Writercon kerfuffle

[thedeadlyhook]

Um... you know, just out of curiosity. Was there some kind of "hey, post your Writercon report directly to the writercon LJ" update that I just missed? Because I only seem to remember one about posting your links to your con remembrances. Yet now there are TWO reports posted directly in the journal, because apparently, being a straight guy who attended the con and has feelings to air somehow rates as special. Excuse me, but... wtf? [ETA: the second post is actually very sweet, and a helpful antidote to the wankery original.]

I didn't touch the original post when I first saw it. The tone absolutely screamed attention-seeker - OMG, everyone look at meeeee - so I figured, best not to give him that attention. In hindsight, though, I'm glad a lot of other people did, since the posts I've seen since then, irfikos in particular, here and here, and so many others in the original thread, have been so to-the-point and thoughtful and well-considered that hell, yes, sometimes there IS a real reason to get into a kerfuffle, and keep it going.

Crying oppression when things don't go your way is a popular tactic nowdays - in politics, especially - but it's a crybaby's tactic, wahh, I didn't get what I want, it's not all about me. Why isn't it all about me? Why aren't you all looking at me, debating about me, taking my feelings into consideration? The unvoiced part of it is always the same too, why should I have to consider your feelings? What gives you the right to think any of this is about you? You're weird and I'm not.

Yes, that's worth kerfuffling about. Grrrrr.

Comments

[danceswithwords.livejournal.com]

*sigh* It does seem that by posting that in the con community, the person in question was seeking to maximize the number of people who would read about his alleged impression. I wonder if he got the kind of attention he was looking for.

I'm hanging out in the fringes of Stargate fandom, which is overwhelmingly slashy (at least the parts I've somehow fallen in with), and slash isn't something that interests me much. There is a huge difference between having tastes that are in the minority and feeling oppressed, and a lot of that has to do with whether or not you're inclined to see it as a battle with a right and a wrong side. Because when it's not a battle and you're not a victim, you can actually have interesting conversations with people who see the show differently than you do and discover that you all love the show and the characters and that that's a lot huger than the differences. But that would require acknowledgment that there's more than one way to see something, and that yours isn't the ultimate truth, and that's apparently beyond this guy.

[thedeadlyhook.livejournal.com]

Word. And I know what you mean on the Stargate front too - that long conversation I had with the Rodney/Sheppard 'shipper helped me to remember that while I don't really see it myself, to a lot of people that's the main reason for watching the show, so who's to say canon doesn't support it? If it didn't at least on some level, would so many people see it? Interpretation is a wonderful, malleable thing.

I do wonder about Mr. Kerfuffle, and whether or not he was being deliberately provacative. From the cursory evidence, I'd say yes - the demonstrative walking out at panels, the public post, the carefully cultivated "reasonable" tone. It feels like he was hoping for furious responses that he could point to and use as evidence that slashers are crazy and/or irrational, but that's so not what he got. In general, I've been amazed at how even-handed the responses have been for such an inflammatory topic.