[W]hy do people who are heavily invested in low prestige taste communities, WHICH I ALSO AM, so often feel a thing I used to feel and no longer feel… Maybe I’m crap if my taste is crap, how can I make a recommendation? What’s wrong with me that I love this low prestige work so much?…
“It’s not just fanfic and it’s not just boyband fan communities that have this. The sentimental novel had this. The novel itself in the early 18th century, just prose fiction about realistic people in general, had this. Several different kinds of music communities had this. I suspect that certain kinds of artmaking right now where the art is not in English, where it’s connected to an immigrant community, have this, although I don’t know because almost all my art consumption is Anglophone. And writing that we would now call porn, from the 60s and 70s, Samuel Delany’s good about this and he wrote some of this, had this a lot.
“The common thread here is that these were genres and kinds of writing or kinds of music that were sexually explicit, or addressed to a subordinated social group and that social group’s concern, or both. So identifying yourself and trying to make public your taste in any of these things including early 18th century novels or gay porn in the early 70s was saying, “I’m a member of this out-group and its concerns are my concerns and that’s why I care about this genre,” or it was saying “I really wanna talk about sexy things in public.” And so if explaining your taste and describing your aesthetic criteria requires you to do either of those things, then you’re gonna say “maybe I shouldn’t do this, maybe it reflects badly on me if I do this.”
“… the answer to that is if you really love something and it means a lot to you and you have the kind of personal security where you’re not gonna be fired or kicked off your insurance or kicked out of your house for explaining, or damage people you’re close to, by explaining why you like it, fucking go for it!
“… it’s important that someone do this. Because it’s important that works of art that people have labored over, that have given so much pleasure and emotional support to people, it’s important that those works of art be acknowledged as works of art and it’s important that somebody fucking do this.

Stephanie Burt in Fansplaining episode 67
(via queersintherain)

EVERYONE SHOULD GO LISTEN TO FANSPLAINING, and especially this episode, which is part one of their interview with Harvard poetry professor and comics fangirl Stephanie Burt. This is an abridged part of the last section that literally made me cry on my walk because it was the best explanation for why I have fandom/fic shame that I’ve ever heard. @fansplaining, thank you so much for for all you guys do. (And thanks to Stephanie Burt for her amazing words!)

[W]hy do people who are heavily invested in low prestige taste communities, WHICH I ALSO AM, so often feel a thing I used to feel and no longer feel… Maybe I’m crap if my taste is crap, how can I make a recommendation? What’s wrong with me that I love this low prestige work so much?…
“It’s not just fanfic and it’s not just boyband fan communities that have this. The sentimental novel had this. The novel itself in the early 18th century, just prose fiction about realistic people in general, had this. Several different kinds of music communities had this. I suspect that certain kinds of artmaking right now where the art is not in English, where it’s connected to an immigrant community, have this, although I don’t know because almost all my art consumption is Anglophone. And writing that we would now call porn, from the 60s and 70s, Samuel Delany’s good about this and he wrote some of this, had this a lot.
“The common thread here is that these were genres and kinds of writing or kinds of music that were sexually explicit, or addressed to a subordinated social group and that social group’s concern, or both. So identifying yourself and trying to make public your taste in any of these things including early 18th century novels or gay porn in the early 70s was saying, “I’m a member of this out-group and its concerns are my concerns and that’s why I care about this genre,” or it was saying “I really wanna talk about sexy things in public.” And so if explaining your taste and describing your aesthetic criteria requires you to do either of those things, then you’re gonna say “maybe I shouldn’t do this, maybe it reflects badly on me if I do this.”
“… the answer to that is if you really love something and it means a lot to you and you have the kind of personal security where you’re not gonna be fired or kicked off your insurance or kicked out of your house for explaining, or damage people you’re close to, by explaining why you like it, fucking go for it!
“… it’s important that someone do this. Because it’s important that works of art that people have labored over, that have given so much pleasure and emotional support to people, it’s important that those works of art be acknowledged as works of art and it’s important that somebody fucking do this.

Stephanie Burt in Fansplaining episode 67

On queer friendship, fandom, and negative capability

havingbeenbreathedout:

For a long time now, I’ve been feeling increasingly alienated by a lot of the ways in which (the shipping side of) fandom, relationship categories, and the push for queer visibility intersect. I haven’t known how to talk about it, because it seems like whichever way I turn I’m likely to step on toes; also it intersects with my own life in ways that are pretty personal. But my compulsion to get it down in words isn’t decreasing, so here goes.

The narrative tension between “sexually/romantically involved” and “something else” is the fuel that powers the shipping side of fandom. And while “something else,” in this context, can sometimes be enmity or competition or a professional relationship, a significant percentage of the time it’s close friendship, or one of the above in combination with close friendship. Inherent in the construction “sex/romance versus something else” is a bright line distinguishing one from the other: a dichotomy analogous, in ways, to male-typical Christian conversion narratives from Augustine on: I (we) was (were) something inferior (friends, heathens); then there was an event (a kiss backed with swelling music; a welcoming of Christianity into one’s heart), and I/we transmogrified into something fundamentally different—something more intense, something more meaningful, something intrinsically better and, more basically, something qualitatively distinct. Since close friendship is often the “something else” positioned on the starting side of a pair’s personal secular conversion narrative, it gets trivialized, shunted aside, cast as a pale imitation of the requited sex-romance bundle to come. This is disparaging to those incredibly precious and unique relationships that exist squarely in friend territory and also, incidentally, pretty simplistic in terms of equating sex with romance—all of which is bad enough. But more and more I feel incredibly alienated by the entire bright-line friend-versus-sex/romance construction at all, and everything it implies about the clarity and impermeability of boundaries between those categories. Like Teresa of Avila (likely the only time I will ever compare myself to her) I object to the presentation of a one-way conversion narrative. And I object to the idea of a substantive, alchemical transformation between sinner/friend and saint/lover.

Of course, discourse around this stuff gets even more complicated when queerness enters the picture, because our cultural master narrative has a long history of using close same-sex friendship as a blind to deny queer sexual desire and romance.

Keep reading

cancerously:

msilverstar:

laylainalaska:

niibeth:

chlmera:

cancerously:

I feel like with the new ~fandom drama~ or whatever going around, I should re-introduce my favorite theory of fandom, which I call the 1% Theory.

Basically, the 1% Theory dictates that in every fandom, on average, 1% of the fans will be a pure, unsalvageable tire fire. We’re talking the people who do physical harm over their fandom, who start riots, cannot be talked down. The sort of things public news stories are made of. We’re not talking necessarily bad fans here- we’re talking people who take this thing so seriously they are willing to start a goddamn fist fight over nothing. The worst of the worst.

The reason I bring this up is because the 1% Theory ties into an important visual of fandom knowledge- that bigger fandoms are always perceived as “worse”, and at a certain point, a fandom always gets big enough to “go bad”. Let me explain.

Say you have a small fandom, like 500 people- the 1% Theory says that out of those 500, only 5 of them will be absolute nutjobs. This is incredibly manageable- it’s five people. The fandom and world at large can easily shut them out, block them, ignore their ramblings. The fandom is a “nice place”.

Now say you have a medium sized fandom- say 100,000 people. Suddenly, the 1% Theory ups your level of calamity to a whopping 1000 people. That’s a lot. That’s a lot for anyone to manage. It is, by nature of fandom, impossible to “manage” because no one owns fan spaces. People start to get nervous. There’s still so much good, but oof, 1000 people.

Now say you have a truly massive fandom- I use Homestuck here because I know the figures. At it’s peak, Homestuck had approximately FIVE MILLION active fans around the globe.

By the 1% Theory, that’s 50,000 people. Fifty THOUSAND starting riots, blackmailing creators, contributing to the worst of the worst of things.

There’s a couple of important points to take away here, in my opinion.

1) The 1% will always be the loudest, because people are always looking for new drama to follow.

2) Ultimately, it is 1%. It is only 1%. I can’t promise the other 99% are perfect, loving angels, but the “terrible fandom” is still only 1% complete utter garbage.

3) No fandom should ever be judged by their 1%. Big fandoms always look worse, small fandoms always look better. It’s not a good metric.

So remember, if you’re ever feeling disheartened by your fandom’s activity- it’s just 1%, people. Do your part not to be a part of it.

this is great!

It also complies with the “killer theory”. I don’t remember exact names, but people in online games are generally divided into four groups:

– explorers research game opportunities, they don’t mind playing alone, usually don’t hurt others, but sometimes they can exploit game weaknesses

– achievers play to win, to gain points, popularity. They need both explorers who know all perks, and socializers – as their followers and support

– socializers – they play because their friends are all here, they like to be together, they are usually most of the players, they can be easily led astray

– killers – for some reasons they come to hurt others, be it hurtful remarks in the chats or disturbing behavior

A tiny amount of killers is manageable and even profitable. (All four types are important). Killers raise stakes for the achievers, give socializers something to talk about in their groups and give explorers incentives to invent something new.

Angered explorers are the top predators here – but they must be seriously offended, and since they play on the outskirts of the game, killers rarely fight them. Killers usually go for the weakest (socializers) or most noticeable (achievers).

But if the game, by its design, somehow attracts to much killers, who scare socializers, leave achievers without their rewards and – by choking the environment – make it boring for the explorers (what I gonna explore here? ten kinds of dick-related-nicknames? Pff!) – they effectively kill the game.

This is awesome. In fandom terms, I think whether a fandom tends to be, in general, a pretty decent place to be with a small tire fire here or there, or one big flaming dumpster fire, probably has a lot to do with who the 1% in that fandom are. If you’re unlucky enough to be in a fandom where a couple of the tire-fire people are the ones who run the exchanges, or the most influential shippers of your particular small pairing, or the big BNF, you are screwed. Even though the vast majority of the fandom undoubtedly still consists of sane and decent people, it’s going to be really hard to avoid the 1%, and they’ll actively drive people out.

On the other hand, some of my best times in fandom have been in calm, sane corners of fandoms that I knew had raging dumpster fires going elsewhere, but I never had to deal with them because my part of the fandom was quite nice.

Large fandoms are a mixed blessing that way … more and bigger tire fires (and more visible to outsiders), but also, with more people and more ships, it’s easier to find cozy little pockets of sanity in which to nest.

This is a great bit of meta! I liked it so much, I put it on fanlore: Fandoms Have 1% Toxic Fans Theory

oh man, this got so many notes that I missed this- thanks my dude!! I feel honored to have made it onto Fanlore, haha.

The thing about reading fanfic (and original slash fic) is that you get used to that particular writing/reading culture after a while. You get used to the frank discussions of sexuality and kink, the close attention to diversity and social justice issues in the text, the unrestrained creativity when it comes to plot. The most amazing, creative, engaging stories I’ve ever read have almost all been fanfiction, and I think part of that is because there’s no limitations placed on the authors. They’re writing purely out of joy and love for the world and its characters, with no concerns about selling the finished product. The only limit is their imagination.

Next to that, most mainstream fiction starts tasting like Wonder Bread, you know?

(via ckingsbridge)

I have the hardest time reading published fiction now – even that which I’ve loved in the past. It feels so flat.

(via lielabell)

I don’t 100% agree about mainstream fiction, but I really like the bit about the totally different culture in fic spaces! There are such different themes explored and talked about. Super interesting to think about.

Meta Monday

salt-of-the-ao3:

fangirlunderground:

Fandom is a little messy. Emotions are high, and so is anonymity; a combination that can go very wrong (see Antis). But it’s a new year, and we can all resolve to be a little better to ourselves, and each other, especially in fandom spaces that provide refuge to so many.

Fandom positivity this week, with meta recs selected by @fangirlangela.

Fandom

Criticizing Fandom is Criticizing Women by @buckyballbearing (original removed) et al, I see a lot of posts going around talking about the need to be critical of fanfic, and how we gotta watch out for the messages we’re sending. Well, here’s one thing I’m gonna need us to be critical about: Every statistic I’ve ever seen says fanfic authors are heavily female (or nb).

Fandom Etiquette by @memorizingthedigitsofpi, I’ve been around for a really long time in various fandoms, and no one ever writes this stuff down. I’ll start. Please add to the list. We can’t expect people to follow “rules” they don’t know exist.

Golden Rules for Fanfiction Readers by @randomishnickname, If the fic already has a thousand comments, comment still. Your comment will still matter and delight the author.

Hey, everyone! Today, we’re going to be talking about feeling shame and guilt in fandom by @razielim, No, actually, you don’t have to hide liking certain ships from your friends. You can if you want, but that feeling of guilt and shame that you feel when someone mocks something you like, or worse, calls it problematic, isn’t something that you have to feel. You don’t have to break things off with your current friends, but please know that you CAN find friends that won’t judge you for liking things they don’t.

On Fanfiction by @shadesofmauve, et al, I was cruising through the net, following the cold trail of one of the periodic “Is or is not Fanfic the Ultimate Literary Evil?” arguments that crop up regularly, and I’m now bursting to make a point that I never see made by fic defenders. We’re all familiar with the normal defenses of fic: it’s done out of love, it’s training, it’s for fun. Those are all good and valid defenses! But they miss something.

PSA by @undadasea, I love every fanfiction author on earth !!! Thank you so much for using your own time to provide us with a free(!) story to read that is 10x better than every book I have read put in one!

What I love is your unique perspective… by @cosleia (original removed), I love ideas, and story tropes, and headcanons. But what I really love is the fanworks that explore these things. The idea, the trope, the headcanon…those alone don’t give the work value, for me. What I love is your unique perspective.

Why Commenting on FanFiction is Important by @boothewriter, Alright kids, Boo here with a hopefully non-arrogant PSA. I’m a writer of FanFiction because I like it and it’s my preferred genre (also a great way to receive feedback on writing that I can use on originals, bref). But like with most artistic work posted online, I have very little feedback.

Tips for Writing Comments by @lvtvr, okay just got done typing up a Long Ass Comment for a fic that i love and bc writers Live™ for comments but a lot of ppl seem to find it difficult/scary to write them, here are some tips from me, who has been on both sides of the fence.

The Year of Loving Things Again by elizabethminkel of @fansplaining, I’ll own up to occasional doubts about fandom and its compatibility with adulthood. For me, it’s a mix: sometimes I wonder whether I’m enjoying the right stuff, and sometimes I wonder if I’m enjoying stuff the right way. It’s always easier to play it cool rather than expose your depth of feeling—and it takes a certain amount of confidence to go on loving the thing anyway. Fandom is full of inherently confident people, even if they don’t realize it.

You don’t need to justify your love of something by @boyonetta, “You can criticize something you love!” Yeah, and you can also get tired of criticizing something you love. You can get completely fed up with it and decide, “You know what? Flaws aside, I love this thing, and I don’t have to waste hours of my life admitting its flaws to strangers on the Internet in order to somehow justify my love of it.”

Great compilation, thank you for this!

(also, followers, go read that article, “The Year of Loving Things Again” – it’s wonderfully written and deeply hopeful)

(@transformativeworks relevant to your interests)

the working title of this was “censor this, bitches“ which I decided was maybe was a little undiplomatic so I decided to give it this massive passive-aggressive title instead

fizzygins:

yeah, yeah I know I already reblogged “autobiography” earlier today which is basically about a thousand times more exactly what I want to say than any essay could possibly be BUT then I went and actually read what people are arguing here and you know what

SOOOOOOOO

There are two things that are being collapsed in this argument that we really, really cannot afford to collapse. That is:

For AO3 to be a sustainable project long-term, there needs to be a comprehensive policy in place designed to prevent its users from harassment and abuse; and

Some content that people would like to host on AO3 is, to some people, vile or offensive.

Both of these things are true. However, it does not follow from (1) that we need to regulate or restrict the content of the works hosted on the Archive to ensure the content referred to in (2) doesn’t make it onto the Archive. People seem to be taking it for granted that (1) means banning all that stuff in (2), and that’s wrong.

(cw for high-level references to the existence of rape, underage sex, and anti-Semitism; as well as one marginally more specific reference to kinky sex)

Keep reading

“Fake news” – fandom edition

out-there-on-the-maroon:

shinelikethunder:

bassfanimation:

dendritic-trees:

buckyballbearing:

In 2k17, a lot of us have pledged to be more cautious about ‘fake news’ posts on Facebook

I propose we extend that concern to fandom

There’s a very low bar on this site (or any site) for people to post whatever tf they want, and a very high incentive to post fake receipts to win arguments

(Or at the least, misleading “receipts” such as “Artist XYZ is a bad person” because they drew a picture of bad things happening to completely fictional characters)

So this year, if you see a callout post:

Look for signs of bias. I have the sneaking suspicion that “XYZ-is-bad.tumblr.com” is not an objective source.

Be wary of unsourced accusations. “Person A is a homophobe!” is a statement, not evidence. Look for original sources. Did Person A post “I hate gay people” on their blog? Or did they draw fanart of an unpopular het pairing?

Look for context. Check out Person A’s blog to see if you have the whole picture. Did Person A pick a fight out of nowhere, or was that viral post made in response to an anon harassing them?

Ask “what real person was hurt”. Writing a fanfic is not the same as committing a crime in real life. If Person B claims that Person A is a real-life “abuser” because they shipped two (100% fictional!) characters, Person B is out of line.

Consider ulterior motives. Did Person A recently open a Patreon and receive a slew of hateful messages about ‘selling out’? Did Person B have an argument about characterization with their co-author and then suddenly “reveal” a list of unsourced accusations? Who stands to gain if someone else is driven out of fandom by angry anons?

Long story short, I don’t believe everyone in fandom is evil – nor that every accusation is unfounded. I do believe that unfortunately, in this modern ‘post-truth’ world, we are all going to have to get much better at fact checking and source validity…both in fandom and in real life.

I love this.

One little thing I find helps with this is to remember:

A thing that makes you feel bad, is not necessarily a thing that is bad.

So, you know, people shipping your NOTP, or having headcanons that contradict yours or writing fic on topics that make you frightened or uncomfortable is actually upsetting. And you can totally be upset about it.

But it doesn’t actually follow, necessarily, that the person upsetting you, is actually doing something wrong. They might be. Its possible. But its more likely you need to add some tags to your blacklist and put it from your mind.

Bless this post forever and ever Amen.

I think I said it the first time this post went around, but I just want to repeat it:

The very first thing to ask yourself when assessing a callout post, IMO, is “what are readers supposed to do with this information?”

If the answer is “go give this asshole a piece of your mind” or “unfollow/block this person, tell all your friends to do the same, and send ‘helpful’ anon messages to anyone who hasn’t gotten the shunning memo yet,” I don’t give a fuck how solid the proof is, you’re being enlisted as a foot soldier in someone else’s grudge wank.

If the answer is “be cautious about trusting this person with your money, personal details, or intimate friendship” or “think twice before giving the benefit of the doubt to any accusations this person makes about others,” it’s time to start looking at whether the receipts hold up. It doesn’t automatically make it credible–in the second case, especially, you’ll have to evaluate accusations and counter-accusations on the merits, because pre-emptively smearing the whistleblower is a time-honored technique of assholes everywhere. But at least the thing you are being asked to do is a valid purpose of the “callout post” format.

FWIW, I think most callout posts–as in, standalone posts addressed to the community at large and meant to discredit the target, as opposed to something said in the course of an argument/discussion or addressed to the target themselves–are grudgewanky bullshit. If the members of Person X’s newest fandom don’t know they’re an asshole with unsavory opinions, believe me, 99 times out of 100 it will become obvious soon enough. But, since it’s impossible to build a community whose trust can never be abused, there are situations where announcements meant to discredit someone in the eyes of the community are warranted. Namely, when someone is abusing fandom’s trust in them to defraud/control/destroy other people, especially if the trust was gained under false pretenses.

Fandom’s not immune to scam artists, charismatic abusers nurturing cults of personality, or assholes who use strings of false identities to fly under the radar long enough to hurt people before their reputation catches up to them. The purpose of a legit callout post should be to build a case for revoking the community’s presumption of trust, thus removing what allows such people to operate. The offenders still get to exist, chat with their friends, make art, write fic, bang out entertaining shitposts that rack up 50,000 notes, whatever–the point isn’t to stop them from doing that. It’s to warn everyone else not to buy them stuff based on a sob story, register for their “convention,” get enamored of their oh-so-true badass exploits, or uncritically believe the smack they talk about people who’ve gotten on their bad side. In the less noxious cases where someone has simply “earned” a reputation as an authority which they’ve been using to shut down others’ opinions, and it turns out their reputation is based on total bullshit, the goal of a legit callout should be to take the argument-from-authority crutch away from them and make them back up their points like the rest of us peons. It’s not that they can’t be right, or that the former scam artist will never deliver on something they accepted money for. It’s that they should have to to disprove a presumption of shenanigans instead of being taken at their word.

Callout posts began to warn newcomers to fandoms about known abusers and predators. Someone shipping your NOTP is not the equivalent to someone who preys on underage fans online or sexually harasses people at conventions.

If someone shipping your NOTP tags, block the tag. If they don’t tag, politely ask them to tag, or block their blog.

ratherembarrassing:

i spent a lot of time today thinking about about bad behaviour in fandom. not because it’s new, per se, but the widespread disrespect for boundaries, both with the actors and with each other, is new in its sheer volume. entitlement to others and entitlement to your space without regard for its impact on others is a new thing and i have a need to pick at why it is and where it has come from.

at a macro level, there’s been a huge shift in what fandom is. until fairly recently fandom was a few things, but universally it was creatively focused and carried out in privacy. yes, people were fans of the actors more often than not, but that was distinctly separate from fandom, which above all else was about doing things with the material. it occurs to me that fandom may have been the wrong word for what we were, because the reason people found themselves entering fandom was as much as out of frustration as it was with adoration. we wanted to do something more with the material. it absolutely is not this way anymore. being in fandom now is about being a fan, the loudest and the more intense that you can be. it’s like cheering for a sports team, as if your encouragement will get your chosen team over the finish line first.

and also who can be the “best” fan. see also: ship polls, getting acknowledgement from people involved in the material, and your chosen ship becoming canon.

the goals have changed. it’s not about doing something yourself. it’s about getting other people, namely the material creators, to do something for you. and it is all very, very public.

and yet congruously there is this entitlement to treat your own space in fandom as if it were private. the belief that what you want to do is yours to be done regardless of consequence because it’s your space. most overtly i see this in things like not tagging nsfw content, in not rating fic, in not recognising that just because you choose to engage in fandom, a space that is at times highly sexual in nature, doesn’t mean those around you must be forced to participate with you. in shoving graphic fanart in actors faces. in making actors read fic about their characters.

a part of this, i’m starting to feel, is owed to the growing but fracturing spaces that fandom inhabits. disregarding twitter, which is a steaming pile of bad behaviour directed at anyone with a speck of name recognition, fandom is ironically in what feels like a very public/private split at the moment. yes, we’re all here on tumblr. but tumblr is horrible for conversation, and so most people have shifted to a secondary space for conversation. so much of the dialogue that makes fandom great is now taking place away from easy access to broader fandom. everybody’s got a group chat or five, and that’s where you’re a person and not just a faceless tumblr of other people’s content. with that split, a lot of institutional memory and general good behaviour modelling is fading away, especially as those who have been around for an age start to pull back from engaging in this new era of fandom because it’s not what we signed up for.

i don’t have any conclusions about all this, other than that it all makes me very uncomfortable. i don’t want to be associated with this public face of fandom, and i never have. but as fandom becomes more and more mainstream, i can only see this escalating. and as a fan of the power of language and the capacity it has to define what we are, a part of me wishes some great schism will come.

yet i can’t help but feel some responsibility for this place i’ve called home for nearly 20 years. i want us all to be better, even if we don’t all want the same things out of this space we all share.

ratherembarrassing:

delphcormier:

ratherembarrassing:

IT’S NOT QUEERBAITING IF THEY’RE ACTUALLY QUEER

WRONG. It can still be seen as queerbaiting the audience if the character or ship in question only exists as a token, and then is ultimately erased from the story for shock value in a way that suggests expressing who they are has consequences. Ever heard of Clexa?

thank you for allowing me this opportunity to expand on my point at length, because i’m not wrong.

fandom has existed for a very long time. it is its own culture, with its own customs and behaviours and language. this last one, language, is the key issue i want to focus on here, because fandom has its own language, just like any other culture. and that means that, just like all other cultures, language shifts, evolves, and outright changes.

what that doesn’t mean is that, without intention, terms WITH AN ESTABLISHED MEANING are used to mean something completely different. shifts in meaning occur for a lot of reasons, but there IS A REASON. that reason might be humour, it might be ignorance, it might be education, it might be that the concept a word encompasses expands.

“queerbaiting” didn’t originate in fandom. the word was first used to describe members of the police force “baiting” gay men into revealing themselves as queer by indicating they were available for sexual activity, only to arrest the men once they had indicated they were interested. this is a pretty specific scenario that has obvious connection to the components of the word itself.

fandom had adopted this term by at least the late 90s as a pretty direct transposition of the entire scenario being described. in the place of police we have media creators, but the idea was still the same: engaging in conduct meant to lead queer people to believe the media was queer.

the issue of what conduct constitutes queerbaiting is heavily debated, but the end point remains the same: the media was only meant to make viewers THINK it was queer, without ever making it explicit.

now. when you are talking about doing something to make queer (or queer-interested) people watch your media, queerbaiting as described above obviously falls within that “something” category. but so does having actual queer characters. and if we start using the term queerbaiting to encompass the entire concept of attracting queer (-interested) viewers, you lose all nuance as to the ways in which people tend to fuck us over.

what’s happening with queer women on television at the moment is fucking atrocious, and it deserves to be loudly decried as publicly as possible. but when i level accusations of fucking me over at shows like rizzoli and isles or once upon a time, i absolutely do not want to conflate that with shows murdering their queer characters. because that is way fucking worse, to be honest, and it should explicitly be called out as such. adopting the term queerbaiting here not only has the effect of diminishing the harm done by those who engage in it as defined above, but it muddies the actual issue of concern. it doesn’t matter that they made us watch, it matters that they keep murdering us, whether we’re watching or not.