8FOLD/ACRA: Nonfiction # 5, "Justice for Julie Ann"

[Andrew Perron]

On 5/11/2015 6:35 PM, Tom Russell wrote:
> On Monday, May 11, 2015 at 12:01:24 AM UTC-4, Andrew Perron wrote:
>> On 5/7/2015 7:37 PM, Tom Russell wrote:
>>> On Thursday, May 7, 2015 at 6:57:40 PM UTC-4, Andrew Perron wrote:
>>>> On 5/5/2015 8:13 PM, Tom Russell wrote:
<snip>
>> > Really, it's a story that's very much and transparently about fandom,
>> > today-- about gamergate, about Val D'Orazio, about the Batman film critic
>> > death threats, etc., etc., sadly etc.
>>
>> Yeah, but... I guess my thing is, you've put it in such a public scope that it
>> loses the insular focus that fuels such things. It doesn't really *feel* like
>> a story that takes place in a fandom-y scope, I guess? To me, anyway.
>
>That's a fair point, I guess. I tried to start in the public space with the
 > opening, and then say, "but it's especially bad in fandom", i.e., we'll
 > look specifically at that, let's zoom in. And I probably should have
 > emphasized/foregrounded that more because it didn't come across, it didn't
 > communicate. Because while the disease exists in mainstream culture, in the
 > wider scope of things, these particular symptoms are largely exclusive to
 > internet culture and fandom. I mean, sexism exists and colors perceptions
 > in the mainstream media and in everyday life, but to some degree it's
 > coded-- it's dog whistles, it's tacitly instead of expressly endorsed-- not
 > threats of rape and dismemberment. This kind of harassment, the intensity
 > of it and the way it expresses itself, that's very much a fandom thing, and
 > for me, that's really what the story was about.
>
>That said, at the same time, I did try to tie it to the wider culture of
 > sexism and discrimination, especially the sort that targets women and
 > minorities acting in spheres that were hitherto exclusive to white males,
 > because I don't think the condition/disease itself is in any way limited to
 > geek culture.

Yeah, I dunno. Perhaps it's just...

I've seen a lot of stories where the fandom, or even just the culture, around 
people who work outside the entertainment industry are used as stand-ins for 
real-life fandoms of fictional works, and it never quite feels like those 
systems would work in the same ways. But that's not quite what's happened here 
- indeed, it's the opposite. Transplanting Gamergate and other similar systems 
of oppression into the systems of a larger sphere worked well - too well; it 
felt like something that existed within those systems, of conservative 
blogging and xenophobic paranoia, of political manipulation and cultural 
othering, divorcing itself from the big-fish-in-a-small-pond phenomenon that 
drives fan insularity.

Or so it felt to me.

>  Possibly I just tried to bite off more than I could chew, which seems to be
 > my modus operandi for the HCC. :-)

Better to experiment, to overreach and find out where the lines are so you can 
work on pushing them back! <3

> Thanks for the kind words and smart criticisms.

Aw, well certainly!

Andrew "NO .SIG MAN" "Juan" Perron, as below, so above