Get mad...get even

Can't we all just get along? If I think Spender (X-Files) is weak and whiney, that's not a slur on the actor, and not an insult to the people who find him sexy. It's just what I think.

If I think Captain Banks (Sentinel) isn't really a slashable character and I don't read Captain Banks slash, that's not a putdown of people who like Captain Banks slash. It's just my personal preference.

If I see Mulder's relationship with Scully as brotherly, that's not an attack on the folks who want them to fall into bed in canon. It's my interpretation of the relationship.

Even if I say these things publicly, that I don't like the Spender character and I don't read Banks slash, and Mulder and Scully having sex is practically incest, that's still not a personal insult, directed at you, okay? You like Banks slash. Fine. I don't. Fine. Neither of us are less-worthy human beings because of this difference of opinion.

Similarly, there are authors whose writing I don't like. That doesn't mean I don't like the author. I don't even know the author. If I say I don't like so-and-so's story, that's not in insult to so-and-so's ancestry, okay? It's an opinion about so-and-so's story. So-and-so, you need to remember, is a person. So-and-so's story is words on a page.

I know that a lot of authors feel very protective of what they write. Any hint of negativity about their cherished story and they and all of their little friends gather up the big guns and go after everyone in sight. They post nasty remarks about that person's taste in fiction, imply that he or she lays awake nights thinking up insults specifically to destroy fandom as a whole, and furthermore claim to anyone who is listening that they are a nice person and don't deserve this kind of hateful treatment.

The poor, hapless soul who thought a discussion list was for discussion posts a meek apology and explains that he or she certainly didn't mean to attack the author and that they only meant to say that that particular story wasn't to their taste.

Six of the author's closest friends jump in and tear shreds out of the poster, incidentally dragging in off-list details from a conversation someone had with someone else a month ago that proves there's a conspiracy against them designed to drive them off the net.

Someone, taking pity on the defenseless poster, jumps into the fray, tells the infuriated pack to get a grip, and points out that the last seven posts had nothing at all to do with the poster's original message and that things are getting out of control.

And...they're off.

By the time the war is over, twenty people aren't speaking to each other, ten more cliques have formed, thirty people have left the list, twenty-five to leave the fandom entirely and five to start a list of their own where no morons will be allowed.

A month from now, someone posts a harmless message to a list, indicating that they don't really like some particular canon character, and the whole things starts all over again.

Kindergarten wasn't this childish. If I liked to play on the swings and someone else liked to play dodgeball, there was never a fight about whether dodgeball or the swings were the right toy. Everyone just played where they liked, and we all managed to share the same playground without bloodshed.

People talk about wanting to "out" fandom...to take it more mainstream and make it socially acceptable. To win acceptance from TPTB. That's never going to happen until people actively involved in fandom achieve at least the emotional restraint of six year-olds.