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kerravonsenThere's been a lot of fail and outrage in fandom recently.
1. There is FAIL.
2. OUTRAGE ensues.
3. Failer becomes defensive and perpetrates more FAIL.
4. OUTRAGE doubles.
5. Failer's friends protest and perpetrate additional FAIL.
6. OUTRAGE triples.
7. Optimistic fools wonder aloud why we can't all just be friends.
8. OUTRAGE quadruples, this time directed at those who are outrageous enough not to join in the OUTRAGE.
I wish, I just wish that for once, the cycle would be cut off before step 3. Six words: "I'm sorry. It won't happen again."
I am not an optimistic fool, but in many things I am a pragmatist. Or perhaps I simply have different goals. I would hope that the goal of the OUTRAGE is to prevent FAIL. To change behaviour. Anger is a legitimate reaction to FAIL. When it becomes excessive, however, it not only becomes unreasonable, but it becomes ineffective, indeed counter-productive at the goal of preventing FAIL. And we get Step 5 and beyond.
We also get a chilling effect on others.
There is a story on my bunny-list which is set during the aftermath of an earthquake in the 1970s. I am having second thoughts about finishing it, due to fear of OUTRAGE being directed at me.
There's another reason I'm wary of participating in OUTRAGE. It's the pragmatist in me, again. Peer pressure is a common social tool for changing behaviour. But I am not a peer of these particular Failers. I am a stranger, they don't know me from Adam, they don't care what I think. Me joining in the OUTRAGE would not help.
The other side of that is that, well, I don't care what they think either. Why should I care what a complete stranger says anyway? Really. Someone is WRONG on the Internet. Big deal. Fail happens. Stupid happens. It will keep on happening. I am not going to fix the world by yelling at it. Keep calm, be polite. Lose your temper, lose the argument.
Take the latest round of FAIL. So someone made an insulting remark about people "being off their meds" because they disagreed with them. Yes, that's stupid and insulting. I'm "on meds" myself, and guess what? I am NOT taking that remark personally. I am not taking it as an insult to every person on the planet who is "on meds" either. (Or every person on the planet "on meds" who doesn't ship Doctor/Rose). I don't care. I simply don't care what this random stranger said. I don't give a stuff. Who is this person? Do they have a lot of influence or responsibility? No?(*) Then the potential for harm from their attitude is small. Why should I waste my time on something so unimportant in the scheme of things, then?
(*) Or, at least, they didn't until the OUTRAGE brought fandom's attention to them.
Perhaps this is bringing out the inner Slytherin in me.
ETA: Due to this post being linked to by metafandom and becoming a classic example of Step 8 of the above cycle, this post has been f-locked.
ETA 2: I've changed my mind after calming down and some positive advice. This entry is no longer f-locked, but comments are frozen, and new comments are screened.
1. There is FAIL.
2. OUTRAGE ensues.
3. Failer becomes defensive and perpetrates more FAIL.
4. OUTRAGE doubles.
5. Failer's friends protest and perpetrate additional FAIL.
6. OUTRAGE triples.
7. Optimistic fools wonder aloud why we can't all just be friends.
8. OUTRAGE quadruples, this time directed at those who are outrageous enough not to join in the OUTRAGE.
I wish, I just wish that for once, the cycle would be cut off before step 3. Six words: "I'm sorry. It won't happen again."
I am not an optimistic fool, but in many things I am a pragmatist. Or perhaps I simply have different goals. I would hope that the goal of the OUTRAGE is to prevent FAIL. To change behaviour. Anger is a legitimate reaction to FAIL. When it becomes excessive, however, it not only becomes unreasonable, but it becomes ineffective, indeed counter-productive at the goal of preventing FAIL. And we get Step 5 and beyond.
We also get a chilling effect on others.
There is a story on my bunny-list which is set during the aftermath of an earthquake in the 1970s. I am having second thoughts about finishing it, due to fear of OUTRAGE being directed at me.
There's another reason I'm wary of participating in OUTRAGE. It's the pragmatist in me, again. Peer pressure is a common social tool for changing behaviour. But I am not a peer of these particular Failers. I am a stranger, they don't know me from Adam, they don't care what I think. Me joining in the OUTRAGE would not help.
The other side of that is that, well, I don't care what they think either. Why should I care what a complete stranger says anyway? Really. Someone is WRONG on the Internet. Big deal. Fail happens. Stupid happens. It will keep on happening. I am not going to fix the world by yelling at it. Keep calm, be polite. Lose your temper, lose the argument.
Take the latest round of FAIL. So someone made an insulting remark about people "being off their meds" because they disagreed with them. Yes, that's stupid and insulting. I'm "on meds" myself, and guess what? I am NOT taking that remark personally. I am not taking it as an insult to every person on the planet who is "on meds" either. (Or every person on the planet "on meds" who doesn't ship Doctor/Rose). I don't care. I simply don't care what this random stranger said. I don't give a stuff. Who is this person? Do they have a lot of influence or responsibility? No?(*) Then the potential for harm from their attitude is small. Why should I waste my time on something so unimportant in the scheme of things, then?
(*) Or, at least, they didn't until the OUTRAGE brought fandom's attention to them.
Perhaps this is bringing out the inner Slytherin in me.
ETA: Due to this post being linked to by metafandom and becoming a classic example of Step 8 of the above cycle, this post has been f-locked.
ETA 2: I've changed my mind after calming down and some positive advice. This entry is no longer f-locked, but comments are frozen, and new comments are screened.
(frozen) no subject
Date: 2010-07-20 09:17 am (UTC)I largely agree although I can see where people would find some of your wording troublesome. I'm part of several marginalized groups, and while I think that outrage is the appropriate reaction to certain comments, outrage is largely completely unproductive. Outraged makes people close off. And in my experience it makes the person who was wrong much less likely to listen and correct their ways. No one responds well to violent anger, and much of what fandom has been displaying towards "People Who Are Wrong on the Internet" lately has been very violent anger.
All of this outrage also has a tendency to piss of the very people the outraged people are trying to defend and represent. I personally am getting really sick and tired of every single post turning into a rant about mental illnesses and ablism. Yes, being disabled and having a highly stigmatized mental illness is hard. It sucks. It makes us all angry when we see people using troubling language. However, I don't enjoy associating with people who are always angry all the time. I don't enjoy associating with people who become so incensed at troublesome common vernacular that they have to go off on 40 comment rampages on some unsuspecting person on the internet. I don't enjoy associating with people who lurk snark comms jumping on every person who says the wrong thing at the wrong time and patting eachother on the back for being so awesome and totally not ablist/racist/sexist.
Most of all I don't enjoy associating with people who want to tell me when I should be outraged, and I really really don't enjoy associating with people who assume that I'm somehow an 'ist because I don't become outraged over stupid shit on the internet.
I'm also not happy with the people forgetting that the people being various bad-thing-ists are human beings with thoughts and feelings and limitations just like us. This doesn't excuse them from saying stupid things, and it doesn't mean they shouldn't be corrected when they do things that are wrong and hurtful. However, if there's a lesson this person needs to learn chances are good they'll learn it after the first 10 or 20 angry comments arrive in their inbox. The next 300 people who post angry comments to them or rant about how terrible and inhuman they are in a snark comm or post angry rants in their journals, those people cross the line from expressing their outrage to just plain attacking another person and violating their safety and security.