Oh dear

[serai]

It looks like mucun has closed her slash site:

http://havens.sakura.ne.jp/ban/

Wonder what happened? Anybody here read Japanese? It looks like she left a note.



ETA: OK, I've been over to Rei's journal and read the latest on the brouhaha.

And I can say that I am now officially disgusted with this fandom. I suppose it's a branch of my disgust with this prudish, finger-pointing, dirty-minded culture in general, that can see some kind of twisted sex in a rather sweet image of affection between friends. God, people can be filthy sometimes.

Feh.

Comments

[serai1.livejournal.com]

*sigh* It's my belief that one's LJ is one's own space, within which to do exactly as one chooses, and so I've never really understood why more people don't just delete the kind of meanness that we see going on over there. Why even put up with it to begin with?

For a while, I ran a fan message board, where I posted strict rules about behavior and courtesy, and I never batted an eye at deleting that kind of thing. Just because someone feels like getting drunk and throwing glasses doesn't mean the host has no right to throw him out. (In fact, it's exactly when that happens that the host's right to police his own party comes into play.) It puzzles me.

Of course, Rei is Japanese, and their ideas and style of courtesy are different than ours. More involved, I take it, and women especially seem to live with tighter rules about politeness. But then again, I'm not from there, so there are probably ramifications I don't know about. But it would not surprise me if she just felt it would be bad form to delete comments. I understand why people think that way...I just don't understand why they think that way! *laugh*

I guess I find it funny that in a culture like LJ, we've evolved this system whereby the I Have A Right To Talk ethos is combined with the Openness Is Always Good idea; add in Deleting Is Stifling Free Speech concept, and you end up with people being held hostage in their own journals. Which, I'm sorry, is wildly silly. Name me one person who'd put up with that in real life - some asshole walking into your house and bullying you into changing something about your life just because he didn't like it. I can't think of a single person I know who'd even let him in the front door, and certainly no one who wouldn't throw him out!

My view is, a community of any kind cannot run smoothly and be a good place to be if rules of courtesy are not enforced. Each person owns her own space here, and while argument is fine, there's a line between that and bullying (and it ain't really all that fine a line, either).

I think about the good stuff I've had from this fandom, and then I think about what it might have been like if people 1) minded their own business, 2) paused and thought before deciding to be offended at soemthing, and 3) simply ignored what they didn't like or didn't agree with. Just think about it. It might still be, if not as large, at least as vibrant as it was three years ago. But the pissing and the warring and the pruding and the hounding have hacked away at it, and most of the best artists have left, and argh.

And yeah, it's fandom, I know. If it were about some TV show or actor/musician/dick model I would neither be surprised nor care much. But this is playground attached to an awesome piece of literature, an entire world that has nothing to do with this silliness, and I guess I'm fundamentally disappointed that some people can be the same old asshats in the face of such riches. Isn't there anything that will drive the monkey out of us?

[celandine-g.livejournal.com]

Name me one person who'd put up with that in real life - some asshole walking into your house and bullying you into changing something about your life just because he didn't like it.

Such a great point! I don't know why people put up with abuse that--as you say--they would never tolerate in their own home. And here, one's journal is one's home. So, yes, I would never let someone post nasty things on mine and I do try to avoid doing it on others' journals (at least to them). But sometimes when people are abusive (as in the recent incident), I have to speak out, as you did, and defend the person being attacked. Of course, these things often blow up into (sometimes pretty interesting) arguments. But fandom is, in its lowest common denominator, still people--and we get all kinds, just like any organization. The nice thing here is that you can get rid of people (or comments) that you just don't want to be bothered with.

I do try to avoid the empty flamers coming into my world (and have defriended for too much meanspirited flaming--I don't need it). And I generally avoid them, largely because I think they love it and I prefer them stewing over why I never responded, hehe. I never responded because, of course, they don't exist. :)