Expanded thoughts on the question of fandom, networks, and money

cesperanza talked about the unease that exists between fandom and money, and how much promotion and marketing is too much, or which ways are more likely to step over a line between gifts and tips into guilt-based marketing. The comments are the liveliest part of the discussion and worth reading. In addition to that, fairestcat took issue with the entire premise, pointing out that people support work with money because they find the work valuable, or they want to help a creator not be homeless or bankrupted, not because they're guilted into it or through a bait-and-switch. When another person on my list pointed out in a locked post that there were parallels to open source software and its ethos, the gears got turning. azurelunatic reminded me of Ana Mardoll's thought experiment about how much money would be enough to be comfortable, even if you never made a dime in your life past that point, and how the numbers shifted radically (by at least a factor of ten) depending on how much of those expenses people were thinking about would be covered by a government that could provide for comfortable needs on a universal basis.

Which also brings me back to the prediction I made about fandom on Day 14 of Snowflake. Fandom and money always have an uneasy relationship with each other, because some people in fandom (as in open-source development) can afford to give their labor away for free for the idea of making a richer, better fandom. Some people are doing fandom just for themselves, and they don't particularly care about any monetary compensation about it, because it's something they do to satisfy their own urges and itches. And some people can participate in fandom only by getting compensated for the work they do, because they don't have a social safety net underneath them that will take care of things like housing, food, and medical care. They can't give their labor away to anyone.

( As you might expect, this gets long. )

Ultimately, I can participate in fandom as a gift to fans, using spare time and resources that I have to craft narratives and then give them away, without expectation that my fic is going to be my gateway into a publishing contract or that I'm going to need three more subscribers to Patreon from this work. I have the privilege to do so.

I also want other people to be able to participate in this way, but I'm not going to tell someone who has to make their living from fandom that they have to stop and starve for my principles to feel satisfied. I don't get to use my privilege to dictate their lives. And frankly, I think the world of fandom is much poorer because of all the people who don't get to participate as much as they want, because they have to do other things for their survival.

Until things change structurally so that a person isn't forced to choose between what they love and what they need, people gotta do what they gotta do. If fandom requires a certain amount of privilege to participate, then only the privileged will be able to participate in fandom.

Fandom's history says it's not supposed to be a privileged-only space. Let's keep it that way.

December Days (2017) #41: The Effects Of Your Work Are Far-Ranging

I...mostly need to document this, because it's such a rarity in my profession.

One of the regulars came up to me today while I was out at the help desk and said

You probably don't remember this, but 10 or 11 years ago, when you were at the temporary location, my grandson had just finished reading everything he felt he could about World War Two and felt he was ready to progress on to the Cold War. You were the librarian at the desk and you [laughs slightly] treated him like an adult and he got his books.

He just graduated from [local college] with a degree in international relations and has delayed admission into Tufts University to get a Masters in foreign relations. He'll have to serve a year deployed in the National Guard first, but after that, he'll get into the program.

I told this regular that I did remember the encounter, because it really was as described - a child with good knowledge of the Second Great War and who was ready to move to the next part of the history of the United States. I did what librarians do - a reference interview, and I got books in his hands to help him get started, and I wished him well in his pursuits. Nothing there was out of the ordinary, or required anything more than professionalism.

The regular joked that he was serious about it, perhaps having expected he would grow out of his interest and take up something else. I said I was glad to hear the graduate was well and hoped, perhaps, that he would join the diplomatic corps.

"And save the world," the regular quipped.

"We can hope," I replied.

And then I was rather glad to have some time to process this, because it closes the loop. One of the stories of my career actually has an end, and on the timescale that I often suspect it takes for a librarian story to come all the way to an end.

There are several senses of scale in library school, and they'll talk about the differences between big libraries and small in terms of budgets and orientations and what sort of programs they can do, but there isn't necessarily any talk in school about how the small things snowball. For good and for ill.

I learned this year how small a margin can be and still get something done. And hopefully we'll all learn from that scare how to stop it from happening ever again.

This year, though, I finally have proof of how something you did in the very earliest parts of your career validated an interest and helped someone continue on the path they wanted to go.

Congratulations, and well done, self.