silveradept | Fandom Snowflake 2018 #15: We Need To Talk.

In your own space, write a love letter to Fandom in general, to a particular fandom, to a trope, a relationship, a character, or to your flist/circle/followers. Share your love and squee as loud as you want to.

Okay, Fandom, we need to talk. I know things have been scary for you for a while, because there's so much going on that's new, and more than a few people are scared or dismissive of change. With good reason. Fandom has been the place where you find yourself, and also find that there are others who think and believe the same way you do. It's a network connecting the may disparate of places. It saves lives by giving hope and assistance to those who need it, and there are few things in life more purely happy than squee.

Relatively young (age-wise) fen, such as myself, look at what we've built with the assistance of the Internet and say how remarkable it is that we no longer have to communicate with ourselves through the letters pages of our magazines or at the single annual convention that is the place of pilgrimage for fans. We no longer have to know someone who receives our creates zines to share our stories outside our own circles (if we had the to start with). We have created a space for ourselves that is wider and more expansive than the ones originally envisioned, and we have brought our stories out in the real world and effected change with them. Fans and creators alike told stories of themselves and their characters, and in many places of the world, it's no longer a criminal act to act upon your love for another (so long as you're safe and consensual about it.)

We still have things to do, though. There are still a lot of things we had that made sense in the before that aren't as useful now. Being protective of your fandom because it made you unique, and because people would see you as weird and make fun of you makes sense when you're in an environment that will do that. Most of us, though, manage to get out of those environments and into situations where we don't have to hide any more. The more people are visibly fannish in their lives, the more acceptable it is to be fannish, and that includes being proud of your fanworks. (Discussing them in detail with the creators or their representatives may not be the wisest idea, though.) You can create your fanworks now, so any not go for it?

We also need an open-door policy for fandom. Lots of people come in to escape the things in their lives and to find companionship and fellows. There are plenty of us that still take the attitude that being part of fandom requires being gatekept and tested to see if your fandom is true enough to be worthy. Works great if you're delivering the One Ring to an active volcano, but it's a terrible idea for fandom. Anyone who wants in should be let in. Rest, sentinels that seek to guard their fandom against the outside, lest you find out that your creator is someone you would never let in to the fan club.

That open door policy is not, however, a "walk all over us" policy. I'm thrilled that we've started to take the idea of harassment seriously, with the implementation and enforcement of codes of conduct. The door being open means that we welcome people in easily, and it should also mean that we have people leave easily when they prove themselves bad actors. Preferably with an understanding of why what they did was wrong, but if we can't consistently get that out of politicians that are image-obsessed, the rest of us may have to deal with the possibility that someone else might not learn either. We need to start with the premise that stories are likely true and them investigate them to see if they can be proven. We might not get it right all the time, but we can certainly improve our percentages so that when people behave badly, they get punished appropriately the first time, instead of ascending to higher places.

We can do a better job with diversity, too, Fandom. Mostly in this case, it involves putting pressure on creators to be more diverse and respectful in their works and pushing back hard against a narrative that says people only want to watch and read and listen about straight white men saving everyone. There are more than a few tactics you can employ to bring this about, and those of you in greater positions of privilege can help a lot by being more active in helping. There's a lot to be had out here that's good and deserves recognition and support.

We also need to have a serious conversation about making sure that we're not doing the censor's job for them. Part of making a space safe for a new person, a young person, and a person with traumas is signposting things correctly. Use your content notes and ratings so that someone knows what they're getting in to before proceeding. Teach people that the back button exists, and that we operate on the principle of Your Kink Is Okay, It's Just Not My Kink in the space where works are legally allowed to exist. Think hard about whether advocating for the removal of something you don't like will rebound onto something (or someone) you do. (It almost always does.) Teach how to navigate the space so that you can respect others and demand you be respected.

We've accomplished a lot, Fandom. We can be proud of those things. We can use those things to ascend to even greater heights, and we can build structures along the way for others to follow us with, so they, too, can join the work-in-progress that is Fandom. I wouldn't be telling you this if I didn't think you could do it.

Live long, and prosper.