life_wo_fanlib | Entries tagged with fanlib: sexism

stewardess.livejournal.com

A week after Henry Jenkins interviewed Chris Williams, FanLib CEO, he began a series called "Gender and Fan Studies."

As you may recall [see the henry jenkins interview tag if you need a reminder], Chris Williams's refusal to talk to

telesilla and other women in fandom sparked ~~well-deserved~~ charges of sexism.

Edit: The series was planned by others, with Jenkins as host, long before FanLib appeared on the scene, so FanLib is not a topic.

The series is mirrored in LJ at

fandebate!

stewardess.livejournal.com

A recent LJ poll on permanent accounts contains interesting demographic info.

See the poll by

ardath_rekha here in her LJ.

In spite of LJ's insistence we're a bunch of youngsters obsessed with clothes and boybands, the active LJ population (as opposed to the millions who open accounts and never use them) are older and heavily female ~~and cranky~~. We are also obsessed with boybands (can I bake them cookies and watch them make out plz?), but let's leave that alone for the moment.

Percentage who are female: 87%
Percentage older than 25: 60%

I think it is safe to assume most people who participated in the poll are active in fandom, because the author of the poll is in fandom, and the poll was mainly pimped in fandom communities.

Fandom = active = around to take polls, another thing LJ has never grasped, even after

fandom_counts had 30,000 signatures in 24 hours.

If the numbers are even remotely accurate, it proves something else we've known in our old female guts: FanLib hoping young males will get into fanfiction and buy their advertisers' shit is ignorant, stupid, and just plain silly.

If FanLib continues to ignore/insult older female fen, it is doomed. Oh, wait...

Edit: Since the Mimbo Brothers first pissed us off by ignoring

telesilla's request for dialogue and talking to Henry Jenkins instead, folks have been asking: is FanLib's sexism relevant to the issue of profiting from fanfiction? I think so, at least when we're talking about FanLib.

FanLib's sexism is their fatal weakness. It's behind every major bone-headed mistake they have made, including launching the site in the first place.

scarah2.livejournal.com

Are you a guy or a gal? Link goes to FanLib.

- I was incorrect earlier, bryson is male

- As of this posting, even FanLib is 78% female

Fun bryson quotes:

"I feeling like a wolf in the sheep's den."

"You mean good pickins'?"

paradox-dragon.livejournal.com

Thought some people here might be interested in my meta post on sexism and Fanlib here.

joiedumonde.livejournal.com

So, I tried posting this yesterday, but LJ was waaaay too wonky to let it through.

I was searching LJ for things about fanlib, and came across something interesting. They have not only an LJ, but also a community created back in Feb.

fanlib is not directly linked with

mimbo or

jdsampson, but because of the date and the user icon, I'd say it's genuine. Like CW's lj it is a plus account, but has no posts, or at least none that are visible to others. It also has only one place friended (that is not related to lj specifically).

This 'friend' is a community called

charworldnews which also has no posts, but is also a plus account. The only owner/maintainer is

fanlib. There are no user pics for the site, but given the info above, I'd say it is also legit.

Now this in and of itself wouldn't be that remarkable, they were doing market research/wanted to set up something for future use/wanted to cybersquat/are just weird...etc.

But if you look at the comment by

almostnever over at Henry Jenkins blog where she writes:

Why is the gender question "a bit unfair"? Fans invited Mr. Williams to comment freely as part of existing discussions. We also encouraged him to create a Livejournal community where he and/or his representatives could take questions and answer them in his own words, unedited, in his own time.

He backed away from those proposals. But he agreed readily to this interview. I'm grateful to Henry Jenkins for representing fannish questions so well here. But what was the problem with dealing with us directly? If he wanted to deal with fewer people, Mr. Williams could have asked us to designate two or three representatives. I would have voted Stewardess and Telesilla for that in a heartbeat.

It seems to make plainer the, if not contempt then the utter disregard CW has for the lj community/fandom in general. I mean he had a ready made outlet where he could have even controled the debate via moding. But he chose to take it to so-called neutral territory. Did he think that we wouldn't follow to Jenkins' blog?

Thoughts?

x-posted to my journal

elf

Commenting on the Chris Williams Interview. Long; approx. 2,000 words. (A substantial part of that is quotes.) I'd put it at my journal, but right now, I'm keeping most of my journal locked, so instead, I'm doing the main post here & sending my friendslist a link.

( Commentary inside )

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Life Without FanLib

Entries tagged with fanlib: sexism

Gender and Fan Studies

LJ fandom demographics: 87% female?

FanLib respects chyxx!

The all-male board of directors at fanlib, and why it is relevant

Fanlib has an LJ

Interview Commentary

Profile

January 2015

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