In Defense of Gone Home

I was recently at a symposium where the speaker briefly talked about a relatively new indie game Gone Home. Among the various points she made, the one that stuck out to me the most was the claim that the amorphous mass of “gamers hate this game”. I have to disagree.

Unlike most video games, Gone Home does not focus on action or skill. At the core, it is a point-and-click puzzle game where the player, after returning from the airport, explores their unexpectedly empty house, finds leftover notes, and pieces together the story of why exactly their younger sister left. This format may be off-putting to some gamers, but for no other reason than they just don’t like that genre of game, just like how they might not like first person shooters, sidescrollers, or mmorpgs. Everyone has their preferred genre. It doesn't make it less of a game. And Gone Home didn’t exactly do anything new with the basic mechanics. There are plenty of other games that have similar gameplay and mysterious plot, like Myst, Year Walk, The Stanley Parable, and the multitude of Nancy Drew games. All of these have generally positive responses. So what sets Gone Home apart?

Gone Home had the misfortune of getting popular right when the gamergate conspiracy started gaining traction in 2014. It immediately drew attention by the movement, because of some shakey claims of nepotism. But it also came under fire because the plot twist at the end (spoiler alert!) revealed that the sister ran away because she is a lesbian and wanted to pursue a relationship with another woman without judgement.

Gamergate exploded because of some gamers’ hatred of the feminist critique that some games were garnering. It’s no secret that the majority of games contain sexist portrayals of women, and some gamers desperately want to keep gaming communities a “boys only” club. They claim that gamergate is really about “ethics in video game journalism”. But the majority of the anger seems to stem from critiques that point the prominent one-dimensional portrayal of women in games, the skimpy outfits, the lack of diversity in characters, and the rampant misogyny, homophobia, and racism in gaming communities that make them such hostile environments. Many of the original critics that unintentionally became the ignition point of the controversy came under very targeted attacks and harassment. There were multiple accounts of rape threats, death threats, doxing, and even a threat for mass shooting when Anita Sarkeesian planned to give a guest lecture at Utah State University.

Gone Home got stuck in the crossfire of all this unrest. Since the game features a prominent multidimensional lesbian character who is not fetishized for the fans, the game became the perfect example for how feminists and SJWs were supposedly ruining games and don’t know how to make a proper video game.

“The problem people have isn't the fact that Gone Home isn't a game but that it is about subject matter that makes people uncomfortable.”

All of the intense hatred from a vocal minority has drowned out the majority of the reviews. Aggregated reviews from well-known game critique sites generally score the game in the mid-80s/100, a definitely positive score. It has gained critical acclaim and won multiple awards, including a BAFTA. Even general users on the popular gaming platform Steam give the game generally positive reviews. It is not has hated as some users would like people to believe.

Gamers don’t hate Gone Home any more than most other video games. Gamergate hates Gone Home.

Are you there OP? It's me, Anon.

Out there, in the wide reaches of internet fandom, exists communities where all communication is anonymous. All of the original posts are anonymous, and all of the subsequent comments are anonymous. I’m talking about anon memes.

The anon memes typically exist as discussion boards on sites like livejournal or dreamwidth. Even though tumblr now exists as the general hub of most fandom activity, the design of the site makes it a poor host for anon memes. Tumblr, after all, does not support forum-like postings and threads. Comments on any original post are drowned out by reblogs and likes, making a thread of discussion extremely difficult to follow, if not impossible. I would know. I’ve tried. And I don’t recommend it.

Livejournal and dreamwidth, however, still support such functions and nest comments, making them much easier to track. More importantly, however, both sites make it incredibly easy for any person to make an anonymous contribution, regardless of whether or not they have an account.

Anon memes vary according to subject and may all have different rules or community guidelines that the mods enforce. Some are very general and discuss almost anything. They may be fandom specific or stretch across all fandoms in general (like Fail-Fandomanon). A few of the memes are known as hate memes and can definitely be as vicious as the name implies. But, they may also act as areas where users can safely vent about issues they might otherwise be uncomfortable linking back to them.

Other anon memes may even focus on the more creative aspect of fandoms and encourage short commentfics. The most notorious incarnation of this style is the kink meme. Like the name suggests, these memes tend to be more sexually explicit in nature, but not all are graphic in content. A poster leaves a prompt for a fic (often with a desired pairing and kink) that any anon can fill. The fills themselves may range anywhere from very short drabbles to long multi-chaptered fics. The anonymous nature of the memes tends to lower inhibitions, making users much more likely to make prompts and fulfill them. It’s sort of like being drunk or participating in an improve skit. You just do it, without thinking much about how “valid” or “artistic” a fill is. You just let the ideas freely flow and post it before you have any chance for regret. And it is precisely in those moments where the most unexpected creativity may sprout up.

Full post here.

Anons may later choose to de-anon themselves by collecting and editing their fics before posting them on a site like AO3.  But some authors may choose to never “out” themselves for a variety of reasons that I have touched on previously.

 Full post here.

The method of archiving generally becomes an important question for kink memes. Some memes, after all, can become very active and spawn hundreds if not thousands of fics. They may easily become lost, however, with each new addition. To track anon fills, many kink memes have a separate post where users can post links to both finished and ongoing fics. Many times, these links are then reposted onto sites like delicious where they can be tagged and organized while still keeping all of the authors anonymous. AO3 provides another alternative, but only users comfortable with de-anoning transfer their fills there. The site, however, also has the added benefit of making the fics much easier to read than on the original meme, where they are split into multiple short parts because of the word count limit for each post.

Anon memes may seem very odd and off putting at first, especially the kink variety. But they serve as an important gathering place for fans where they may post without any of the fears associated with having an identifiable pseudonym. They encourage and augment fandom participation. And they are where many, many fics and fic writers first get their start.

Pseudonym Sunday: How to Disappear Completely and Make Sure Everyone Knows About It

Let’s say you’re part of a fandom, maybe for a few months or even years, but you’re not content with your place in it. Maybe you’re getting bored with the material and the fans. Maybe your plans at becoming a well-known member have fallen through. Maybe no one is responding to your comments and your inbox is eerily silent. Maybe you just want more attention. Or maybe you just want to announce that you’re leaving the community for other fandoms. What do you do?

If you have any conscience at all, you would choose anything other than pseuicide.

But, of course, some people live for the drama.

Pseuicide, also known as pseudocide, is a rather self-explanatory portmanteau of “pseudo” and “suicide”. It refers to someone faking their own death, specifically on the web. It can take a number of different forms, but it’s commonly used as a rather underhanded method for attention-seeking. It’s about seeing people’s reactions to the news that you’re leaving or have already left forever. Sockpuppets are often utilized to either break the news about your abrupt death or to start threads to garner support and sympathy.

One account of pseuicide was even used to try and get gifts out of followers and sympathizers. Svmaria, a member of the Smallville fandom in 2006, used a sockpuppet account to announce that she had been in a bad carwreck, miscarried her baby, and is currently in a coma. The sockpuppet account then asked for fics and gifts to help svmaria during her recovery:

Her boyfriend has asked me to let you know that if you feel inclined to send her any gifts besides what's on her Christmas Wish list, she likes especially the following:

Lip balm, lip gloss, butterflies, dragonflies, kittens, angels, bunnies, snowmen, x-mas trees, lieetl presents like earrings, make up, stuff like that.

When the charade fell apart, mostly due to a suspicious lack of info and the home and hospital IPs matching up, people were understandably very angry for being used in such a manner. Another write-up can be found here.

Those who get caught may try to backtrack, often with absurdly hilarious and offensive remarks. One member of the Harry Potter fandom, limeybean, claimed to have died from tuberculosis, of all diseases. When limeybean was quickly caught and called out, she made a few posts hastily trying to explain herself and recover her reputation. So, she promptly tried to assert the nobility of her actions and push the blame onto someone else:

So we're clear, I had never intended for things to go this way. I had not meant to "die" from the beginning, but I wanted an escape and it gave me one should I ever want to leave. I've always had a problem when it comes to telling the truth on the internet, to be honest. My parents wouldn't let me at a young age and since then I've never been able to do it, even if I wanted to. After realising the effect my bravery in my illness had on people, I then used it as a vehicle to try and get some of the idiot emo kids on LJ to buck up and realise they don't really have it all that bad. How much hope can you see reflected on the comments left on my entries, or in ones about me? So the lie was worth something, wasn't it? How bad is a lie if it helps?

Unsurprisingly, limeybean was left with almost no supporters and found her reputation tarnished beyond recovery after such emotional manipulation.

The phenomenon has since become popular enough to have its own term coined by psychologists: Münchausen by Internet. The frequency of the behavior has also spawned a satirical guide to pseuicide.

Fandom Wikis

Almost everyone with internet access is familiar with Wikipedia, the internet encyclopedia. But fewer people are familiar with the smaller wiki sites available.

Individual wikis work much like the larger website from which they derive. Users add and edit content as they see fit. They may contribute to corrections or purposely add humorous mistakes. (The Colbert Report's wiki and its devotion to the show's parody, even to the point of satirizing their own pages, comes to mind.) And most importantly, for this blog anyways, most wikis do not require users to make an account to make minor edits. They can all be done anonymously.

The open, sandbox style technology has attracted wide use. Wiki sites exist for almost every conceivable fandom. Books, movies, shows, comics, games, music – any medium can have a fandom and a wiki. Unsurprisingly, large ones like The Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, The Simpsons, World of Warcraft, and Star Trek all have well-known and active wikis. Even smaller or obscure fandoms may have such sites. The 1991 cartoon Rugrats, for example, even has a wiki. At this point, it’s almost expected that every fandom has a wiki, no matter how small or incomplete. (Somewhat surprisingly, however, wikis also exist for phenomenon such as fandom behavior. Fanlore archives and explains fannish behavior, fandoms, and participants. And I definitely often draw from it.)

The wikis have become such attractive appeal because they embrace the principles of “freedom, transparency, fluidity, emergence, collective intelligence, and relative anonymity”. They are open to everyone with a clear instructions and guidelines. The pages are not planned out, but rather created when needed. They are not written linearly, but are added to and edited over time, often by people who are knowledgeable about the subject at hand. All six make the sites welcoming and easy to use. It makes them much more open to participatory culture, which is what makes up fandom.

Fandom wikis ultimately help to augment the culture. They can act as a gathering place for fans to document important information about the object of obsession. The wikis serve as an easily accessible area to assemble and arrange information according to that fandom’s interests. One dedicated to a TV show, for example, may have pages for each episode, character, and actor. Another based on a video game, in contrast, may focus on providing pages that contain detailed walkthroughs for each level, as well as pages devoted to game achievements, items, characters, and enemies.

But a lot of this information can still be found on the original Wikipedia. So why specific fandom wikis?

“While Wikipedia does contain entries on fictional stories, places, and characters, a key tension among Wikipedians involves the concept of fancruft, a derogatory term meaning overly-detailed information that is seen as only relevant to the most passionate fans. Wikipedians frequently debate whether pages chronicling the fictional worlds of anime or videogames require the level of detail that some desire, often making the site inhospitable to hardcore fans of fiction that it rarely is for fans of non-fictional topics… While all of these topics have elaborate sets of pages created within Wikipedia, their stand-alone fan wikis thrive as spaces to document their fictional worlds with elaborate detail.”

Full text here.

 

This is where smaller wikis step in. The “overly-detailed information” is exactly what makes up fandom, or an obsession with a particular cultural object. Fans fixate over the details. True, some may be more devoted to Doctor Who than others and are able to name every single episode, both Classic and New Who.  But all fans, regardless of level, can benefit from specific fan wikis. A more casual fan just might not read them as in-depth as a more hardcore fan might. The creation and use of individual wiki sites still enhances the fandom experience and its participatory culture.

Theoryofficgate Clarification and Follow-Up

It's been over a month since fanfic writers, specifically user waldorph, discovered that a UC Berkeley class had required students to write reviews as part of a course on fanfiction. I initially wrote a bit to explore some of the issues being raised as tensions still ran high. Since then, tempers have simmered down and most of the problems have been resolved.

Now that most of the details have come out, I wanted to clarify some points from my previous post as well as add on to some of the discussion regarding fan aggression.

The class, "The Theory of Fanfiction", is not taught by professors. In case it was unclear, the course is student designed and run. By undergraduates for undergraduates. So, it's basically a glorified reading group with the added benefit of college credit. And as later uncovered profiles revealed, these undergrads had a personal interest in fandom and even participated in it. One of the teachers was found to go by the pseudonym of FiveMinutesTilBedtime on many sites, including ao3 and tumblr.

Unfortunately, fandoms tend to get rather prickly when disturbed. There were reports of targeted harassment and malicious posting on top of the general drama the course caused. It got so bad that the fan-turned-instructor has since deleted or deactivated these accounts, but traces can still be found on the wayback machine or through tumblr correspondences. Sure, they made a mistake, what young adult doesn't, but the responses were excessive and cruel.

Such behavior truly highlights the ugly and destructive sides of both fandom and internet culture in general. BNF copperbadge, for example, allegedly posted a spiteful response (that has since been deleted) to theoryofficgate:

If you’d like to share your thoughts with the “teachers” of the “Let’s go be dicks to fan authors” class, their emails are listed in this cached document.
You know, if you wanted to. Unsolicited criticism seems to be the order of the day, after all. 

And since the original poster has a large presence in online communities, the post gained a lot of views and traction. It revealed personal information about the instructors and called for further harassment. Such behavior cultivates a very negative space in fandom and encourages cruelty. At least one fan was run off as a result and felt pressured enough to destroy their fandom identity completely. After all, it can be easy to forget, but FiveMinutesTilBedtime was first and foremost a fan and content creator.

A few anonymous commenters weighed in on this incident while criticizing the phenomenon of BNFdom:

Original thread here.

The class has since edited the syllabus and stopped the reviews in favor of revising the assignments. Now aware of the close scrutiny, the teachers and students have been much more closed off about the course. But discussions like the above still continue.

The attempt to bridge fandom and academia was overly eager and ill-conceived, but it was still genuine. They are all fans. Both teachers and students are trying to respectfully study, analyze, and document a culture they love. This particular experiment may have failed horribly, but perhaps the lessons from their follies may create space for future success.

Pseudonym Sunday: The Rise and Fall of MsScribe

Fewer pseudonyms live on in infamy than that of the notorious MsScribe. The story is a saga that literally spans years. It has become a bizarre piece of internet lore, a drama-filled story that entertains as much as it repulses. An absurd comedy that has become the stuff of legends. It is probably the definitive piece of fandom wank, the likes of which we might never see again. Users can and have written thousands of word about the events and their fallout. The most famous and comprehensive of these write-ups is so long that it’s even segmented into chapters. Charolette Lenox’s work is admittedly a super long but very entertaining read if you have the time. It is perhaps the most referenced work, almost a required reading, when people discuss MsScribe.

I’m not going to try and summarize everything. Others already have done a much better job than I could hope to replicate. One blogger, Scott Alexander, succinctly summarizes:

In the early 2000s, Harry Potter fanfiction authors and readers get embroiled in an apocalyptic feud between people who think that Harry should be in a relationship with Ginny vs. people who think Harry should be in a relationship with Hermione. This devolves from debate to personal attacks to real world stalking and harassment to legal cases to them splitting the community into different sites that pretty much refuse to talk to each other and ban stories with their nonpreferred relationship.

These sites then sort themselves out into a status hierarchy with a few people called Big Name Fans at the top and everyone else competing to get their attention and affection, whether by praising them slavishly or by striking out in particularly cruel ways at people in the “enemy” relationship community.

A young woman named MsScribe joins the Harry/Hermione community. She proceeds to make herself popular and famous by use of sock-puppet accounts (a sockpuppet is when someone uses multiple internet nicknames to pretend to be multiple different people) that all praise her and talk about how great she is. Then she moves on to racist and sexist sockpuppet accounts who launch lots of slurs at her, so that everyone feels very sorry for her.

At the height of her power, she controls a small army of religious trolls who go around talking about the sinfulness of Harry Potter fanfiction authors and especially MsScribe and how much they hate gay people. All of these trolls drop hints about how they are supported by the Harry/Ginny community, and MsScribe leads the campaign to paint everyone who wants Harry and Ginny to be in a relationship as vile bigots and/or Christians. She classily cements her position by convincing everyone to call them “cockroaches” and post pictures of cockroaches whenever they make comments.

Throughout all this, a bunch of people are coming up with ironclad evidence that she is the one behind all of this (this is the Internet! They can just trace IPs!) Throughout all of it, MsScribe makes increasingly implausible denials. And throughout all of it, everyone supports MsScribe and ridicules her accusers. Because really, do you want to be on the side of a confirmed popular person, or a bunch of confirmed suspected racists whom we know are racist because they deny racism which is exactly what we would expect racists to do?

MsScribe writes negatively about a fan with cancer asking for money, and her comments get interpreted as being needlessly cruel to a cancer patient. Her popularity drops and everyone takes a second look at the evidence and realizes hey, she was obviously manipulating everyone all along. There is slight sheepishness but few apologies, because hey, we honestly thought the people we were bullying were unpopular.

(I stress that this is a very abridged version that glosses over and skips A LOT.)

If it has not been made apparent yet, this tale starts over a decade ago in the early 2000s. It was the time when livejournal acted as the central hub for fandom activity. Everyone was recovering from the 90s, Myspace was still starting up, and many internet users still had to go through dial-up connection instead of broadband. (For anyone who doesn’t know what I’m talking about, be glad you were never subjected to this awful noise.) Even so, the MsScribe story may still provide some sections that echo more modern activity and may still have some relevance for people.

At its core, the MsScribe story is one of a user who was determined to reach fame (BNFdom) by any means possible. She constructed wild stories for her pseudonym, generally just caused a lot of drama, and used a variety of sockpuppets, both to prop her up and slash her down. Of course, the latter only further endeared her to her followers. In the process, she stepped on more than a few toes. It’s easy to forget that MsScribe’s dramatic show involved other real people, people who were personally invested, deceived, and hurt. She caused a lot of chaos and backlashing in the circles she frequented. And as she moved up in popularity, the ripples only grew.

In the fallout, many users began to look critically at the structure of online fandom and fame.

Original thread here.

MsScribe's heyday is over, but her legacy still lives on. It provides the perfect study for a lot of behaviors that are prevalent on the internet today - the drive for internet fame, sockpuppeting, stirring up drama. It speaks to the dangers of imagined hierarchies and internet communities who all too easily believe almost anything with minimal information. It exposes how easily some social structures on the web may be exploited and manipulated.  People still refer to her usernames and even claim them as their own at times. Some people have even role played as the users involved.

And above all, it makes a really entertaining read.

Hateful Confessions or Venting?

A few weeks ago I gave a general introduction to confession blogs and how people used them, but I talked about them in a mostly positive light, which makes sense. I didn’t want to scare people off from them by highlighting the negatives. That’s more of a second post deal.

The example that I gave last time was of a Dragon Age confession blog, which the owners carefully moderate. The blog contains a clearly visible set of rules that the owners actively enforce for submissions and behavior in order to keep a safe and welcoming environment. But not all confession blogs are structured in the same way. Some advocate for much looser community behavior and standards. They don’t bother with including any submissions guidelines, and the culture they cultivate looks a lot more different as a result.

This time, I’ll be using a blog dedicated to Flight Rising, a virtual petsite similar to neopets but with dragons. It goes by the tongue-in-cheek moniker "Drama Rising".

It’s not solely a confession blog, but it operates in pretty much the same way. Users submit confessions, rants, complaints, observations, or drama anonymously. A lot of the posts are similar to those I outlined in the previous discussion on confession blogs, so I won’t rehash an old subject. Instead, I’ll be focusing on some of the differences, mainly that there are no rules or apparent moderation on Drama Rising, which allows for completely different types of posts.

Since the posts are mostly unmoderated, a lot of them single out or attack users.

“can N please stop being a fucking little bitch…? so people don’t find your dragons ‘names’ (if the pile of garbage you create by slammingyour ape hands against your laptop’s keyboard can be considered namies) funny.big deal. please continue to cry some more, darling.”

A least they tried to keep the target somewhat anonymous?

As a result, other posters might in turn retaliate against an anonymous rant on the same blog. There is no room for vague phrases like “some users” or “the fandom” that you might find on confession blogs with strict rules. These are targeted messages.

“Alright you filthy pieces of shit targeting Snap you are all disgusting human beings and you all make me sick stop abusing her over messages she has no right to be attacked by some low life asshole’s who are greedy and only want to take advantage of her kindness

Deities help you if I find out who you are.”

Any policing of the behavior on this blog are completely community driven. Anonymous users will try to attack or shame other posters to keep others in line.

“about 90% of this blog is downright rude. i mean, if you have a problem with a user, why don’t you keep it to yourself instead of sending it here where that user may end up seeing it and getting hurt, or you can tell a friend about it just to get it off your chest. Or you can use here to rant, but why not leave out their username? that just causes so much shit for them and makes other users get pissed at them as well and its not cool. I love FR and it makes me so sick to see how RUDE the community can get when they aren’t on the site itself.”

Such tactics make work to some degree and possibly change behavior. But it also creates a lot of hostility that may result in fewer users wanting to participate (especially by those who are specifically named in posts) or even stronger retaliations from others. No one likes being told what to do or how to behave, after all. Not to mention, with no explicit rules, the unspoken expectations for behavior become inconsistent at best. It just makes people squabble more about what should be considered unacceptable or unnecessary content. Yes, the setup allows for more variety of posts, but the tradeoff comes with a more vitriolic community.  

Internet Hate Machine

CW: Vulgar language and verbal threats

For all the venues of communication that anonymity affords, there are considerable perils as well. Anyone who has been online long enough knows what I’m talking about. Anonymous hate. It can be fun to leave, but it’s never fun to receive.

The anonymous function at its core separates people from their words, which can be incredibly freeing for most. This fact alone makes many people rally behind the cause of protecting anonymous posting capabilities. They ultimately consider it worth protecting despite all of the consequences that come with it, both the positives and the negatives. And at times, those are almost inseparable. After all, and perhaps most importantly, anon divests the poster from the consequences of their actions. The words appear, but without an apparent author to claim ownership. There’s no easy way to track down the original poster or even identify them. In a large group of anon posts, the confusion easily increases. One person can play the role of multiple anons. They can create a whole thread of different personas having a “conversation” in order to prove a point or purposely create drama.

Of course, sometimes anon hate is isolated and so vague that it’s almost ridiculous. Such messages are easy to dismiss and delete, or even ridicule.

But sometimes anon hate can be unfunny and even destructive. The behavior extends into and escalates in private messages, which often serve as the venue for pointed attacks. Vicious attacks may be mounted against one user through anonymous messaging. Sometimes the attackers really are a number of different users who, for some reason, feel the need to heckle a particular individual. Much more commonly, however, the anon hate all stems from one user sending multiple messages that claim to originate from different people. This tactic purposely ramps up the magnitude of the attack in a way that non-anonymous messaging simply cannot hope to replicate. It breeds paranoia and suspicion and creates a very hostile and unsafe environment for the victim. They have no way of knowing who or how many people are singling them out. And they can’t just block them and move on since it’s all anonymous.

Again, they have no idea who is really attacking them.

It could be anyone. A follower? A fan? A random visitor? A close friend? The last possibility in particular erodes confidence and trust at an individual level, and consequently detracts from community interaction as a whole. Fandom is no exception. Once stung, it is incredibly common and completely understandable that a user would not want to continue participating in that fandom. At worse, the fan might delete their account or leave the community completely.

With sites that enable users to turn anonymous commenting or messages on or off, however, the recipient of anonymous hate frequently just disables those possibilities. It’s a simple enough response, but the restriction leaves some subtle consequences. It closes the user off from more general interaction with fans and shuts down a whole venue of communication. People can no longer, for example, send anonymous confessions or personal messages to that user without outing themselves. As such, they are more likely to just avoid any attempts at communication with that user in general.

Anon can be a great tool. But like any tool, it can be misused. And the consequences can affect everyone.

A syllabus? On fanfiction? It's more likely than you think.

When fandom and academics collide it typically isn’t pretty, as yesterday’s drama clearly shows us.

This year, the University of California Berkley decided to try something different in its curriculum. They went for a bold, new foray into a subculture that has only recently been gaining more visibility in the mainstream. A subculture that has often been framed by the news as an oddity or sideshow. A subculture that changes rapidly thanks to digital media, causing almost any new academic papers on it to seem outdated almost right as they are published. Yes, you guessed it. The university built a course for studying fandom. Specifically fanfiction.

And they're rather proud of it.

Called The Theory of Fanfiction, the class is dedicated to studying the phenomenon and tropes of fandom generated literature. Most of the structure rests on students reading a number of selected fanfictions, or assigned readings if you will. They are then tasked with reviewing said fics and discussing them in the classroom under the direction of a instructor (really a group of student-teachers). The fanfiction selection alone raises some eyebrows. There simply is little precedence for such a small list in academia and such an overwhelming amount of fanfic in general. What exactly determines what fic makes the cut? The popularity or infamy? Cross referencing a number of rec lists? The teacher’s personal favorites? And if that selection process is not bizarre enough, some of the readings are strangely enough paired with more classical readings. The discussion of the infamous badfic My Immortal, for instance, is paired with an excerpt from Dante’s Inferno. I cringe to think of what parallels the class might force. But I digress. The class setup sounds simple and harmless enough. Granted, the academic value of such a class is debatable, but their hearts are in the right place. Right?

If the class had continued on in its own little bubble, then sure. Probably. Few would probably have even known about the course’s existence. But more than a few feathers have been ruffled the past couple of days when the students started leaving the mandatory reviews. What really caught one fic author’s attention was the sudden influx of strangely formatted reviews. Instead of the typical more personal and informal reviews (like a standard “Great fic! I can’t wait for the next update! :D”), tumblr user waldorph noticed a bunch of oddly long and stilted reviews full of formal language and attempts at constructive criticism on their ao3 page, even though they did not ask for any.

The author and other non-student reviewers did not take kindly to the intrusion for a number of reasons. First and foremost, none of the fic authors were asked or notified about the course and the use of their works in said course. This was a huge mistake on the side of the professors, especially since 50% of the students grades rely on fandom interaction through reviewing. The authors likely did not want the sudden influx of attention from outsiders. The reviewers themselves were obviously not used to the understood but unstated etiquette of fanfic. Mostly, that the reviews aren’t really reviews in the way that most people tend to think of them. Unless the author specifically states that they want constructive criticism, most of the time people won’t leave any as it would be considered rude. Fanfiction, after all, is not meant to be rigorously scrutinized the way an academic paper might. It’s not made for publishing and should not be treated as such. It’s first and foremost for fun.

One anonymous user sums it up nicely when addressing the student-teacher (who was forced to explain when the comments turned to mudslinging and attacks on BOTH sides):

Full thread here.

Things have cooled down a bit, or as best as it can in a scant 24 hours, but the drama has stirred up a lot of important discussion on the intersection of academia and fandom culture and especially on how the former should respectfully approach the latter. Careful thought should definitely go into exploring these issues to prevent another incident from occurring in the future.

A full write-up of the drama can be found here. And more discussion on the topic can be found here, here, and here. Keep in mind that the fallout is still unfolding, so there may be a future update.

Pseudonym Sunday: Gaining Reputation and BNFs

People like having fans. And fans definitely like having fans.

While that may seem weird and counterintuitive at first, there is a perfectly good explanation. It mostly stems from the fact that many fans become content creators themselves, even if they end up borrowing someone else’s characters, worlds, and/or scenarios to do so. They produce fanworks like fanfiction, fanvids, and fanart without any intention of making a profit. It’s just for fun. And if the work is of a high enough quality and well received, it’s very likely that the person will gain their own following of other fans.

Even though this is a Pseudonym Sunday post, don’t let the category trip you up. Even anonymous users can gain a fan following if there is an easy way to attribute certain works or comments to one individual, anonymous or not. Art styles, for example, may be easy to identify and match up. Or, an anonymous user might claim a number of works as theirs without divulging their name. Pseudonyms just make this process easier and more accurate. After all, they give a distinct name and ownership to the work.

When a fan gets a big enough reputation, people might start considering them as a Big Name Fan, or BNF. This is where the terminology gets a bit tricky. It definition is simple enough. For whatever reason, BNFs are simply well-known fans. Just note that it’s not always the result of pure hard work and talent. There are a lot of other factors that can come into play before someone might be labeled a BNF. But the connotations can range from well to ill received. The positive side of the coin is easy enough to see, so I will be focusing mainly on the negatives.

 BNFs can have A LOT of influence.

To put mildly, BNFs become centers of their fandom and become very influential in their own niche of the subculture. They're trend setters. And as a result, they often gain a sort of cult-like following and may use their popularity immorally. It’s mainly a symptom of attaining fame and being put on the spotlight. For better or worse, people flock and look up to the BNF, even idolize them, and not everyone can handle such power. The position also leaves them open to drama. Generally speaking, the more popular someone is, the more likely people will want to tear that person down by stirring shit up, and fandom spaces are no exception. The fallout of such drama can be legendary.

Because of the reputation of the title, few like to use it, especially when referring to themselves. Nobody Ever Admits They’re a BNF:

Nobody ever admits they're a Big Name Fan. It's part incredulity, part modesty, and part self-preservation, usually in that order. The first time you hear somebody call you a BNF, it's ridiculous. I mean, come on- you're just some random schlub who writes stories/makes art/makes vids/talks about the show, BNF? Please! It's funny, too, because then you can have polls in your journal and ask for minions, because the notion of you being a BNF is so ridiculous it's mockable. Mockity, mock, mock!

Then, it's modesty. Because you're not stupid- you can look at your friends list and realize that 400 people is more than 50 people, and therefore, more people are reading what you say. (At least, in theory.) Still, 400 people reading what you say- that's hardly anything to get uppity about. Other people have bigger friends lists. Other people write more popular stories. You're still some random schlub writing stories, making art, making vids, talking about the show, you're just a random schlub that has more than your best friend listening.

Then, it's self-preservation, because there comes a point when denying your BNFness is, to choose the favoritest words of all fandom words used to describe a liar, disingenuous. Now, you're still a random schlub, because you always were a random schlub. But by this point, you are a random schlub whose name gets used as an example for various compare, contrast exercises and your behavior is part of the Neilsen Data for your particular fandom, along with the other BNFs'. Never mind that the statistical margin of error is like 90 percent, the rep of the fandom, that's on you. You know you're a BNF, but you know better than to admit it.

There are a lot more nuances and controversies about the term that I've glossed over for the sake of time and coherence. BNF, for example, is becoming more a slippery term and possibly outdated, even if the concept still stands. The shift of fandom culture from sites like livejournal and fanfiction.net to tumblr and AO3 have certainly complicated it. More information and opinions can be found here and here.

Before concluding this entry, I should really emphasize that the popularity of one fan does not necessarily guarantee quality. There are a ton of underappreciated or lesser known fans churning out wonderful works. They might just not have that star quality, whether it’s self-marketing or charisma or something else, that vaults certain individuals into BNFdom. And that’s ok. Sometimes the merit of a work just speaks for itself.

On Fandom Confessions and Blogs

Everyone has secrets that they wish they could tell to someone confidentially. But often there's no one to tell safely. Sometimes friends and family are just too close or it would be too embarrassing to tell someone you interact with regularly. That's why people go to therapists or contact anonymous hotlines. It's liberating to simply get it off your chest without any fear of judgment.

If you've been following this blog at all, it should be unsurprising to learn that such behavior persists in a fandom environment. Fans frequently want to reveal their desires, opinions, and experiences. These confessions just deal with fandom related content and tend to collect on blogs specifically created for them.

People use such spaces to anonymously confess for any number of reasons and the responses vary greatly. To use a Dragon Age blog as an example,

Some deal with the mundane:

 Give an unpopular opinion that the user might fear being harassed over:

Explain an embarrassing mistake or misunderstanding:

Relate the original media to their daily life:

Reveal a very personal part of themselves:

Or virtually any other reason. There's no reason to worry. They're all anonymous!

If you follow any of the links, one of the first things you'll notice about the blog is the set of loose rules in the about box on the side. These guidelines are further explained in a separate page. Despite its anonymously submitted content, there is some methodology that keeps the tumblr from running completely into anarchy. It's a relaxed sort of moderation, almost anything goes, but it keeps drama, hostility, and abuses to a minimum. It keeps a level of civility.

For example, one rule states that:

Under no circumstance will confessions relating to hate speech about a particular out of game (or some in game) race, religion, sexual orientation, gender, or any other be published.  They will be deleted from our inbox without comment.

Such guidelines keep the blog as a safe space. Potential submitters will not be run off because of racist, misogynistic, anti-semitic, or any other sort of hate speech derived content. Anyone and everyone is welcome to participate, regardless of their identity or background. It keeps users from pointedly targeting other users or groups. The rules simply help to enforce this healthy environment. While they're not universally applied to every confession blog, similar guidelines are found on almost every popular one.

If there's a confession to be had, there's a method available. For almost everyone. Including fans.

Pseudonym Sunday: Why Pseudonyms?

Two days ago, I explored why fans might choose to go anonymous in their interactions with fandom at large – mainly for the sake of privacy and all the freedoms that it entails.

  

Today, however, I will be looking at the close cousin to anonymity - the pseudonym - which I will be returning to weekly. I find the two forms of online personas to be pretty similar in that they both relinquish and distance themselves from a person’s true identity. Anonymity is just taken to one extreme of that spectrum. Pseudonyms are a bit more moderate by giving a definitive username. True, a pseudonym somewhat constrains the freedom afforded to a user by giving them a traceable identity. But, they are also given a completely blank slate, a new beginning. The user can start from scratch and mold their identity in any way they see fit. Gender, race, age, job, nationality – they all become insignificant. The user can literally be anyone.

Full post here.

Like anonymity, pseudonyms can be very liberating. This sort of control over identity can open up a fan to a variety of paths and behaviors. A pseudonym, for example, creates enough separation between fan activity and real life while still allowing the fan to claim certain works or comments as their own. They are identifiable only by an assumed persona. And the best part is that you can shuck off that facade at any time for any reason. For some people, this freedom alone is sufficient for their needs. It gives them a decisive divide between fannish and real life activities, or even separation between different fandoms.

Others like to play around with their options a bit more. It’s not uncommon for people to make roleplaying accounts. In such cases the username and profile are all modeled after a character from some media and the account’s behavior tends to follow that role. It’s a bit of harmless fun for the most part. A few users, however, choose to exploit pseudonyms. When drama gets stirred up in a fandom, some fans create new, separate accounts to to use as tools for deception. This is done in order to make it appear as if other users are rallying for or against the original, even though all of the users are really one person. This sort of behavior is known by many as sockpuppeting and is generally frowned upon. There are some very infamous tales of online sockpuppets, but that will be another story for another week.

Why Anonymous?

Some people really struggle with the idea of anonymity. Especially in fandom, where so much of its activity is content driven. If someone spent hours working on a fic or art to contribute, why wouldn’t they want to claim it as their own? Why would they just happily sign the work off as “anonymous”? And what about anonymous commenters? If all they are leaving is a small insight or quick review, why hide under a shroud of anonymity?

Unsurprisingly, there’s no easy answer and the reasons vary from individual to individual. A few common threads, however, can be found. The most common, and perhaps most obvious, explanation is simply privacy. Privacy issues are not solely confined to fandom spaces. Anyone who has used the internet for even the briefest of moments can understand these concerns. Generally speaking, you should expect anything you put up online to be searchable and permanent. (Yes, you can delete the original content, but anyone who knows how to use a keyboard can screenshot, download, or save the information. Not to mention, some websites, such as the WayBack Machine, work specifically to archive webpages so that a version of them might still be accessible long after the original was deleted.) That means that, for better or worse, an embarrassing picture, a racist tweet, an inappropriate comment, or private story can be traced back to you by a friend or co-worker. Even if the material was originally posted years ago and you’ve changed since then, the internet can keep it up as a record as who you once were or did. And it can have very real consequences for people offline.
Full post here.   It bears repeating that fandom involvement is a very private thing for many people. A user might simply not want certain people in their social circles to find out about what they do in their spare time. People often comfortably divulge a part of themselves and their activities to their friends that they would never mention to family or peers. Such reasoning becomes most apparent when considering what fannish spaces frequently discuss. The content of a blog or post itself, more simply put, may deal with issues that people generally are very uncomfortable talking about in public, such as sex, slash, or kinks. Anonymity allows for a degree of separation for a user from the subject matter. They can take risks and divulge very personal information about themselves without the danger of identification. It’s a way to interact with others and share work without stress. There’s no reason to worry about judgment because in the end, the content will not be traced back to you. At its most positive, anonymity is very self-indulgent and freeing. I end with a quote from an anonymous author after being asked why they refused to de-anon:

I prefer being no one. Better for my ego, better for my happiness. And I'm sorry if this seems horribly foolish and contrived - but, well. I'd rather be able to stay in fandom for years feeling comfortable than getting this moment of yay, it was me and then feeling awkward about everything.

Standard Intro Post

Almost every website these days has anonymous posting. Indeed, some websites, such as the infamous 4chan and its derivatives, survive almost entirely on such features. Even on sites that encourage accounts and usernames, users are often able to comment anonymously.   To be clear, when I talk about anonymous, I’m not referring to the hacktivist group Anonymous that has been making headlines recently. Although their work is very interesting and worth discussing at length, it will not be the focus of this blog. I am more focused on the creative aspects of the anonymous function, and for that, I turn to fandom.

  If this is what you came here for, then this blog is not for you.   The websites I will be looking at specifically will include livejournal, tumblr, and dreamwidth. Why? Because all of these sites have well known and used anonymous functions. Also? They are where fandoms tend to flock, with livejournal being the oldest of the three and tumblr the most popular at the moment. True, livejournal’s heyday was in the early 2000s, and some may argue that it is outdated and in danger of falling completely into disuse, but it still contains massive archives of old activity and still sees some use today. For these reasons, I will continue to refer to it as I chart the use of anonymous in fandom.


It goes almost without saying that due to the nature of this project, this blog will likely deal with and link to violent and/or sexual content. Anonymous features tend to bring out the worst in us at times, and it would be remiss to ignore that side of anonymous. I will try my best to limit such content when discussing it and to always warn readers about it in posts and links. Of course, there is always a possibility that I might miss something, so you might want to proceed with caution if that bothers you.  

And to stay in the spirit of things, all posts to this blog will be anonymous!