I did not pay as much attention to my professors as I should have). That’s not even the point, in my opinion, because the website is not aimed at fans only. They try to speak to non-fans as well, people who stumbled upon fanworks and react as I did when I read that Harry Potter fic I mentioned in the beginning. Imagine they were speaking fanspeak. Nobody would take them seriously. And don’t sound sentences like “The OTW represents a practice of transformative fanwork historically rooted in a primarily female culture” good?
“The OTW does not speak for the whole of fandom!”
I don’t think they want to, actually. The way I understand it, they just want to do something that will be of benefit to the whole of fandom. They are not speaking for anyone but themselves. That’s why their definition of what will be beneficial to the common fan is a different one than that of the common fan. Most of us probably don’t worry in the slightest about the legality of what they’re doing (I know I didn’t for a very long time). They just want to have fun. And for these fans, most of what the OTW is doing is of no consequence. Except for the archive and the legal assistance, should they be interested.
The OTW is not something that will change the very being of fandom. Fandom is changing itself all the time, and the OTW is a part of fandom that is changing itself at the moment. That does not mean that it has any effect on those who don’t want to have anything to do with it.
“Why do we need another archive/wiki or an academic journal?”
Do we? I think you should not ask if “we” need another archive, but rather if “you” need one. For me, the answer is yes, because I like archives. Presently, I use four different archives for both my fanfics and my original stories, and all of them lack in some point:
Animexx.de: Animexx has a great system when it comes to archiving. You can organise fic-writing competitions and all that, but it also has very strict rules (no essays, for example) and is predominantly German. It also started out as an anime fan club, and is thus focussed on this aspect of fandom.
Fanfiktion.de: I am not too fond of the organising structure, and they are a lot like ff.net, but they are at least quite tolerant when it comes to NC-17 slash. It’s only for German stories as well.
Fanfiction.net and fictionpress.com: Not as good at organising as Animexx, strict rules, and even though they allow you to post German stories, the navigation is in English which keeps a lot of the fans away.
Now I hope that the OTW archive will be a lot like Animexx (which is for fanart and dōjinshi as well, and which is the website of an association), but with less focus on anime fandoms and better rules. I have also been told by someone in the OTW that they want to make it more international than ff.net, which is what I volunteered for.
I don’t think that they should make a new wiki, however. I think it would be better if they worked with the current one and tried to improve it. I know a lot of people don’t know that Fanhistory.com even exists and that it has some problems with its objectivity, but I think it has a lot of potential.
The academic journal interests me, but only as a fan of meta. I suppose it’s more an acafan thing, but I think it might help fan culture to move beyond the Trekkie image. I am also very sick of being told by journalists that I am either a teen with nothing better to do or a bored housewife. I think being active in fandom is a thing to be proud of and nothing that you should hide from the rest of the world, but it’s horribly annoying that people still ask you why you’re wasting your time on it when you could do something original instead. I write more original fiction than fanfics, but the few fanfics I wrote mean a lot to me.
Academic study might improve the image of “the fan”, and even if not, I think it would make an interesting read.
I know that I did not touch upon a lot of the criticism I read, but these are the most common points, I think. I apologise for the sheer length of my ramblings and the mistakes I likely made.
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doro_chan
“But I don’t want to get noticed by TPTB!”
I think we all agree on that one. But the problem is that they notice us anyway. I stumbled upon fandom by using google. Has anyone of you ever tried to google their own name? I have, and it is really amazing what you find that way. I found out that someone had copied one of my poems to a Lord of the Rings forum, for example. What do you think authors will find when they google the titles of their books? I suppose the results might shock some of them. And then they’re going to pull an Anne Rice on us. That’s not some remote possibility, it happened already, and it will happen again, sooner or later.
TPTB are also trying to make money off of us. There are authorized fanfics for TV shows, not to forget the rest of the merchandize. They know about us, and I think they are very well aware of what exactly we are doing. They just don’t care in most cases, as long as we spend money on whatever they are throwing at us. I think especially novels for TV shows are a way for TPTB to invade our territory. If you’ve ever read one of these, you will notice that they are really nothing but fanfics. Some fanauthors even write better than the ones who get paid for it.
So, in essence, we’re not as invisible as we think. We might be a subculture, but the more of us there are, the harder it gets to go by unnoticed. When I started reading fanfic five years ago, the site I frequented had about two to four pages worth of updated fic every day. The last time I looked it was about ten to fifteen. A friend of mine said that we are probably about to become mainstream, whether we want to or not.
This doesn’t mean you have to think that the OTW is the best way to deal with what’s coming, but I think denial won’t help either.
“I don’t like the term primarily female culture!”
Well, neither do I, but that’s because my professors love gender studies, and this is simply an academic term, as far as I’m concerned. I suppose a lot of people who have no experience whatsoever with this particular field of studies won’t understand it the same way I do. Maybe my interpretation is wrong (I did not pay as much attention to my professors as I should have). That’s not even the point, in my opinion, because the website is not aimed at fans only. They try to speak to non-fans as well, people who stumbled upon fanworks and react as I did when I read that Harry Potter fic I mentioned in the beginning. Imagine they were speaking fanspeak. Nobody would take them seriously. And don’t sound sentences like “The OTW represents a practice of transformative fanwork historically rooted in a primarily female culture” good?
“The OTW does not speak for the whole of fandom!”
I don’t think they want to, actually. The way I understand it, they just want to do something that will be of benefit to the whole of fandom. They are not speaking for anyone but themselves. That’s why their definition of what will be beneficial to the common fan is a different one than that of the common fan. Most of us probably don’t worry in the slightest about the legality of what they’re doing (I know I didn’t for a very long time). They just want to have fun. And for these fans, most of what the OTW is doing is of no consequence. Except for the archive and the legal assistance, should they be interested.
The OTW is not something that will change the very being of fandom. Fandom is changing itself all the time, and the OTW is a part of fandom that is changing itself at the moment. That does not mean that it has any effect on those who don’t want to have anything to do with it.
“Why do we need another archive/wiki or an academic journal?”
Do we? I think you should not ask if “we” need another archive, but rather if “you” need one. For me, the answer is yes, because I like archives. Presently, I use four different archives for both my fanfics and my original stories, and all of them lack in some point:
Animexx.de: Animexx has a great system when it comes to archiving. You can organise fic-writing competitions and all that, but it also has very strict rules (no essays, for example) and is predominantly German. It also started out as an anime fan club, and is thus focussed on this aspect of fandom.
Fanfiktion.de: I am not too fond of the organising structure, and they are a lot like ff.net, but they are at least quite tolerant when it comes to NC-17 slash. It’s only for German stories as well.
Fanfiction.net and fictionpress.com: Not as good at organising as Animexx, strict rules, and even though they allow you to post German stories, the navigation is in English which keeps a lot of the fans away.
Now I hope that the OTW archive will be a lot like Animexx (which is for fanart and dōjinshi as well, and which is the website of an association), but with less focus on anime fandoms and better rules. I have also been told by someone in the OTW that they want to make it more international than ff.net, which is what I volunteered for.
I don’t think that they should make a new wiki, however. I think it would be better if they worked with the current one and tried to improve it. I know a lot of people don’t know that Fanhistory.com even exists and that it has some problems with its objectivity, but I think it has a lot of potential.
The academic journal interests me, but only as a fan of meta. I suppose it’s more an acafan thing, but I think it might help fan culture to move beyond the Trekkie image. I am also very sick of being told by journalists that I am either a teen with nothing better to do or a bored housewife. I think being active in fandom is a thing to be proud of and nothing that you should hide from the rest of the world, but it’s horribly annoying that people still ask you why you’re wasting your time on it when you could do something original instead. I write more original fiction than fanfics, but the few fanfics I wrote mean a lot to me.
Academic study might improve the image of “the fan”, and even if not, I think it would make an interesting read.
I know that I did not touch upon a lot of the criticism I read, but these are the most common points, I think. I apologise for the sheer length of my ramblings and the mistakes I likely made.
doro_chan
no subject
At the moment, both sides seem to be stuck in a situation where nobody's talking to anyone, which is sad, because some of the criticism is well founded. It just gets lost between all the animosity.