Untitled post on Cousin Jean's proposal: "She's taking advantage of fandom's communal history of caring, and I think that's abusive"

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Title: Untitled post
Creator: cesperanza, and commenters
Date(s): August 10, 2005
Medium: online
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External Links: untitled post on Cousin Jean's proposal: "She's taking advantage of fandom's communal history of caring, and I think that's abusive", Archived version; page two, Archived version
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This 2005 post by cesperanza is untitled. The title used here on Fanlore is a line from that post.

There were 261 comments to this post, some of which are excerpted below.

Some Topics Discussed

See Also

Excerpts from Cesperanza's Post

[cousinjean is] a fanfiction writer who wants her readers to each contribute the price of a hardback novel so she can take a year off to get her pro career going and finish her WIPs. It's admittedly shocking, but I've been sitting here trying to strip away that initial shock so that I can decide what I really think about it.

I mean, for one thing, I don't really believe that there's anything "inferior" about fannish work per se; I mean, there's great fanfiction that we don't pay for and lousy original work that we do pay for. If we were giving money to writers based on quality, there's some fanfic I would pay for and some original stuff I wouldn't. Moreover, I've been going to conferences and such arguing that fanfiction has only recently been separated from the mainstream of literary production anyway, by relatively recent copyright innovations, and I for one have happily shelled out cash for Chabon's The Final Solution, books of Austen pastiche, etc. So the literary prof in me says, hm--why shouldn't fanfiction be a potentially paid branch of literary production? Let the market decide! After all, people buy Trek novels and such; why shouldn't someone pitch a Spuffy novel, and if it was good, why shouldn't it be published?

Another argument might be against the "blackmail" factor, because one of the things she's doing is demanding money in exchange for finishing her WIPs, and implicitly threatening that they won't get finished unless she gets time and money. But this isn't that shocking a concept either. A couple of years ago, rivkat turned me on to a legal article by Diane Zimmerman called "AUTHORSHIP WITHOUT OWNERSHIP: RECONSIDERING INCENTIVES IN A DIGITAL AGE" which actually suggests that this WIP model may be part of the future of digital publishing. To summarize Zimmerman's argument: the internet provides people with a terrific way to publish lit, but how are we going to get paid? She notes that in the Victorian age, people like Dickens posted--yes--in parts, and if enough people didn't buy, the story just didn't get finished. It's not a new economic model, and as these things go, it's a relatively effective one: Stephen King tried it recently with "The Plant," (and I don't think that got finished either.) We ourselves as fans have offered to throw money at TPTB to finish a storyline that we like. TV serials are based on it.

So what's the problem? We pay for stories, and what's wrong with creating demand for your writing? As an amateur publishing venture, Cousin Jean's plan makes sense; in fact, it's smart, and may well be the wave of the future....

But... This isn't fandom. Fandom is not--in my opinion, and despite the constant whining, worried, self-justifying quotes in mediocre newspaper articles--merely a "training ground" for professional writing. Yes, many fan writers become pro-writers, and many people find their writing skills improve as a result of writing fanfic, etc., which is terrific and makes me happy: you go, guys!! Similarly, many fan writers are already pro writers, or English majors, or publishing people, or journalists, or technical writers, or college professors, or--shock!--avid and involved readers, who'd'a thunk. But I believe that that's not why they're fanwriters, and if it IS why they're fanwriters, i.e. purely as a steppingstone to somewhere else, then they're not really in the fannish community--and this, I think, is why the horror at this announcement. I mean, there's nothing wrong with contracting for goods and services, but I think we would all of us be justly shocked if our spouses started charging us for sex, or if our friends started charging us for all the therapy that they provide us. Elynross said, wearily, that this may be the new face of fandom, and in a way she's right: I mean, it's possible that "fandom" has gotten so huge that people no longer feel a sense of community with the people for whom they write. But I don't think so. In the above announcement, this woman is discussing her life, goals, and impending wedding in a way that implies that we care--she is treating us, as merryish said: "like a community, not an audience." That's where, I think, the quite understandable outrage is coming from; she's trying to appeal to the "community" while fucking with its rules--primarily with the gift culture. If she were working within the world of commercial publishing as I stated above, that would be fine (and I do think that one can be in both of those worlds at the same time; there'd be nothing wrong, to me, with her pimping her pro-novel on her LJ--or advertising her skills as a soapmaker or a baker or a doctor, for that matter.) But that's not what she's doing: she's either changing rules on us midstream or suddenly revealing that she was never playing by our rules anyway, and both of those things make me feel hurt, angry, and stupid--and I don't even know the woman. She's taking advantage of fandom's communal history of caring, and I think that's abusive, QED.

Some Excerpts from the Comments: Page One

[thornsilver]: This is more or less why I feel uncomfortable about people requesting payment for the fannish works. It takes away the sense of community where we loudly squee about the same things and write/draw/create websites because we want to do that, with the audience being only a secondary "customer".

[ kassrachel]:What distressed me about Cousin Jean's plan was the way it blurs -- no, not blurs, ignores -- the line between the money-based economy of the "professional" writing world, and the gift-based economy of the fannish world. It was problematic for me both on a practical level (e.g. it seems to me that when we charge for fanfiction, we lose the ability to argue that we're not taking money out of the pockets of the copyright holders, and that could have ugly implications for fandom as a whole) and an emotional level (because I really love this community, as wonky and whacked-out as it sometimes is, and I don't want to see the fannish culture that shaped my fannish maturing process vanish).

[ isiscolo]:I think that Cousin Jean had a point. One of her arguments was: you guys are all bugging me for the next installment of my WIP, so pay up if you want to see it, otherwise, stop asking me about my WIP. Ok, I'm not into blackmail, but. I think the behavior of these fans also violates the "gift-based economy" of the fannish world - just as fanfic is a gift from the writers, the readers have no proprietary claim on the writers' output. In other words, yes, she is fucking with the rules of the culture - but it is a response to others who also slip some of these rules. (Hmm. Thinking about it, I would say that contacting an author about one's feeling entitled to have a WIP finished is a fannish/community sort of thing to do, but the entitlement part is not.)

[ partly bouncy]:Gift based economy or fannish entitlement? It seems that fandom has moved to a certain degree where the lines of respect between producer and consumer have become blurred with the consumer trying to steer the creativity, the output, the context of the output, the right to become producers when the producers fail to measure up themselves. It doesn't seem gift like but rather a sense of conflict and rather a sense of rebalancing roles, redefining roles... Who is now the consumer and who is the producer? Who is driving the train that is fandom? When a producer starts catering implicitly to fannish desires, are they handing over part of the creative process, the ownership, the production process to fans? And if they are doing that, why shouldn't fans reap the rewards of the producer?

[sistermagpie]:Not that writers are just dancing bears to entertain the masses, but the idea often is that you are writing for yourself in fandom, to work out something you need to work out in the text. You put it on the net because you want feedback. So it steps on the rules of the community also because it makes the audience (many of whom have shared stories with you, or put care into their reviews or drawn art for your work) seem like the parasites who aren't contributing anything. Sometimes people might read and review something out of a feeling of community responsibility, just as they might write or draw something out of that. In some ways this is just your basic artist/audience problem, I guess, where audience start to feel an ownership of something someone else has created. Which is doubly ironic when you consider that this is fanfiction so chances are you both feel ownership over something someone else created already. It just struck me when you said that that it gets into a big sensitive area in fandom because it's a gift-based economy. Nobody wants to feel like their gifts are less valued or that anything is demanded of them, because if it is, it's not a gift.

[ partly bouncy]:One of the funniest things for me is the people who defend fan fiction and their right to write derivative works, talk about how there is no issue for writing it and then go ape shit when some one borrows THEIR original character, and then try to explain the fannish ethics of why it is permissible to steal from TPTB but not their fellow fen.

[dinpik]:Some friends who used to be heavily into fandom and I were discussing this, and one of them brought up an interesting point. The problem with borrowing another fan's OC isn't breaking copyright, it's breaking the social contract of fandom. The creator of the OC and the borrower are both part of the same group: fandom. The creators of the canon are not; they are outside. And thus (so goes the contract) borrowing another fan's OC is rude and impolite, while borrowing canon characters from the creator(s) is not. The former disrupts the fellow-feeling that's supposed to be found in fandom.

[partly bouncy]:Bah. Fandom just too weird on this. :/ And I know some people who wouldn't mind their OCs being used, some who would mind. On SugarQuill, someone got permission to use an OC and then their friendship ended... and I think the person who wrote the original OC rescinded the persmission to a story that the person who borrowed with permission had already put out there. And RPF has its interesting moments of "Can we slash our fellow fen?" Some people no problem. Some people massive problems. And that discussion I think killed off a lot of authorfic. :( *pouts* I miss authorfic.

[dinpik]:I have to say as someone who dislikes RPF intensely I find the idea of RPF writers not wanting to be slashed a lovely bit of irony. I can see a possible reason why, though: these are people who know them personally, even if it's just through LJ, mailing lists or fic archives, and it's possible that in bits of information they'd rather not see used in a story got mentioned casual chatting or serious discussion.

[ taraljc]:I've always had the "Steal from your betters, but not your peers" view of derivative work. I.e. you can steal from different arenas (pro vs fan) but it's just... uncool, to steal from your own level.

[go back chief]:Well, it depends on how it's phrased of course, a single "Write more!" does sound like an entitled demand, even if it's meant as encouragement, but I don't think that for instance asking for sequels to a one-shot -espcially a one-shot that does have an open ending- necessarily means that the reviewer thinks it doesn't stand on its own as well, and that there's something missing. Or, you know, that it's necessarily negative if they do. It can just mean they thought the story was so interesting they want to know "what happens next?", even if the writer never planned for the story to tell that. Also "write more", can be interpreted as the reviewer telling the writer he/she should keep writing, not necessarily on that story, but in general.

[thefakeheadline]:I think there's a good reason for this reaction. Namely, it's because the people who use other fen's original characters generally don't note that they weren't the creators. When a fan writes a piece of fanfiction, they generally post a disclaimer (and anyway, no one's going to think random fangirl A created Captain Kirk). So a fan writing fanfiction doesn't take credit for the creative efforts of others, but a fan using someone else's original character without acknowledgement *does* do so.

[joyfulseeker]:I've been wondering about that, actually, about the acceptability of asking for payment for fic when the payment is going to charity. I've seen a couple of instances of that (and been asked to participate in that sort of exchange, from the fic-writer end), and each time I've had a mixed reaction of, "they're asking for money! It's wrong!" and "well, but it's for charity...." and was wondering where other people stood on the issue. I've been unwilling to rock the boat, so to speak, for fear of ruining everyone's fun, but it does seem that anytime money exchanges hands around fanfiction, we get into a very ethically murky area.

[withdiamonds]:If we assume that fannish culture is based on a gift economy, then if a writer uses another writer's OC or universe without permission, it's like stealing a gift. TPTB are definitely *not* gifting fandom with the source material, we pay for it, so it doesn't feel like stealing when we use it for our own pleasure. Splitting hairs? No ethical difference? Maybe. But it feels different, and it feels like a betrayal of fannish culture.

[partly bouncy]:I'm not comfortable with the gift-culture myself but that's because I operate from more of a framework of belonging means contributing to the well being of the community, rather than gifting... which is why I feel uncomfortable in a number of places and expectations of certain behaviours and complaints when authors don't get feedback or authors do not write fast enough. Where is the gift? It comes more off as spoiled child demanding presents and tired parent trying to make do... at least in some cases. *shrugs* But perhaps this is just a case of I don't know enough about what gift culture is that I am not understanding the analogy.

[embitca]:I think there would be a lot of kerfluffling surrounding any appearance of fannish creative product on Ebay because Ebay is The Man and is constantly patrolled by The Man (i.e. the Entertainment industry) and they does have strict rules in place regarding trademark, copyright, etc. and will VERO first and ask questions later. In a way, posting something on Ebay could be perceived as a roundabout way of waving manipulated slash pics in an actor's face. So I can see why that would get people roaring.

[partly bouncy]:If EBay has quietly removed a few auctions, if the TPTB have not gone after people for their auctions, if people are actually to a certain degree profitting off material already by selling their used fanzines or new fanzines on EBay... ... then why all this rabid paranoia? Honestly, it strikes me more about control and power trips in fandom than it does about any serious fear of the powers that be. Fans profit on EBay. Fans sell stuff at conventions. Fan artists profit. Generally, TPTB rarely step in unless it is BLATANTLY wafted under their nose by fans themselves. Most fans only seem to be threatening to do that as a control mechanism. The actions of fen generally seems to be inconsistent in this regard, choosing to single out certain people for reporting.

[ cathexys]:...i think your general thesis still holds, i.e., the majority of us who are outraged by this incident (or even the CC ones where there was a clear implication of using her fannish BNF status to collect money for personal gains, i.e., not a friendship grown out of shared fannish pursuits but a writer/audience model) but were fully behind fanthevote probably do so b/c the latter does not violate the gift culture, yes!!!

[ norah]:I hate it when people freak out about the legality of it and neglect to say that what's really bothering them is that they feel ethically or personally uncomfortable with it.

[ kassrachel]:I am one hundred percent with you, here. I'm on the bus. Songs get covered, reinterpreted, sampled, changed by different voices and arrangements and contexts; ditto literature, and I'd like to see our notions of intellectual property and story "ownership" shift so that we think of stories as we think of music. Fanfiction as jazz improvisation, as Chris Lydon said. But as things stand now, I think fannish culture is pretty concerned with getting smacked-down for breaking current copyright law, and I think that concern says something about who we are as a community and what our priorities are. (Whether or not that concern is reasonable is totally not my bailiwick; who knows what the odds of us being sued for this stuff might be? I leave that one to the IP lawyers among us.) I think part of what was problematic about Jean's post was her blithe disregard for the larger fannish mindset which holds that charging money for fanfiction risks lawsuits for one and all. Whether she didn't know this is an issue for a lot of fans, or whether she didn't care -- regardless, it places her outside the fannish communal context in a certain way. And I think that's a large part of why she got smacked down by so many fans this afternoon. And maybe that's the most interesting part of this whole story, after the fact. This reminds me of a bunch of Escapade panel conversations, actually: do we still mentor new fans? Do we have a responsibility to take the needs of the larger fannish community into account when we make ourselves or our work visible, and who gets to define what those needs are? If someone breaks an unspoken fannish rule, should the community do something about it, and if so, what and how? How does, or should, the community self-police?

[ cupidsbow]:I totally agree with you about the licencing model idea. In fact, as I'd argue that fanfiction is one of the few (if not the only) major innovations in literature since the first half of the 20th century, I think it's only a matter of time before TPTB see dollar signs and decide they want a piece of the action. Given the way capitalism eats subcultures (like rap, or science fiction, for instance), I think the licencing of 'derivative' product is inevitable.

[ killabeez]:Very, very well said. The whole thing mostly amused me, from the standpoint of, wow, does [cousinjean] not swim in the same sea of reality that I do! But there was a part of my reaction that was anger, and it was exactly as you described - the feeling of being taken advantage of, and the total selfishness of not recognizing (or not caring) that what one fan does impacts us all. It was a "get off my side! You're making us look bad," reaction.

[ cesperanza]:Right, totally--you do feel pathetic and used, and that's not cricket. I make something for you because I love you (and others in a more agape way *g*) not because I think you're cackling behind my back and going, "Wow, she keeps giving me free books, what an idiot; maybe she'll pay my gas bill, too."

[ partly bouncy]:But people have had the moxie [to ask to be paid to write fanfic], in the past, to offer to pay authors to write... I know in the past, there were authors in the Trek fandom who had fans very seriously offer to pay them in various things from brownies and cookies to autographed, signed pictures if they would finish their story faster. At the time, I did not see any objection to that sort of serious bid, offer of payment for faster return. (I don't recall if they ever accepted but I do recall the people I chatted with being quite serious.) Given that sort of thing in my own fannish experience, I am having less problems with where that might come from. Which oddly enough makes me feel like an outsider because I don't see this as all that surprising or bad. Is it that much of leap to where fan culture seems to have gone to that? Lots more tolerance of charity stuff, lots of tolerance to LJ account giving, lots more I'll write if you give to this charity, more pay for type sites like LiveJournal with the sort of expectation of payment for services, etc. Toss in the incidents involving the laptops and iPods and really, where is the surprise? Again, it just seemed like it would happen sooner or later. The only thing is I don't see it as self sustaining because that would make fandom like a very strange pyramid scheme.

[ lalejandra]:I think we come out of different fannish culture/experiences -- in all the fandoms I've been involved with, both fannishly and pro, what I remember clearest is being invited into the lives of the other people in the fandoms. Through zines, through BBS, through email lists (o, early 90s!), through driving hours and hours to meet up with other fans -- in none of the fandoms that I've ever participated in has it been solely about the fannish work. It is almost always about the connection between fans as well.

[partly bouncy]:I have some close fannish friends who became friends outside fandom... but that happened through private contact or on list designed for that sort of private interaction. I wasn't publically invited on places like Usenet into the private lives with "My child graduated from high school today!" or "I got into Yale" or "My family sucks. My brother got lupis. I'm going bankrupt." that LiveJournal allows you into on a consistent basis. Random fen, I just did not have that sort of knowledge about. Some fen yes, but there was generally a sort of more invitation into their lives rather than randomly having access to everything and their neighbor. And a lot of that would not have been tolerated, that total sharing of your LiveJournal allows because that would have been considered off topic.

[ rossetti]:I think this also feeds in to why people complain or worry about a hierarchical fannish structure. When people start to think that someone else in fandom is more important or more popular than they are, there can be an implied judgment on the friendship between two people - either the 'inferior' person needs to become creative enough to be friends with the 'important' person, or the 'inferior' person needs to emphasize the fact that there is most definitely NOT a hierarchical structure. None of us want to think that we are, somehow, less important to our friends than they are to us, and the perception of importance level in fandom (and through written communication in general) can create exactly that type of situation. The fact does remain that some people write more fic than others, some people stay in certain fandoms longer than others, stuff happens to create perceptions of importance. If there's a perception that one person is more important to a fandom than another person, there can be judgment that the more important person is a better fan, regardless of writing ability or quantity, which probably contributes not just to the BNF accusations and flare ups, but the appeal of niche and new fandoms as well. Of course people want to feel important, and of course they want other people to care about them.

[ anonymous]:The question for me is whether the flist people were actually friends? Or were they people who didn't actually give a fig about [cousinjean], but consumed her fic? Does she actually owe these people the consideration of community? This isn't a rhetorical question. I don't know CJ, have never read her LJ, and don't know a thing about the Buffy fandom. What I do know is that the people who start invoking community are the ones who are particularly benefitting from that concept. Some of the biggest proclaimers of community I know are usually the biggest jackasses to those who are outside of the perceived circle of "gift exchange". For me the problem with fandom hierarchy is not that someone might be better than me but that this person has the power to gather 10 worshippers and kick me out because I'm not putting in the time/effort to hold my ground (or cultivate my own myrmidons). Frankly, I think asking a bunch of people who if not your actual friends are also in the same boat dream-wise to pay for you to be the one to live the dream is tacky. There's enough to wank about right there. But to bring up the Beautiful Community she has somehow besmirched? That's one form of tunnel vision critiquing another.

[ cathexys]:...the question still remains whether there was a idyllic past when the group was small enough and controlled access tightly enough to share certain general rules (most importantly about how to interact with the outside world which, b/c of the copyright issue, this particular request touches as well...)? in other words, was there ever more consensus or are the fault lines just more visible now and/or the splinter groups simply larger b/c fandom's larger???

[ embitca]:I'm hoping that there is at least a consensus that if you are only 1 collaborator of many (14 for Dancing Lessons) then you do not have the right to offer the completion of that work for sale without consulting and getting the permission of the other 13 people who slaved over that work. Jean has always treated Dancing Lessons like it was her baby, but it never was. She merely hosted it on her website. She never had the right to offer it for sale, regardless of what other fannish etiquette, copyright issues might or might not be relevant.

[ malsperanza]:I'm not as bothered by the payment-for-content issue as perhaps you are. It might damage community in some ways (as it would between spouses buying and selling sex), but it's not so different from the payment we offer actors to see them perform a play. There is a very powerful bond between performers and audience in a theater, which is not harmed by the fact that we paid money to get into the theater.

[ ivy03]:In addition to your arguments (that fandom is a gift culture), two things bother me. One - a request for payment in exchange for fanfic rankles my sense of fairness. Why should she get paid (especially enough to quit her job) for something the rest of us do for free? The free access to fic is what keeps fandom going. And in a free market, I think if one fic author charged for their work, people would read elsewhere. Two - as a publishing professional, albeit a fairly lowly one, professional writing doesn't work that way. The business model she's working on isn't feasible. This has happened with web comics, I know - those who start providing their content for free and then start charging for it don't make money. They just tick off their fans. And really, if fandom were like the world of professional writers I wouldn't spend nearly as much time there. Maybe money isn't the root of all evils, but it's certainly true that fandom is a lot more supportive and a lot less back-biting than publishing.

[ cathexys]:... i can't get a clear fix on how fans felt about mel kegan, for example, but i wonder if the stories that were used in such a way had already moved so far away from ff as to become independent of its source (amber's certainly had, plus i think the legal and ethical situation might be different in RPS anyway?) but yes, why do we encourage writers to go pro or even file off but don't want to be asked to pay like that? ahow do we define the boundaries between pro and amateur and what needs to happen to a story for it to be OK to cross that line?

[buddleia ("The absoluteness of the rage I've seen around lj has surprised me, but at the same time, people do acknowledge that there is a a grey area. One reason might be that 'fannish entitlement complex' that quite reasonably bothers those who have seen small communities explode on the 'net and subsequently change beyond recognition. I don't really think so, though. The people who are most outraged (I'm not excluding myself) are largely drawing on a traditional, community, outlook themselves.

[ cupidsbow]: There are two issues main for me with regard to this: the ideological and the practical. Ideologically, I don't see a fundamental difference between so-called original fic and fanfic. The main reason I see for fanfic writers not getting paid for what they produce, is that at present there's no equitable way to pay royalties to the copyright holder. If that was resolved? I'd have no issue with the practice. That said, in practical terms I'm not a didact who thinks my own opinion is the be all and end all of an argument. I respect custom, and would only actively work against it if I thought it was 'evil', and I don't mean that as a scare word. I mean, that I'd feel the responsibility to speak up against custom if I saw someone being, for instance, treated brutally by the police, and those kind of ethical issues. Payment for fanfiction clearly doesn't fall into that extreme ethical category, so while I see a strong counter-argument to the common fannish position on this, I also respect the fannish community, want to stay in it, and am prepared to abide by the rules as I understand them. In this particular case, I think Cousin Jean (who I'm not familiar with) was naive in the extreme, and the reaction she received was entirely predictable. I'll also conceed the small potential threat her actions could have had on wider fandom by attracting the attention of TPTB. But, while I see all of that, I don't feel the anger so many others do.

[ cesperanza]:The distinction between amateur and pro IS arbitrary--MANY of us are both. What can cause problems is when you charge for your work and in what context; I mean, I beta for endless hours because it's my pleasure, but I also work on student writing and I expect to be paid. So I totally have the qualifications to charge heftily for my services, and I DO, but not here. OTOH, if you came to my uni and took a course, yes, that's a structure in which, fandom be dammed, you'd have to pay me. So I'm not saying no money should ever be exchanged between people who are fans ever, but as the witch said, these things must be done delicately!

[cupidsbow]:I've pressed a button with you on this, and I'm not sure which one or why. Did I come across as big-noting myself with the original fiction anecdote? I didn't mean it that way, as I value both types of writing equally. I just found it interesting that people firmly in the 'original' camp had mirror attitudes to those of fanfic writers. I also wasn't advocating that people within the fan community start charging for services. Personally, I have real problems with capitalist ideology, and I've lived in poverty most of my life because I refuse to engage with some aspects of the paradigm.... So I'm certainly not advocating a wholesale change in fan culture. I *like* the non-commercial aspect of it. It's just that I don't see the problem with people deciding to question that aspect of our culture from time to time. The anger people have displayed in the face of this questioning tires me, although I do understand it intellectually. I just don't feel it even a little bit. And I totally agree with you--Cousin Jean's biggest crime was a complete lack of delicacy.

[ idlerat]:... I somehow fail to be shocked. I do think it's a function of rapid growth (I was going to say "and," but I think that's "period.") You see it in the Cassie Claire case: she *does* have a author/audience, producer/consumer relationship with most of her audience, because she *can't* be in a gift exchange relationship with 100,000 people. She'd paid the price for that celebrity long before she ever wished upon an iPod. And we've got how many- 10s of thousands- of silent readers out there, consuming fic without participating at all. Which doesn't have to change the way people work, and it won't change large segments of fandom where we like things the way they are. But it doesn't surprise or upset me to see that the cracks are showing here and there.

[cesperanza]: IMO, if Cassie Claire is in an author/audience, producer/consumer relationship with her audience, that's great for her, and she may be a total success story as a case study of how to break into pro writing vis a vis the internet, and a harbinging of a fantastic grassroots literary future, but she is not in what I would call fandom anymore.

[idlerat]: Even on a narrow definition of fandom, CC is in that also (that is, she has her circle with whom she does share a more egalitarian relationship). But I think it's very odd to say she's not in fandom, even in the larger sense. If that's true, why fandom wank her every five minutes? It's true, some pro celebs (Nathan Fillion, Anne Rice) get wanked when they wander onto the intranets, but not that much. CC has written a tremendous amount of fanfic and played an important part in the HP fandom. She's a de facto outsider now in many ways, and it's really not her fault; every step of the way, it's been a consequence of her fame. What about Cleolinda Jones? There are always going to be marginal cases- defining "fandom" could be as murky and pointless as defining "fan"- necessary and possible, perhaps, only in limited conditions.

[destina]: Thank you for articulating it. All day long as I've been reading the IT'S ILLEGAL OMG! rants, I'm thinking, that argument is thinner than a Kleenex, really, and it's not at the heart of what's really bothering people. There's a community expectation that's been trampled on, and then picked up and gutted, and when people pointed out, hey, don't you think that's a little outside the boundaries, there? -- basically, she proceeded to stomp it some more, and punted it for good measure. *g*

[medie]: I'm not gonna make my friends risk an Anne Rician situation just so's I can land a few bucks and write fic. (Though boy wouldn't that be fun) It's the whole "screw you and the computer you typed in on* mentality that got me. I mean, not even bothering to give your coauthors the heads up? That one stuck :-p

[anonymous]: To me [destina's] one of the symbols of false invocations of community within the fandom. I agree with you about gift culture being part of what creates communities in fandom - I just think the people invoking community with a capital C are the ones especially benefitting from communities with a small C. If I have one thing to say to fandom in general and LJ in particular is that you can't have Community Standards when only select people feel a positive belonging to their communities. Then everyone upholds the rules. At this time we have a few well-placed people who feel entitled to pronounce on the rules that benefit them (and everyone in that community is selected to tell them how wonderful and nice they are, so it would be pretty easy to fall into the notion that their community stands for all Community on LJ). Notable example in Destina's comment above. She wants me to come to her LJ? Tough. She doesn't set the rules because I'm not a member of her community. And she has enough friends petting her to confirm her community is The Good, and anyone she excludes doesn't count in the overall conception of Community.

[ harriet spy]: "I have to admit that some of my hackles are based more in the "give me money so I can quit my job" bit. And to some degree, it bothers me that this bothers people so much. A few years ago, I won a fellowship. People gave me money so that instead of teaching full-time for a year, I could sit on my butt and read obscure seventeenth-century pamphlets and contemplate the greater meaning of it all. Was I supposed to be ashamed that I *wasn't* having to teach three sections while studying and writing? Was my love for my discipline less pure because I wasn't jamming my research in after a full day of professional and other responsibilities? There's an edge of self-fannish-loathing and envy I've seen to some of the remarks that really troubles me.

[harriet spy]: I think it's legitimate to discuss whether the environment is appropriate or not (although I think disapproval on that basis would have to extend to a lot of offline activities as well, and wonder how many people would be that consistent). But many people seem upset by the *very idea* of asking for money to support one's writing, as if that in itself represented a loathsome degree of entitlement. Real writers work! And suffer! And sacrifice! Except the ones who had patrons. And the ones who are independently wealthy. And so on, and so forth.

[jessant]: I think because it's much more of a private thing, then a communal thing. It would be like a fanfic writer and another person setting up a deal where the fanfic writer will write a story for the person for a specific amount of money. This is all done behind the scenes, the community isn't involved and their kindness isn't being exploited, like in this case. I wonder about 'zines' too. I wonder if anyone has ever had a problem with them before?

Some Excerpts from the Comments: Page Two

umbo:Interesting and thoughtful analysis--not that I'd expect anything less from you! I do think what a few people have commented on is a big (and mostly unvoiced) part of the outrage--the sense of entitlement Cousin Jean seemed to have, and a concomitant resentment on the part of the rest of us, who do work, struggle, lose jobs, barely pay our bills, whatever, and yet would never dream of asking for someone to pay us something for our contributions to fandom. Which is related to your analysis, in that it's about the gift culture, but is also maybe a little bit different, because it's maybe more personal reactions than feeling part of the community of fandom. Maybe.

cesperanza:yeah, there are a lot of personal reactions there, and fair enough, IMO! She didn't want to be paid for her novel. She wanted to be paid to develop her POTENTIAL--and lots of folks have potential that could be developed with a year off from work!

crowie:It's really interesting to see how the outrage that showed up showed up this fast and this violent. I think it's sort of the community defending itself. Almost like an immune system. Ive seen this sort of reaction before. An idiot (it was actually a mod in an april fools hoax) showed up on a community and got cold shouldered after initial attempts to point her behavour into more toleratable channels.

st crispins:You bring up an interesting point of community vs. audience. I'm not quite sure how I feel about that. Communities can be exploitative as well (as people who end up in volunteer orgs like the PTA will tell you.) And there is a model of the artist being supported by patrons during the Renaissance. I could see that. I don't think folks will necessarily go for it, but it would take the power out of corporations and put it where it belongs --- with the audience. But self-publishing over the internet is on its way so this may be a harbinger of things to come.

thebratqueen:Having cut my teeth in Anne Rice fandom I'm going to wave the "it's illegal and will get us sued" flag a bit higher than most. We know that previously willing and encouraging authors/PTB can and do turn on a dime if they believe that fans are attempting to infringe on their ability to make a living. Granted in Anne's case sometimes her belief does not mesh with reality, but IMO it's best if fandom can keep its nose clean. Right now we get yelled at by the Lee Goldbergs of the world, but I think in part because it's only morons like him who think they can find true fault in what we're doing. Hence why fandom comes down hard on people who try to cross the lines, such as shoving zines into the faces of actors, or people attempting to profit off of what's supposed to be non-profit activities. That being said, I think part of the problem with CJ wasn't just that she was asking for money for fanfic, but because she was asking for money to "live her dream" which we discover means to have a wedding and all the time she needs to persue her writing career without ever having to fund it herself. Fandom already has some cultural expectations in place as far as things like having a whip-round to help charity, or even a specific fan who's fallen on hard times. But for CJ to ask for sympathy because - gasp! - she has to work for a living just like everyone else does was too much. That in and of itself was crossing the lines. Throwing fanfic on top of it was icing on the cake.

[kita0610]:You hit it right on the head with that for me. Basically, she was asking to be paid for BEING CJ. Dude. If I could make a living just by waking up in the morning, I'd do it too. But I sure wouldn't ask my internet buddies for the cash to finance it.

aetatis:I loved this post. Thank you so much for writing this! I wish I had something pithy to offer, but I'm a bit too pleased to be coherent right now. The idea of fan communities is useful, but distinguishing that they are based on a gift culture with particular rules -- gah! I knew that the poaching theories and writing circle theories were interesting but somehow missing the point for me. You've given me a new way to look at fandom, and I appreciate that more than I can say. Thanks!

cesperanza:but seriously--just--fandom blows my MIND with its generosity and kindness, and it's a place I turn to all the time for news and entertainment and information and provocation and, just, if I started paying, I wouldn't know where to stop. And I am protective of it, because it's one of the last few magical places in the world, if you ask me, and if that seems pollyannaish to some people--well, I'm sorry they don't live in the same fucking magnificent fandom that I do.

anonymous: I couldn't disagree more about fandom being a family. It's a family to certain people. It's incredibly generous to certain people. It's also horrible to some people. And I think in terms of the in-group, that amounts to the idea that the person they don't accept, or exile, or just choose not to be so "generous" to, somehow deserves their fate. Just as all the members of the family are the "good" people who deserve the privileges they receive from acceptance in the community. Cesperanza said something about CJ learning what it means to be exiled from the community. To me, that says more about the shortcomings of the fandom-as-community concept than what anything about CJ. It says that the people who feel they "belong" also have a sense of their power to band together with their homies and punish whomever they decide to punish. And oftentimes these targets are created by the actions of other members of the community. Take a look at the literature on "mobbing" for example to see how people get tripped up by others and then punished for tripping in the workplace. As for the incredible "generosity" of fandom, you might want to think for a while about how you identify the people who deserve your charity. They were identified by someone speaking for them. This almost guarantees they aren't the neediest or most desperate - those don't even have people speaking up for them.

[cesperanza]:when I was asked to publish my TS Nature series in a zine, I said fine, as long as it could stay on the web for free--because I'm pretty committeed to giving my work away. But offhand, I'm not against pro-writers or starting a pro-career--in fact, I feel proud when "one of us" also is able to pitch fiction to that great world out there. But I feel a bit like,"You be careful out there among them Amish"--to me, a pro career means that you're expanding your audience more broadly *beyond* the fannish base, not that you've decided that fandom itself is a niche market you can *exploit.* That's a freakin' world of difference, no?

zeri:to me, a pro career means that you're expanding your audience more broadly *beyond* the fannish base, not that you've decided that fandom itself is a niche market you can *exploit.* That's a freakin' world of difference, no? I agree about fandom. But with the particular corner of fandom that is slash? There's a niche there. There's an itch. And you better believe the industries are going to start scratching it, because it would sell. (*Is* selling, around here, and is there any reason American women are wired differently? Oh, sorry, stupid question.) You live in NY. Can you go into your nearest big bookstore and buy a paperback harlequin romance about two hot guys having steamy gay sex? Targeted exclusively for female audience? You will in ten years time, believe you me.

[sssenza]:"she's either changing rules on us midstream or suddenly revealing that she was never playing by our rules anyway, and both of those things make me feel hurt, angry, and stupid" Why is it that people get so angry when those in their midst try to start their own culture, or join some other pre-existing culture, or retain their old culture? It reminds me of the countless stories of immigrants to the US being forced not only to speak English but to stop speaking their previous language, forced to dress like the majority of Americans, forced to send their children to schools where the majority culture would be enforced. The sheer anger when people realize, "She's playing in our playground, using the very same toys that we use, BUT SHE'S NOT ONE OF US," is astounding. Though that might not be quite what happened. That's just the impression I get from your post. Like I said, I didn't get to read her post, cuz it's gone now. From what I gather, though, I don't really approve of her behavior either. I just find the fan reaction rather interesting.

[zeri]:I fantasized that world once. The one where we all pay the creators of canon a small license fee to play with their characters -- although my idea didn't include getting paid for the stories we produce ourselves -- and there's no more fidgeting about whether Warner Bros. would suddenly decide to turn around and get us. And then, like you did, I immediately gagged at the prospect. No, please no. My concern is not so much about the community but that, if fandom turned commercial and official, the copyright holders would have control over what kinds of fanfiction to condone and what not to. Fair? I guess some people would think so. I really, really don't. In my mind fanficcing is not just a benign act of poaching, but, to an extent, deliberate hijacking of the source text; it's about creating millions and millions of Wide Sargasso Seas to toss back in the face of successful mainstream creations -- whether or not each writer is or thinks she is writing anything overtly political. A fandom world where TPTB has the power to "allow" certain fics -- say, Fraser/Thatcher but not Fraser/Kowalski; or a bit more realistically and therefore more dauntingly, Snape/Narcissa but not Lupin/Black -- is the kind of toxic sandbox that I would never, ever want to set foot in. God, it makes me cringe just thinking about it.

cesperanza:The real danger becomes that once fanfic is commercial, the het will SELL so much better; market forces will set in and you won't write Lupin/Black because there's no real market for it in comparison with the Snape/Narcissa. That's what it means to do things commercially--you now have to really consider your audience, so no dirty words now--and that is what's death on a stick, if you ask me.

[zeri]:You do realize that what you're describing as the good old true form of fandom is strictly limited to Western fandom. Like you acknowledge, community and monetary exchange are not mutually exclusive. In Japanese manga-based fandom, the issue is widely different.

[quatre k]:this chick weirded me out by holding her WIP's hostage but i figured what the heck if there is that much demand for it how is it different from fanartists asking for money for their stuff? I mean I would pay Eliade to finish buffy season noir I really really would and if Cesperenza, Resonant, Shalott, Rageprufrock and Punk started charging me to read their fanstuff I'd pay in a heartbeat. I'd use my manga money I'd even use my grocery money I can live off ramen if I have to.

[wonderbink]: The amateur shows up when she feels like it. The professional shows up on schedule. The amateur does it when she's in the mood. The professional does it regardless of what mood she's in. Professionalism does not come with time. It comes with effort. She does not appear to be making the effort. And no amount of PayPal donations will change that.

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