Jeron Kidd (![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} roaringbrute) wrote in ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/community.gif){kind=small} fanficrants,@ 2008-01-13 15:27:00 |
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| Current mood: |  aggravated |
| Entry tags: | entitlement wheeeeeee, i'm a special snowflake, inflated sense of self-importance, missed intended target liekwhoa, oppresshun! oppresshun!, please please pay attention to me, post off-topic and i'll kill this uke |
Why not to join the Organization for Transformative Wank
otw_news had 55+ posts on why the Organization of Transformative Works. They clogged up metafandom and annoyed my friends who are on metafandom for the writing discussion and love of fandom. And it also annoyed those who are annoyed with otw_news so I want 55+ plus posts on metafandom with "Why I did not join theen Organization for Transformative Works." Don't submit to me. Go here and leave the url of your rant as a comment.
And now! My "Why I did not join the Organization for Transformative Works" rant!
I did not join OTW because I'm a guy and OTW isn't about guys. They aren't about equality. People have explained to these women repeatedly. OTW fires back with comments about how they really are.
If OTW really was about including guys, they'd listen to us. They'd listen to women in fandom who find their female empowering statements offensive. OTW keeps shooting back with the "La la la! We are right. You are wrong! You just don't get it!"
OTW doesn't get it. They should be saying "How can we make you feel welcome? What can we do to change this preconception?"
I did not join OTW because they are misrepresenting themselves to fandom. They keep saying that they will protect fandom from legal threats. They say this really isn't what they are about, but just the inconvinent truth that John Scalzi and others picked up on. But Naomi tells us straight up that this legal protection is fiction:
...in an ideal universe, we would never comply with a DMCA takedown notice against a work of fanfic at all. sadly we do not live in an ideal universe, and so when and if we ever get one, a whole lot of practical issues will then arise. this will include stuff like, how much money we have on hand and how much we can raise for a defense -- which of our legal partners is willing to help us and work with us -- what our legal team thinks about the facts of the case -- what the individual fan whose work the takedown notice is being lodged against thinks. ~ Naomi Novik
So while "We envision a future in which all fannish works are recognized as legal and transformative and are accepted as a legitimate creative activity." is in their mission statement, they're not really about that.
I won't join OTW because OTW members keep insisting that they can represent fandom because they've been in fandom a long time. That's great but as an outsider, it looks like the fandom they've been in is highly educated, LiveJournal using, American, English speaking, middle class, white women who believe that fandom is defined by slash fan fiction and the other fandom activities which extend from that.
How else would you describe
astolat, angstslashhope, kbusse, cetera, pinkfinity and all the rest with their PhDs, JDs and MAs?
I won't join OTW because they say "defending our work from from commercial exploitation and legal challenge" but they are still on LiveJournal, their base is still on LiveJournal, their main way of communicating is with people is on LiveJournal.
They claim to be about this but they make clear that they aren't going to lobby companies that commercially exploit fandom now. And that isn't some random supporter saying that, but it is their mission statement saying they will and their president saying they won't and refusing to get off a site that they know profits off fanworks.
I won't join OTW because in saying they are for "defending our work from from commercial exploitation and legal challenge," they are effectively condemning the rest of us who have no problems with ads in fandom, who use commercial sites. That's most of us. OTW doesn't seem to get tht. LiveJournal, FanFiction.Net, MySpace, FaceBook, FanLib, Quizilla, DeviantArt are all commercial and represent a lot of fandom.
I won't join the Organization for Transformative Works because they got squat.
astolat proposed this back in May. They've got nothing no archive, no journal, no wiki, nothing.When they get something, it might be worth looking at... but all their masturbatory praise over nothing is getting old and annoying. Yay! CONGRATS! YOU GOT AN ORGANIZATION THAT HAS NOTHING TO SHOW FOR IT! THAT DOESN'T DO ANYTHING! YAY! And you want a pat on the back?
I won't join Organization for Transformative Works because
astolat said free legal advice is more important that fandom goodwill. It leads to the conclusion that Organization for Transformative Works is not about helping fandom but about something external. If it was about fandom, for fandom, they'd care about what fandom thought about them. (And they would stop telling their detractors that they are wrong. They'd ask how to fix the perception problem they have.)
I won't join Organization for Transformative Works because they're obsessed with how outsiders view them. They define themselves not as fans, but on how others see them. I don't need outsiders to define me. I like to define myself. That's why OTW does that whole "We're women" thing anyway: Because they are allowing outsiders to define them, instead of defining themselves.
OTW is about allowing outsiders to control them because OTW is allowing that stupidity to continue. And willfully. Most fans don't see fandom as gendered at all. OTW should better in market research inside fandom and find out how fans define themselves first. And then respond and represent that: Stop defining yourself externally. Define yourself internally.
But make up your own mind. And then, get your post linked on
metafandom because YAY!
