they didn't realize in the first instance that fanfictions were written mostly by women.
I don't know how they could miss that if they did any market research at all. I think their ads appear to be directed at men because they're trying to get more men into fan fiction (untapped market ahoy, especially since advertisers inexplicably prefer to reach a male audience), not because they think there are already lots of men into fan fiction.
And for the fact that they have chose to communicate with Henry Jenkins instead of the fan communauty... Well, why see that with the point of view "They have taken seriously a man instead of women"? Why not see that with the point of view"They have taken seriously and academician instead of members of the fics communauty?"
How about I see it both ways? I'm irked that perfectly reasonable fans were ignored even after taking up his offer to "open a dialogue", but an academician was given an interview.
I also believe that gender figured into it, because frankly, the CEO made a ploy for sympathy with female fans that I have a hard time believing he would make if he were talking to men. Female fans got his sloppy emo comment response while the male academician got a much more professional interview. I think it's a gender issue and a status issue, and the two are frequently intertwined anyway.
Honestly, when I see their strategy, I wonder if they've made serious study about their potential market and if they have a single bit of serious knowledge about fanfiction and the grey area where it takes place on a legal point of view. Their adds were obviously targeting men(in a very bad way but stills..) and I've thought they have made assumptions about the average fanfictions writer. But maybe you're right and they were trying to attract a male audience in fanfic business, it's a something I've never thought before but it mades perfect sense.
"Female fans got his sloppy emo comment response while the male academician got a much more professional interview. I think it's a gender issue and a status issue, and the two are frequently intertwined anyway." Personnaly, I think that the CEO was more serious with Jenkins because he have understood that he had shoot himself in the foot with his previous childish behaviour and that the interview with jenkins were the best opportunity to restore a bit of credibility in front of the other fan. Or maybe that his market advisor have uses the cluebat on their boss and have succeded to explain to him that acting in front of the sceptic like an emo teenager was not the more clever move to made? I don't think that the difference of behaviour were specially related to a gender issue, but hey, it's just my opinion.
And I agree that both views about this interviews are valid, what it bother me is the fact that the gender issue seemed to be the ONLY view which matter for some people.
Major feminist here--going on thirty years--and gender wasn't the only issue for me (or any feminist post I read), but it was a key one.
And would it have been as bad had the board been all women doing exactly what FanLib did?
Well, see, there's *no* chance in the world that there would have been an all-woman board because women hit the same kinds of glass ceilings in the media companies as they do elsewhere -- so that's part of a feminist analysis for me as well (let's add race: apparently with one possible exception, they're all white and odds are most are straight--what kind of professional puts his baby on his resume? I teachd technical writing and have a resume assignment and make students take all personal/marital/etc. information off resumes).
The one self identified woman showed that women can be just as clueless and unprofessional as the men on the board; I don't believe having a woman guarantees any sort of quality.
I keep hearing that gender was the only issue for X people--but I haven't seen any of those posts. Care to link me to some?
Because all the ones I've seen started with the insult to basic fan intelligence about copyright, bad marketing, unprofesional communication, and no surprise look it's an all male board trying to make money off a female-oriented base (and if they didn't know fanfiction is primarily female-dominated and has been since the Trek days--I was in Star Trek fandom in the seventies--then they haven't been paying attention to the fandoms they claim to be in). Gender blindness was the added insult to the overall injury.
"I keep hearing that gender was the only issue for X people--but I haven't seen any of those posts. Care to link me to some? " For example, this thread on fanlib's forum. http://www.fanlib.com/posts/list/135/195.page (check the 10 and 11th pages)
I don't said that every fanlib's detractor had played the gender opression card, just that some of them have overused it(or that some of the people who have tryed to interogate the things with this perspective have a behaviour that I don't think better than the one which bother them).
And for the fact that the fanlib's board were made of men, well, why is this something RELATED specifically to fanlib and their business with fandom? You're telling me that it's unfair that women have not a better place in business's world? Or in society in general?No problem, I agree with you. You're telling me that fanlib's business men are dangerous BECAUSE they're men? No, I'm not with you anymore. Trying to made profit with fanfic is dangerous for the fandom, trying to exploit PEOPLE(men and women) without rewarding them is scandalous. Even if fanlib's board were the exceptions to the rules and dominated by women, the problem would be exactly the same for me.
And you have said it yourself, the problem is not limited to gender. But strangely, I did't see the "lifestyle" issue debated with fanlib. I did't see the race issue debated either.I did't see the social class issue debated either.
And yes, fanlib's guys were trully clueless about the fandom they wanted to exploit, I perfectly agree with you about this(and if they know that most of the people in fandom were women, their strategy sounds more ridiculous for me) but I think it's more stupidity than male chauvivism.
I don't know how they could miss that if they did any market research at all.
They didn't, not really.
They looked into "fanfic." They discovered that there's no standard age range of fanfic authors, that the genders involved are almost impossible to sort out from online names (especially if you're not in the fandom), that fanfic authors range from barely-literate teens to PhDs, from retail clerks at Target to CEOs.
With those basic facts, they decided to skip all attempts to "market to the demographic"--there is no demographic, they decided, so they'd market to "the general public."
Which worked for eBay, and they're shocked it's not working for them. Like eBay, they want to have a site that offers a diverse collection of stuff, some obviously valuable, some obviously drek, and a whole bunch that's "one person's garbage is another's treasure." (The more I think about it, the more I think that might be the case: they want to be "just like eBay, except there's no payments involved! How can you lose?")
"advertisers inexplicably prefer to reach a male audience" I think that's got to do with the fact they tend to be male themselves, and it's easier to know what pleases a demographic if you're in it. This also explains they age group they tend to aim at: young to middle aged men.
More of a case of laziness than outright gender abuse if you ask me.
As for Williams feeling more comfortable with Jenkins, it runs along the same lines. He knows how Jenkins is likely to think better than he knows how fans think as his comment most clearly pointed out, if the business strategy didn't already. And I still think his sloppy emo response was intentionally so. He's probably used to using that kind of tack on other targets. Didn't someone mention them working on competitions events with a teenage group?
I think that's got to do with the fact they tend to be male themselves
It's because they believe men 18-34 have the most earning power and the least financial obligations of any market segment. And because 18-34 men are traditionally the most impulse-spending group. (Older, higher-earning men are usually married a/o homeowners less likely to blow $800 on speakers or what have you.)
I still think his sloppy emo response was intentionally so.
I think it was intentional too, and I find it somewhat sexist (unconsciously, perhaps) that he thought that tactic would work on us. Obviously he was wrong.
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timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2007-05-26 03:31 am (UTC)I don't know how they could miss that if they did any market research at all. I think their ads appear to be directed at men because they're trying to get more men into fan fiction (untapped market ahoy, especially since advertisers inexplicably prefer to reach a male audience), not because they think there are already lots of men into fan fiction.
And for the fact that they have chose to communicate with Henry Jenkins instead of the fan communauty...
Well, why see that with the point of view "They have taken seriously a man instead of women"?
Why not see that with the point of view"They have taken seriously and academician instead of members of the fics communauty?"
How about I see it both ways? I'm irked that perfectly reasonable fans were ignored even after taking up his offer to "open a dialogue", but an academician was given an interview.
I also believe that gender figured into it, because frankly, the CEO made a ploy for sympathy with female fans that I have a hard time believing he would make if he were talking to men. Female fans got his sloppy emo comment response while the male academician got a much more professional interview. I think it's a gender issue and a status issue, and the two are frequently intertwined anyway.
no subject
Date: 2007-05-26 03:59 am (UTC)Their adds were obviously targeting men(in a very bad way but stills..) and I've thought they have made assumptions about the average fanfictions writer.
But maybe you're right and they were trying to attract a male audience in fanfic business, it's a something I've never thought before but it mades perfect sense.
"Female fans got his sloppy emo comment response while the male academician got a much more professional interview. I think it's a gender issue and a status issue, and the two are frequently intertwined anyway."
Personnaly, I think that the CEO was more serious with Jenkins because he have understood that he had shoot himself in the foot with his previous childish behaviour and that the interview with jenkins were the best opportunity to restore a bit of credibility in front of the other fan.
Or maybe that his market advisor have uses the cluebat on their boss and have succeded to explain to him that acting in front of the sceptic like an emo teenager was not the more clever move to made?
I don't think that the difference of behaviour were specially related to a gender issue, but hey, it's just my opinion.
And I agree that both views about this interviews are valid, what it bother me is the fact that the gender issue seemed to be the ONLY view which matter for some people.
no subject
Date: 2007-05-26 04:15 am (UTC)And would it have been as bad had the board been all women doing exactly what FanLib did?
Well, see, there's *no* chance in the world that there would have been an all-woman board because women hit the same kinds of glass ceilings in the media companies as they do elsewhere -- so that's part of a feminist analysis for me as well (let's add race: apparently with one possible exception, they're all white and odds are most are straight--what kind of professional puts his baby on his resume? I teachd technical writing and have a resume assignment and make students take all personal/marital/etc. information off resumes).
The one self identified woman showed that women can be just as clueless and unprofessional as the men on the board; I don't believe having a woman guarantees any sort of quality.
I keep hearing that gender was the only issue for X people--but I haven't seen any of those posts. Care to link me to some?
Because all the ones I've seen started with the insult to basic fan intelligence about copyright, bad marketing, unprofesional communication, and no surprise look it's an all male board trying to make money off a female-oriented base (and if they didn't know fanfiction is primarily female-dominated and has been since the Trek days--I was in Star Trek fandom in the seventies--then they haven't been paying attention to the fandoms they claim to be in). Gender blindness was the added insult to the overall injury.
no subject
Date: 2007-05-26 04:46 am (UTC)For example, this thread on fanlib's forum.
http://www.fanlib.com/posts/list/135/195.page
(check the 10 and 11th pages)
I don't said that every fanlib's detractor had played the gender opression card, just that some of them have overused it(or that some of the people who have tryed to interogate the things with this perspective have a behaviour that I don't think better than the one which bother them).
And for the fact that the fanlib's board were made of men, well, why is this something RELATED specifically to fanlib and their business with fandom?
You're telling me that it's unfair that women have not a better place in business's world? Or in society in general?No problem, I agree with you.
You're telling me that fanlib's business men are dangerous BECAUSE they're men? No, I'm not with you anymore. Trying to made profit with fanfic is dangerous for the fandom, trying to exploit PEOPLE(men and women) without rewarding them is scandalous. Even if fanlib's board were the exceptions to the rules and dominated by women, the problem would be exactly the same for me.
And you have said it yourself, the problem is not limited to gender. But strangely, I did't see the "lifestyle" issue debated with fanlib. I did't see the race issue debated either.I did't see the social class issue debated either.
And yes, fanlib's guys were trully clueless about the fandom they wanted to exploit, I perfectly agree with you about this(and if they know that most of the people in fandom were women, their strategy sounds more ridiculous for me) but I think it's more stupidity than male chauvivism.
no subject
Date: 2007-05-26 04:03 am (UTC)They didn't, not really.
They looked into "fanfic." They discovered that there's no standard age range of fanfic authors, that the genders involved are almost impossible to sort out from online names (especially if you're not in the fandom), that fanfic authors range from barely-literate teens to PhDs, from retail clerks at Target to CEOs.
With those basic facts, they decided to skip all attempts to "market to the demographic"--there is no demographic, they decided, so they'd market to "the general public."
Which worked for eBay, and they're shocked it's not working for them. Like eBay, they want to have a site that offers a diverse collection of stuff, some obviously valuable, some obviously drek, and a whole bunch that's "one person's garbage is another's treasure." (The more I think about it, the more I think that might be the case: they want to be "just like eBay, except there's no payments involved! How can you lose?")
no subject
Date: 2007-05-26 04:59 am (UTC)I think that's got to do with the fact they tend to be male themselves, and it's easier to know what pleases a demographic if you're in it. This also explains they age group they tend to aim at: young to middle aged men.
More of a case of laziness than outright gender abuse if you ask me.
As for Williams feeling more comfortable with Jenkins, it runs along the same lines. He knows how Jenkins is likely to think better than he knows how fans think
as his comment most clearly pointed out, if the business strategy didn't already.And I still think his sloppy emo response was intentionally so. He's probably used to using that kind of tack on other targets. Didn't someone mention them working on
competitionsevents with a teenage group?no subject
Date: 2007-05-26 06:49 am (UTC)It's because they believe men 18-34 have the most earning power and the least financial obligations of any market segment. And because 18-34 men are traditionally the most impulse-spending group. (Older, higher-earning men are usually married a/o homeowners less likely to blow $800 on speakers or what have you.)
I still think his sloppy emo response was intentionally so.
I think it was intentional too, and I find it somewhat sexist (unconsciously, perhaps) that he thought that tactic would work on us. Obviously he was wrong.