December Days 2018 #23: Why Anonymity?
Dec. 23rd, 2018 10:08 pm[Welcome back to December Days. This year, thanks to a suggestion from ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
alexseanchai, I'm writing about writing. Suggestions for topics are most definitely welcome! There's still a lot of space to cover.]
After everything is packaged up, pinch hits arrived, and the collection for an exchange opens up, there's usually an enforced period (most of the time, seven days) where the works are available for everyone to read, but the authors of those works are unrevealed. I suspect that if I go digging into the fan lore, I will find as many stories for the reasons why as I will find people telling them. (Fanlore, the project, mentions the anonymity part by not necessarily the reasons why in their article for a gift exchange.) The most common reason that I can think of for the presence of an anonymous period is something we talked about in an earlier post - the presence of the pseud of someone Big might skew the numbers particularly hard because of the popularity of the person, rather than the strength or otherwise of the story. I guess seven days is an easy time to remember, and theoretically gives someone enough time to walk their way through a collection and leave comments before they know who it is that's written a thing. Plus, the seven day period, at least on AO3, also means that a work doesn't show up in your collection of works, so it won't trigger any notifications to someone who might be subscribed to you as a writer, and that might make it easier to preserve the identity of the author, at least for that anonymous period, by preventing a fan with a subscription from blaring out to the Web at large that "zOMG [This Person] made a new work and it's a wonderful, great thing!" and drawing the crowds. Enough time for a recipient to read and enjoy to themselves, and anyone else who is watching the collection or has participated in the exchange so that they get a first crack at the works inside. I personally like that AO3, during the anonymous period, will still let you reply to any comments that you receive, but will obscure you as "Anonymous Creator," which will then revert to your pseud when the anonymous period is over, so that way people who might be shyer as themselves can participate in feedback and thanks for their work before anyone knows who the person is.
Of course, as a person who's not a Big Name Fan, and who doesn't know at all who any of the Big Name Fans are (because I'm basically not In Fandom enough to know and have read all the works, even for shows I like and write for), that gives me the advantage of not getting any more nervous than usual if someone comes across the radar who is a Big Name Fan or otherwise. (Plus, I like meta and discussion and worldbuild and those sorts of things, which is probably a holdover from the curatorial fandom interactions that I've been mostly involved in the past, rather than diving in headfirst into the transformative aspects to take a character or relationship and stretch it and give it a new suit and otherwise just play for the hell of it, canon be fragged if it's not useful in the pursuit of the idea.) I guess it gives me a sort of Beginner's Mind, in that I'm writing to satisfy myself and to produce something that's to the prompter's taste, and I don't actually know what I'm doing enough to worry about the reputation of the person I'm writing for. Even if it does mean that occasionally, I keep getting the same person to write for because we share certain fandoms and the algorithms decide to keep pairing us up. (That's a thing I should do some research on -- I'm guessing the sorting and matching algorithms have documentation associated with them, and that perhaps careful study of the documentation will let me look at how an exchange is shaping up and guess which of my offers I'm likely to match on. And possibly guess about which offers will land matches.)
I also wonder if the tradition of anonymity has to do with wider societal traditions around anonymity and publishing. Gifts that have the "Secret Santa" tradition, for example, where people are randomly assigned others and then have to figure out what they would enjoy and get them a gift(s) for the duration of the gifting period, without revealing themselves as the gifter. It's a bit easier in a fandom exchange, or in a prompt call, or otherwise, because a person is putting forth what they like and want up front to the person that will be writing them the gift. It occasionally happens that you do have to ask questions of your recipient, and that is usually facilitated through the moderators of the exchange, who will ask the real question in a series of plausible one, based on the information provided in the sign-up, so as not to tip off the recipient about what their gift might look like.
There's also the rich tradition of pseudonyms in publishing. Names that sound like women get gender-neutralized or masculinized for particular genres because there's a perception that the fanboys wouldn't read work by a woman. (Or, in some ways, neutralized or feminized for genres where the fanboys expect that the entire audience is women and they won't read anything that isn't by a woman.) Some authors adopt a pen name because they don't necessarily want confusion between one genre and another. So J.D. Robb appears to write various procedurals, while Nora Roberts continues to write romances, and that way the romance fans don't pick up an In Death book expecting it to be a romance, and the mystery fans don't get prejudicially dismissive because a romance writer is trying her hand at a different genre. It's easier to market that way, even if the person behind both of those series is one and the same. Stories about folkloric and fey creatures don't get mixed with the post-zombie apocalypse thrillers. Some creators are more open about their pen names than others are, and sometimes what was being written can also factor into the decision about whether or not that name gets known. Being published in Playboy, for example, might be a great thing for one author and a thing that brings the Moral Guardians down on another.
Fanfiction has its roots in anonymity, too. When we research the history of The Premise, that's what we see, an anonymizing of the idea itself, because saying openly "We think Jim Kirk and Spock might have a romantic relationship" would have consequences from the curatorial fans (and possibly the creators and editors of the magazines where that discussion would have taken place). I suspect more than a few of those stories, and the ones that followed, in print and on-line, have plenty of pseudonymous authors in their ranks, because it isn't safe to be queer, kinky, or both, in a lot of places, in a lot of times, and it isn't safe to write things that might offend your community's standards if they knew it was you. In the same way that certain people who are charged with the care and education of children find themselves, either by contract or otherwise, essentially bound to the idea that they're not allowed to be adults and do adult things in any place where children (or their parents) might observe them. Hell forbid that someone be able to separate their job from their personal life and not have the two bleed over in incredibly messy ways if there aren't precautions taken.
(That, by the way, is the only thing that stuck in my head about the otherwise forgettable movie Varsity Blues. The human maturation teacher at the high school of the main character is also apparently employed on evenings and weekends at the local strip club, where her on-stage burlesque and strip-tease act is of a naughty teacher. I couldn't suspend my belief on that, even as the high school student I was, because I cannot fathom any teacher working a strip club anywhere near the school she taught at, for the prime reason that her students might see her and how that would eventually filter up to the principal and the teacher would likely be fired under a "moral turpitude" clause or just by being run out by the conservative community's hypocritical call for her dismissal.)
I think it would be an interesting research project to discover the origins of widespread exchange anonymity, and the reasons why it has become such a staple of the exchange community that nobody blinks twice at the idea of having to wait a week (or longer) to find out who wrote them their best. fic. ever. If you know, or have insight, I'd love to hear it. Or anything else you might have to say about it. Anonymous comments are on, of course (as they usually are.)
alexseanchai, I'm writing about writing. Suggestions for topics are most definitely welcome! There's still a lot of space to cover.]After everything is packaged up, pinch hits arrived, and the collection for an exchange opens up, there's usually an enforced period (most of the time, seven days) where the works are available for everyone to read, but the authors of those works are unrevealed. I suspect that if I go digging into the fan lore, I will find as many stories for the reasons why as I will find people telling them. (Fanlore, the project, mentions the anonymity part by not necessarily the reasons why in their article for a gift exchange.) The most common reason that I can think of for the presence of an anonymous period is something we talked about in an earlier post - the presence of the pseud of someone Big might skew the numbers particularly hard because of the popularity of the person, rather than the strength or otherwise of the story. I guess seven days is an easy time to remember, and theoretically gives someone enough time to walk their way through a collection and leave comments before they know who it is that's written a thing. Plus, the seven day period, at least on AO3, also means that a work doesn't show up in your collection of works, so it won't trigger any notifications to someone who might be subscribed to you as a writer, and that might make it easier to preserve the identity of the author, at least for that anonymous period, by preventing a fan with a subscription from blaring out to the Web at large that "zOMG [This Person] made a new work and it's a wonderful, great thing!" and drawing the crowds. Enough time for a recipient to read and enjoy to themselves, and anyone else who is watching the collection or has participated in the exchange so that they get a first crack at the works inside. I personally like that AO3, during the anonymous period, will still let you reply to any comments that you receive, but will obscure you as "Anonymous Creator," which will then revert to your pseud when the anonymous period is over, so that way people who might be shyer as themselves can participate in feedback and thanks for their work before anyone knows who the person is.
Of course, as a person who's not a Big Name Fan, and who doesn't know at all who any of the Big Name Fans are (because I'm basically not In Fandom enough to know and have read all the works, even for shows I like and write for), that gives me the advantage of not getting any more nervous than usual if someone comes across the radar who is a Big Name Fan or otherwise. (Plus, I like meta and discussion and worldbuild and those sorts of things, which is probably a holdover from the curatorial fandom interactions that I've been mostly involved in the past, rather than diving in headfirst into the transformative aspects to take a character or relationship and stretch it and give it a new suit and otherwise just play for the hell of it, canon be fragged if it's not useful in the pursuit of the idea.) I guess it gives me a sort of Beginner's Mind, in that I'm writing to satisfy myself and to produce something that's to the prompter's taste, and I don't actually know what I'm doing enough to worry about the reputation of the person I'm writing for. Even if it does mean that occasionally, I keep getting the same person to write for because we share certain fandoms and the algorithms decide to keep pairing us up. (That's a thing I should do some research on -- I'm guessing the sorting and matching algorithms have documentation associated with them, and that perhaps careful study of the documentation will let me look at how an exchange is shaping up and guess which of my offers I'm likely to match on. And possibly guess about which offers will land matches.)
I also wonder if the tradition of anonymity has to do with wider societal traditions around anonymity and publishing. Gifts that have the "Secret Santa" tradition, for example, where people are randomly assigned others and then have to figure out what they would enjoy and get them a gift(s) for the duration of the gifting period, without revealing themselves as the gifter. It's a bit easier in a fandom exchange, or in a prompt call, or otherwise, because a person is putting forth what they like and want up front to the person that will be writing them the gift. It occasionally happens that you do have to ask questions of your recipient, and that is usually facilitated through the moderators of the exchange, who will ask the real question in a series of plausible one, based on the information provided in the sign-up, so as not to tip off the recipient about what their gift might look like.
There's also the rich tradition of pseudonyms in publishing. Names that sound like women get gender-neutralized or masculinized for particular genres because there's a perception that the fanboys wouldn't read work by a woman. (Or, in some ways, neutralized or feminized for genres where the fanboys expect that the entire audience is women and they won't read anything that isn't by a woman.) Some authors adopt a pen name because they don't necessarily want confusion between one genre and another. So J.D. Robb appears to write various procedurals, while Nora Roberts continues to write romances, and that way the romance fans don't pick up an In Death book expecting it to be a romance, and the mystery fans don't get prejudicially dismissive because a romance writer is trying her hand at a different genre. It's easier to market that way, even if the person behind both of those series is one and the same. Stories about folkloric and fey creatures don't get mixed with the post-zombie apocalypse thrillers. Some creators are more open about their pen names than others are, and sometimes what was being written can also factor into the decision about whether or not that name gets known. Being published in Playboy, for example, might be a great thing for one author and a thing that brings the Moral Guardians down on another.
Fanfiction has its roots in anonymity, too. When we research the history of The Premise, that's what we see, an anonymizing of the idea itself, because saying openly "We think Jim Kirk and Spock might have a romantic relationship" would have consequences from the curatorial fans (and possibly the creators and editors of the magazines where that discussion would have taken place). I suspect more than a few of those stories, and the ones that followed, in print and on-line, have plenty of pseudonymous authors in their ranks, because it isn't safe to be queer, kinky, or both, in a lot of places, in a lot of times, and it isn't safe to write things that might offend your community's standards if they knew it was you. In the same way that certain people who are charged with the care and education of children find themselves, either by contract or otherwise, essentially bound to the idea that they're not allowed to be adults and do adult things in any place where children (or their parents) might observe them. Hell forbid that someone be able to separate their job from their personal life and not have the two bleed over in incredibly messy ways if there aren't precautions taken.
(That, by the way, is the only thing that stuck in my head about the otherwise forgettable movie Varsity Blues. The human maturation teacher at the high school of the main character is also apparently employed on evenings and weekends at the local strip club, where her on-stage burlesque and strip-tease act is of a naughty teacher. I couldn't suspend my belief on that, even as the high school student I was, because I cannot fathom any teacher working a strip club anywhere near the school she taught at, for the prime reason that her students might see her and how that would eventually filter up to the principal and the teacher would likely be fired under a "moral turpitude" clause or just by being run out by the conservative community's hypocritical call for her dismissal.)
I think it would be an interesting research project to discover the origins of widespread exchange anonymity, and the reasons why it has become such a staple of the exchange community that nobody blinks twice at the idea of having to wait a week (or longer) to find out who wrote them their best. fic. ever. If you know, or have insight, I'd love to hear it. Or anything else you might have to say about it. Anonymous comments are on, of course (as they usually are.)
