![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
angualupin.livejournal.com posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
life_wo_fanlibThe Real Communications Divide: Goal-Oriented vs. Network-Based
DISCLAIMER: Sweeping generalizations about fandom follow. Also, the "fandom" I am talking about belongs solely to LJ, not because LJ is the be-all and end-all of fandom, but because it is LJ's social network that is rising against FanLib. There are plenty of people who fit into fandom but not this particular analysis of "fandom", but they're not the ones banging on drums and calling for FanLib's heads, so I'm not talking about them.
Read at your own risk.
I have been watching the whole FanLib debacle with a certain amount of glee, not the least of which because I find it thrilling to watch people shoot themselves in the foot, as FanLib has been doing in a particularly spectacular, annihilatory way. And I have reached certain conclusions: namely, that FanLib has fallen down not because they are rapacious, greedy, and not terribly bright, but because their view of the world is fundamentally opposed to the view which fanfiction writers have of their community.
FanLib has come in to the debate with a certain mindset. (I’d call it “masculine” because it traditionally is, as the social mindset fic writers have is traditionally feminine, but that would cause people to focus on the gender issue, and I am trying to talk about the communications issue.) They see a resource, they think it should be put to use, they have goals to do this and they set about reaching them. This, in and of itself, is not evil, or even wrong. It is simply one way to go about doing things. Fandom, on the other hand (and I am using “fandom” as a short hand for “the community of fanfiction writers and readers”, although I am aware that they are not the same thing), has a completely different mindset. Fandom is a community, which relies on social ties, an internally created hierarchy, and constant communication between its members. It is tight-knit and wary of outsiders, not because it has been burned in the past, but because of its intrinsic nature. Membership in the group must be established by spending a certain amount of time interacting with other members of the group, and your place in the group is determined by the network of social interactions you have set up. Again, this is not inherently good just as how FanLib thinks of things is not inherently evil, it is simply a different way to go about doing things.
This kind of group is by its very nature difficult to break into. Establishing a social network takes time and a great deal of effort, and cannot be accomplished by walking into an established group and saying, “Here I am!”* FanLib’s mistake was thinking that by showing up and “talking like they belonged” (which they got wrong, of course, but that was a symptom of not knowing the kind of community they were dealing with), they could become an accepted part of the community.
The mistake is understandable. FanLib is approaching the issue from a completely different mindset. To them it is incomprehensible that they would not be accepted immediately if they offered a “cool” product (that they thought their product held any attraction to the community in the first place was another symptom of not knowing the kind of community they were dealing with), because the kind of social networking that forms the basis of fandom is alien to them. In their world, you are judged by the product you produce, or at least the product you can promise you will produce, not by the social ties you have. In fact, social ties in the manner which fandom employs them, that is, social ties used for being social, are essentially valueless in FanLib’s world. I am not claiming (to be clear) that product is not valued in fandom -- we do like to read good fics, not crap, and (let's be honest) there is a lot of crap out there, on LJ just as much as on the infamous "Pit of Voles". In fact, the main argument about why BNFs have such a place in the social hierarchy, and I think it's a valid argument, is because the product they produce is of such quality. But in fandom, quality product fits into a social network. All product does. And that social network is valued because it is a social network, not simply because it is associated with the production of product. This is what FanLib is not getting. Since in their world value is judged solely by the products produced, the idea that the social interactions themselves are highly valued in addition to the product is incomprehensible to them.
It is obvious that FanLib was shocked and confused when they encountered the reality of fandom, and that they are (finally) trying to work with fandom, or at least no longer alienate it, as evidenced by the answers Chris Williams was willing to give to Harry Jenkings. But the mere fact that Williams refused to talk to anyone except Professor Jenkins is indicative that they have not changed mindsets – indeed, that they still are clueless about how fandom actually works. I have only the utmost respect for Professor Jenkins and the work he does with fandom, but the truth of the matter is he is not “one of us”. He is the benevolent anthropologist, an onlooker who may have established social ties with the community but not within the community. Williams stated that he was willing to talk to Jenkins and not to members of fandom because he “had dual citizenship in fandom and academia” – and that, right there, is why FanLib is failing. Williams fails to grasp that fandom is its own self-contained unit and does not appreciate intrusion from outside, and that “academia” is not a part of the community and therefore communication with an “academic” because he is an academic, even one as partial to fandom as Jenkins, is hardly going to gain you acceptance in fandom. Williams fails to grasp that to be accepted by fandom he must become part of fandom, and that that means interacting with the people who compose fandom, not those who serve as its communication to the outside world. In fact, by using Jenkins as an interpreter, Williams is firmly establishing that he considers himself part of that “outside world”, but he seems unable to realize that this means he is not going to be able to get fandom to do what he wants. Fandom does not trust the outside world not because it is the outside world, but because it is not fandom.
I am not going to start talking here about how FanLib is “doomed to fail”. They can certainly narrow their scope in such a manner that most of our objections are made irrelevant, and there is no reason why they cannot become successful by being a holding pit for all those refugees from the “BNF” culture on LJ, like a not-yet-wanky FF.net. (I am not saying that FanLib doing such a thing would lessen its risk to us, in the issue of forcing lawsuits we do not want, I am simply saying that becoming such a thing may well enable it to survive without the involvement of the pesky argumentative LJ-types. After all, I’m pretty sure they didn’t know we existed in the first place.) What I am saying is that unless there is a paradigm shift in the FanLib company, they are doomed to never gain acceptance within fandom, because they not only do not think like us, they don’t understand how we think.
And this is a divide that is impossible to communicate across – they will continue to say, “But we have an awesome product! Why don’t you like it?”, and we will continue to say, “We prefer the product we make ourselves, not because it is better than yours, but because it is ours.”
* On a side note, I think this is at the heart of the problem some people have with “BNFs” – it is not specifically their place in the hierarchy they are objecting to, it is that BNFs have a more established social network and in a community where your position is determined by the strength of your social interactions the not-BNFs feel like they are on the fringes, with the resentment that any fringe group has. And I’m not saying this as a BNF myself – I think about six people read my X-Men fic, and maybe twenty read my football (er, soccer) RPS if I post it to a community, so I hardly qualify.
Some of this has been reworked due to insightful points raised in the comments.
DISCLAIMER: Sweeping generalizations about fandom follow. Also, the "fandom" I am talking about belongs solely to LJ, not because LJ is the be-all and end-all of fandom, but because it is LJ's social network that is rising against FanLib. There are plenty of people who fit into fandom but not this particular analysis of "fandom", but they're not the ones banging on drums and calling for FanLib's heads, so I'm not talking about them.
Read at your own risk.
I have been watching the whole FanLib debacle with a certain amount of glee, not the least of which because I find it thrilling to watch people shoot themselves in the foot, as FanLib has been doing in a particularly spectacular, annihilatory way. And I have reached certain conclusions: namely, that FanLib has fallen down not because they are rapacious, greedy, and not terribly bright, but because their view of the world is fundamentally opposed to the view which fanfiction writers have of their community.
FanLib has come in to the debate with a certain mindset. (I’d call it “masculine” because it traditionally is, as the social mindset fic writers have is traditionally feminine, but that would cause people to focus on the gender issue, and I am trying to talk about the communications issue.) They see a resource, they think it should be put to use, they have goals to do this and they set about reaching them. This, in and of itself, is not evil, or even wrong. It is simply one way to go about doing things. Fandom, on the other hand (and I am using “fandom” as a short hand for “the community of fanfiction writers and readers”, although I am aware that they are not the same thing), has a completely different mindset. Fandom is a community, which relies on social ties, an internally created hierarchy, and constant communication between its members. It is tight-knit and wary of outsiders, not because it has been burned in the past, but because of its intrinsic nature. Membership in the group must be established by spending a certain amount of time interacting with other members of the group, and your place in the group is determined by the network of social interactions you have set up. Again, this is not inherently good just as how FanLib thinks of things is not inherently evil, it is simply a different way to go about doing things.
This kind of group is by its very nature difficult to break into. Establishing a social network takes time and a great deal of effort, and cannot be accomplished by walking into an established group and saying, “Here I am!”* FanLib’s mistake was thinking that by showing up and “talking like they belonged” (which they got wrong, of course, but that was a symptom of not knowing the kind of community they were dealing with), they could become an accepted part of the community.
The mistake is understandable. FanLib is approaching the issue from a completely different mindset. To them it is incomprehensible that they would not be accepted immediately if they offered a “cool” product (that they thought their product held any attraction to the community in the first place was another symptom of not knowing the kind of community they were dealing with), because the kind of social networking that forms the basis of fandom is alien to them. In their world, you are judged by the product you produce, or at least the product you can promise you will produce, not by the social ties you have. In fact, social ties in the manner which fandom employs them, that is, social ties used for being social, are essentially valueless in FanLib’s world. I am not claiming (to be clear) that product is not valued in fandom -- we do like to read good fics, not crap, and (let's be honest) there is a lot of crap out there, on LJ just as much as on the infamous "Pit of Voles". In fact, the main argument about why BNFs have such a place in the social hierarchy, and I think it's a valid argument, is because the product they produce is of such quality. But in fandom, quality product fits into a social network. All product does. And that social network is valued because it is a social network, not simply because it is associated with the production of product. This is what FanLib is not getting. Since in their world value is judged solely by the products produced, the idea that the social interactions themselves are highly valued in addition to the product is incomprehensible to them.
It is obvious that FanLib was shocked and confused when they encountered the reality of fandom, and that they are (finally) trying to work with fandom, or at least no longer alienate it, as evidenced by the answers Chris Williams was willing to give to Harry Jenkings. But the mere fact that Williams refused to talk to anyone except Professor Jenkins is indicative that they have not changed mindsets – indeed, that they still are clueless about how fandom actually works. I have only the utmost respect for Professor Jenkins and the work he does with fandom, but the truth of the matter is he is not “one of us”. He is the benevolent anthropologist, an onlooker who may have established social ties with the community but not within the community. Williams stated that he was willing to talk to Jenkins and not to members of fandom because he “had dual citizenship in fandom and academia” – and that, right there, is why FanLib is failing. Williams fails to grasp that fandom is its own self-contained unit and does not appreciate intrusion from outside, and that “academia” is not a part of the community and therefore communication with an “academic” because he is an academic, even one as partial to fandom as Jenkins, is hardly going to gain you acceptance in fandom. Williams fails to grasp that to be accepted by fandom he must become part of fandom, and that that means interacting with the people who compose fandom, not those who serve as its communication to the outside world. In fact, by using Jenkins as an interpreter, Williams is firmly establishing that he considers himself part of that “outside world”, but he seems unable to realize that this means he is not going to be able to get fandom to do what he wants. Fandom does not trust the outside world not because it is the outside world, but because it is not fandom.
I am not going to start talking here about how FanLib is “doomed to fail”. They can certainly narrow their scope in such a manner that most of our objections are made irrelevant, and there is no reason why they cannot become successful by being a holding pit for all those refugees from the “BNF” culture on LJ, like a not-yet-wanky FF.net. (I am not saying that FanLib doing such a thing would lessen its risk to us, in the issue of forcing lawsuits we do not want, I am simply saying that becoming such a thing may well enable it to survive without the involvement of the pesky argumentative LJ-types. After all, I’m pretty sure they didn’t know we existed in the first place.) What I am saying is that unless there is a paradigm shift in the FanLib company, they are doomed to never gain acceptance within fandom, because they not only do not think like us, they don’t understand how we think.
And this is a divide that is impossible to communicate across – they will continue to say, “But we have an awesome product! Why don’t you like it?”, and we will continue to say, “We prefer the product we make ourselves, not because it is better than yours, but because it is ours.”
* On a side note, I think this is at the heart of the problem some people have with “BNFs” – it is not specifically their place in the hierarchy they are objecting to, it is that BNFs have a more established social network and in a community where your position is determined by the strength of your social interactions the not-BNFs feel like they are on the fringes, with the resentment that any fringe group has. And I’m not saying this as a BNF myself – I think about six people read my X-Men fic, and maybe twenty read my football (er, soccer) RPS if I post it to a community, so I hardly qualify.
Some of this has been reworked due to insightful points raised in the comments.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2007-05-26 03:45 pm (UTC)But still, the product lies within a social network, and ultimately it is not the product that is rising up against FanLib, it is the network. The network has value in and of itself, and that is what FanLib does not understand. To produce product which the network is willing to embrace requires becoming part of the network, which FanLib is not attempting to do. (See: only communicating through a "reputable academic".)
I will try to revise my essay to reflect these points. (Fandom, I love you. I'm getting serious critique for this.)
no subject
Date: 2007-05-26 04:14 pm (UTC)Oh, absolutely, and very well-put. Or at least they didn't understand it until the last week or so :-)
To produce product which the network is willing to embrace requires becoming part of the network, which FanLib is not attempting to do. (See: only communicating through a "reputable academic".)
It'll be interesting to see if they're waiting for leadership to emerge - a fandom Board of Directors, if you will,someone they can communicate with instead of trying to pick through the admitted clamor of voices, or if they're just waiting to see if it all blows over and they can benefit enough from all the free hype to just ignore us all and move on with their plans.
I completely agree this is a social network -a market - whose mere existence, much less composition, needs and desires, Fanlib completely failed to take into account or research.
I certainly wouldn't want to discount or ignore the existence or importance of the network. It's just that for me, the social network of the fandom is kind of like the one at my office - I'm a part of it, I derive some enjoyment from it, but it's not why I go to work every day. Also I would hope that my boss isn't appraising my performance based on whom I hang out with at the water cooler (although he probably is).
no subject
Date: 2007-05-26 05:54 pm (UTC)I think you might be in the minority on the social network thing, though. Most of the people I know are in fandom for the social network, and the fic (and other things, like icons, vids, meta, and such) are an intrinsic part of that social network, not a goal in and of itself.
no subject
Date: 2007-05-26 08:10 pm (UTC)Well, true; but it would be fun to watch :-)
The problem is that without it, FL is somewhat justified in their incomprehension regarding how to address the concerns of hundreds of individual fen, all demanding individual replies.
I think you might be in the minority on the social network thing, though. Most of the people I know are in fandom for the social network, and the fic (and other things, like icons, vids, meta, and such) are an intrinsic part of that social network, not a goal in and of itself.
Yeah; I suppose I'm probably
weirdin minority as far as the social network being a byproduct of the fanfiction and not the other way around. Maybe this is more common in a book fandom, although certainly there are large sectors of the JRRT fandom where your model would be more applicable than mine. In my experience, though, valued social contacts do spring from interaction within the fandom, though the ones that endure tend to be those which can survive the transition to a broader set of interests.no subject
Date: 2007-05-27 04:30 am (UTC)Someone noted somewhere that fanlib has a LJ community set up (never used):
http://fanlib.livejournal.com/profile?mode=full
People noted they could set up a comm (look how fast this comm went up), and I think people would have been willing to watch it.
CW is the one who invited
And they never even thought to use the community they set up? Are they just cybersquatting on the name so no evil nassssty fen can use it?
no subject
Date: 2007-05-27 02:48 pm (UTC)And I think they're right. It's a losing proposition to engage us any further, because from most posts I've read (and my own personal opinion), it's clear there is nothing they can do to make us happy except self-destruct and swirl down the nearest sewer. They've made too many non-recoverable errors. Does anyone really believe that if they engage us the way we keep asking them to, and make some more little tweaks to their TOS, we'll smile and jump on board, or at least go happily about our business? Hell, no. We're like a dog with a bone. It's a feeding frenzy. Wanking about Fanlib is entertainment. We collectively detest everything about them, from their whiny loser CEO to their alleged LJ spokesperson who doesn't even know how to do HTML italics to their slimy business plan to their headache-inspiring webpage design to their clear contempt for us as a market. And they just keep making it worse. With every marketing plan someone uncovers or every e-mail someone painstakingly deconstructs, they're moving further and further into irredeemable territory in the collective mind of the fandom. They're pretty dumb but they're not blind. They can see this is a losing proposition, and as someone pointed out in another thread, we aren't the market they were looking for anyway. They made a few feeble attempts at appeasement, but by now they're already figuring out how to work around us. They see engaging us further as an exercise in futility. They'll back out of this blind alley as quick as they can and go find some 14-year-old boys who like shiny stuff.
no subject
Date: 2007-05-27 03:14 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-05-27 11:27 pm (UTC)And as someone (stewardess? telesilla?) noted at some point--really, with fandom's well-known short attention, if CW hadn't spammed journals and they hadn't run around with big signs saying "kick me" as they did, it would have died down quickly as we dashed off after a bunch of new shineys (in my case, PIRATES!). After all there was information about them floating around the internet earlier that didn't cause wank.
However, I'm struck by this evaluation of what was likely to happen had they engaged with fandom in LJ:
But so far, when they do answer a question, everything they say just gets dissected and deconstructed and turned around and shot right back at them - or used for wank fodder. They have to be seriously wondering, if they agree to engage Telesilla or someone else, if this will put her issues to bed as far as the fandom at large is concerned, or whether another spokesperson (or Telesilla again) will step up in a few days with the same or a whole 'nother laundry list of issues? And when will it end?
I agree and wonder if CW thought that engaging with Henry would in fact put this to rest (it hasn't--the deconstruction continues apace over at is blog and all over the place). The furor will die down soon, to some extent, but I doubt it will end (and people will be watching like sharks for blood in the water, I predict!)
Apparently they're using some of the interview questions to cut and paste into the forums at the site. They've shut down some question threads. Nobody seems likely to respond to the deconstruction going on at Henry's blog. (And CW actually voted on
So I think you're right about disengaging. I just think that also, maybe, they thought they could draw on Jenkins' perceived authority was a way of shutting at least some of us up.
Didn't work, though!
no subject
Date: 2007-05-29 12:41 am (UTC)::coughs modestly::
That was me.
I think eventually we'll stop bitching at them, and they'll just do their thing, and in all likelihood the sky will not fall. But I do feel sorry for the 14-year-olds who FanLib may well hang out to dry if, say, the CW or MGM insists they remove all the slash from the site, or even file suit.
no subject
Date: 2007-05-30 01:12 am (UTC)HA.
Oh, they so are.
This reminds me of an old Doonesbury cartoon -- a woman living on the street makes up lapel buttons and tells someone passing by on Capitol Hill that he can buy a "subscription" for a year -- make one donation of $100, wear this lapel button, and no one will ask him for change until his subscription expires. He's relieved and thankful, and immediately buys the button. Of course, there is no street-folk union, and the button means nothing. But Capitol Hill guy thinks he's got it this being-bothered-by-bums thing solved.
FanLib would be grateful beyond words for such a detente offering. And it would mean nothing. I'm not mean enough to suggest it to them, but can you imagine?
no subject
Date: 2007-05-27 10:03 am (UTC)Anyway, just thought I'd let you know you aren't as alone as you may think.
no subject
Date: 2007-05-28 03:30 am (UTC)Hee. Thanks!
Actually if I had to choose between the social ties I've gained as a result of my involvement in the fandom or the fanfiction itself, at this point in my life it'd be a slam dunk in favor of the friendships. But that's precisly because they quickly evolved beyond a narrow focus on the fandom.
no subject
Date: 2007-05-27 01:09 pm (UTC)The problem is that without it, FL is somewhat justified in their incomprehension regarding how to address the concerns of hundreds of individual fen, all demanding individual replies.
I'd say that initiating a dialogue directly with the fen who've tried to dialogue with them ([Bad username or site: @ livejournal.com] being the prime example) would be a good start. And not spamming rude diatribes across fannish journals while going to Henry Jenkins' blog and agreeing to be interviewed would be a good second step. (Honestly, that entire interview reply reads to me like something FL's general counsel came up with. I've worked in various aspects of law for seven or eight years now; I know lawyer-speak.) There's no one right way to do it, but I think they've found all the wrong ways.
Yeah; I suppose I'm probably weird in minority as far as the social network being a byproduct of the fanfiction and not the other way around.
What fandom are you in? Now, for me, the social network came first, but I was in old school newsgroup/mailing list fandom - and I don't mean yahoogroups, I mean 'when we had one or two big listservs because you couldn't get e-mail lists easily - so the social network was of prime importance. I fic, yes, but that came later for me. (Now, I realize the letter zine people will totally pwn me in terms of old schoolishness.) I hadn't realized that some people thought fanfic = fandom. Because to me, it's so much more than that.
In my experience, though, valued social contacts do spring from interaction within the fandom, though the ones that endure tend to be those which can survive the transition to a broader set of interests.
No arguments there. I've made some of my best friends from fandom, and though we've both gafiated off into fandoms, we still have the social network we developed to keep us in contact.
no subject
Date: 2007-05-28 03:45 am (UTC)That's for sure.
What fandom are you in?
Tolkien. An odd little corner of it, maybe. I've also made some of my best friends from fandom, but fandom is a very small part of those friendships. I don't use my LJ to post fics, nor do most of my LJ flist. We discuss writing on the LJ, but the fics go up on the archive with no SSPing on LJ. I prefer the compartmentalization because it allows me to maintain LJ friendships with people who are not necessarily interested in my subgenre (or my writing) without the obligatory hand-clapping.
no subject
Date: 2007-05-28 02:19 am (UTC)