COCO CHANNEL Interview with Killashandra

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Interviews by Fans
Title: COCO CHANNEL Interview with Killashandra
Interviewer: Karmen Ghia
Interviewee: Killashandra
Date(s): 1999
Medium: online
Fandom(s): fandom, Star Trek
External Links: A 1999 Interview with Killashandra; reference link
Click here for related articles on Fanlore.

COCO CHANNEL Interview with Killashandra is archived at The Society for Slash Diversity and The Committee of Chekov Obsessives Comparing Historical and New Narratives in Ensign Literature.

See List of Star Trek Fan Interviews.

Content

Some topics covered in the original interview:

  • her fannish history
  • copyright
  • zine fandom
  • Kirk/Spock
  • tensions between printfen and netfen
  • fanfiction as an underground activity
  • the "future of Slash on the Web"

Some topics covered in the responses:

Excerpts the Original Interview

Karmen Ghia: Me, I'm just a webizen so I know nothing of the printzine community, except for a brush or two with certain members. What is with those people? Are they really as uptight, narrow minded, hyper critical/sensitive and condescending as they seem or am I really just too fucked up to see their good points?

Killashandra: I think that is a generalization, no more or less accurate than any blanket statement you might make about any group of diverse and unique individuals. I have seen evidence of judgmental and narrow-minded behavior among fans, but this behavior has not been limited to any particular group or fandom that I've seen.

I think that in K/S fandom, in particular, little effort has been made by pre-net fans to recognize the value of new blood, new ideas, new writers and greater communication. Similarly, I think little understanding, recognition, appreciation or tolerance has been offered by net fans. I admit that I don't begin to understand why "us vs. them" should hold any appeal whatsoever to those who value the Kirk/Spock relationship, and the true I.D.I.C. that it represents.

K/S fans who came to fandom through zines value certain things, and those who discovered fandom online value other things....

Trek zine fandom had faced a decade of steadily dwindling numbers, and many years of being forced to remain underground, in fear of censure from any number of sources. One can easily imagine an ever-smaller core group of fans pulling together, developing certain ideas and "truths" about their common obsession, bonding with one another in their shared views. But though this might, of necessity, lead to a certain incestuousness of ideas and themes, it also created some truly passionate, well-developed and beautifully expressed work in the form of stories and artwork. The first K/S I ever read was in zines, and I can honestly say reading a story on the net will never touch that first experience of opening a zine and having stories and artwork printed in my hands. It's not that I think the zine fic was better, but when that's your first experience, it means something. It has value. To those who lived in that world for ten years or more, it has *great* value. The development of complex ideas, the individuality of each zine, the whole tradition of this small group of passionate fans.

Along comes internet fandom. Suddenly, this carefully guarded secret is anything but. These traditions and common "truths" are anything but. New ideas are valued - and the more radical the better. Many long-time fans have no computer experience, and are wary of the internet in general, and don't have the perspective to perceive that there is a value of a different kind in *not* staying underground, in reaching new fans, in shaking up those assumptions about what K/S should be. And worse, net fans don't care about that years-deep tradition, and their first experience of fandom was reading it on their computer screen, so what do they care about zines?

I don't pretend to understand all the nuances of this fundamental schism, but to me it seems that everyone feels threatened, and reacts accordingly. Print fans fear exposure, and the loss of a tradition they have loved for years. Net fans feel as though they must compete for validation, and at the same time are resentful of the limitations imposed by a tradition they don't share.

Of course, I could be completely wrong.

Karmen Ghia: Do you have any thoughts on the future of Slash on the Web?

Killashandra: I hope TPTB continue to allow it. Some things have gone down in the past year that have taught me not to take fandom for granted. I hope it continues to grow, because the bigger the phenomenon the more bucks it will make for the original owners of these characters, and the harder it will be for them to control it.

Right now, homosexuality is fairly widely accepted in various media. I hope that trend continues, too. I have no idea if slash harms or hurts the general perception of homosexual behavior, but I would hope it doesn't hurt. I think the wild popularity of slash among online fans has actually had an effect on several shows still airing - among them The X-Files, Due South, Xena, and others. I can't say this for sure, but I feel that slash fandom has encouraged producers to allow more subtext between same sex characters than most shows gave us in the past, and I think that might lead to more acceptance of ambiguous relationships from general viewers.

Reactions and Reviews

All remarks are excerpts from: Comments on Killshandra's interview, posted August 29, 1999, accessed June 10, 2013, where the archivist states: "...this will definitely be archived for the benefit and edification of all who pass this way."

NOTE: it can be difficult to tell who is talking, and looking at the original source may help.

A very perceptive and thoughtful interview with Killashandra. Thank you, Karmen.

I do have a couple of comments about this part of the interview, however:

> Print fans fear exposure, and the loss of a tradition they have loved for years.

I truly don't think *all,* or even most, print fans feel that way. I agree that a few, very vocal fans have expressed those sentiments. However, most of them have *not* been in K/S fandom since "the time of the beginning," but became involved during the last ten years or less. I think we need to look at cohorts, or generations within K/S fandom, because generally speaking the connections among fans tend to be most powerful within the same cohort, among those who came into fandom around the same time and bonded with one another in the process. It's from those connections that K/S fandom has developed common cultures, and I use the word in the plural deliberately.

Most of the fans I know who have been involved in K/S fandom since the early 1980s, when K/S fan fic became to appear in zines in large numbers, are not nearly as hostile to the net as those who became involved more recently. I'm thinking of zineds like Kathy Resch (T'hy'la), Dot Laoang (Amazing Grace) and the late Emily Adams (KaleidoScope). Perhaps that's because they came into K/S fandom when it was larger, more diverse, and less tightly bounded. But I will be going into that issue in my own interview ...

Net fans feel as though they must compete for validation, and at the same time are resentful of the limitations imposed by a tradition they don't share.

Honestly, I have not seen much evidence that net fans desire validation from the printfan community. And I think net fans actually have little reason to need such validation. They are free to write what they want and either post it to the newsgroup or send it to a zine or both. Fan fic is pretty much a seller's market, after all. - Judith [1]

The bit below caught my eye:

<< And worse, net fans don't care about that years' deep tradition, and their first experience of fandom was reading it on their computer screen, so what do they care about zines? >>

Guess I'd put it a little differently -- there are some of us, like me, who can't *get* at that history, even if we want to. Some of us live in places where there are no cons, or no local cons. Some of us live in circumstances where keeping a lot of paper around is awkward, or keeping zines with possibly explicit images or stories is awkward. Some of us haven't got the money to invest in zines. Some of the zines seem not to be available anymore. (I believe some of these facts are among the reasons lying behind the Foresmutters Project that Judith and Mary Ellen have been working on.) So it's not always hostility -- in some cases it's unbridgeable ignorance. I know there was lots of writing about K/S before I got going as a web writer, but I can't easily get at it, and now months/years after I've got involved in webfic, the moment has passed when I cared enough to do that kind of research.

But I digress. I much enjoyed Killa's comments on her start in this genre. - raku

> Guess I'd put it a little differently--there are some of us, like me, who can't *get* at that history, even if we want to.>

That comment of Killa's has troubled me ever since her interview was first posted. I find it troubling because it seems to assume that zine fandom is built on a deep, strong, monolithic tradition -- Killa did call it "years-deep." And, as a K/S fan who has been active in printfandom for the last 21 years, I just can't buy that. I will be up-front and say that I think that is a myth propagated by printfen who feel, shall we say, "challenged" by the internet.

K/S print fandom is not a single line of transmission from the Time of the Beginning to the present; it is a very wide river with many currents and eddies. Nor are the current crop of K/S printfen the lineal heirs of the K/S fen who gave birth to the genre approximately a quarter of a century ago. The current crop of K/S writers have been in fandom for less than a decade, if that. They came into fandom at a time when K/S was well-established and secure. Many of them have not even read the classic stories and novels of the early years of K/S. Those who have, seem to see little of value in the classic K/S works. For example, many of the current crop have not even read the novel "Courts of Honor" that many K/S fen consider the pinnacle of K/S writing. Some find it frankly unreadable because it is too complex, too full of ideas, too densely plotted.

On the netfan side, I can't agree that K/S fen of the nettish persuasion do not care about zines. To the contrary, I see netfolk eagerly borrowing, buying, reading and blissing out on old zines. But for the reasons I tried to explain above, this does not necessarily bring them closer to the current crop of printfen, who have their own tastes and aesthetic preferences which are quite different from the K/S fiction of the late 70s through the mid-80s. Just my two slips, Judith

The Little Car wrote: My own feeling is that the internet is more than meeting my needs; why should I pay money for something that I can get for free?

Raku wrote: I have some serious problems with the print zine concept. Mainly that money changes hands and I've no idea how that can be legal under existing copyright laws. (Maybe you can clear this up for me, Judith, I've been too shy to ask until now.) Not that I am Janey Straightarrow where copyright is concerned in other areas and have been lectured more than once at Kinkos, however, it does puzzle me how zine eds can get away with it.

I think the mere fact that they have been getting away with it for years and years would or should create a certain amount of paranoia. I know it would for me. I was even told by a printfen that she was worried that the internet would stir things up so much that Paramount might come down on any obvious Trek abusers they could find, i.e., print zine people. I realize even paranoids have enemies but this seemed a bit much even for me.

My problems are more theoretical. I think that the permanent, physical zine you hold in your hand creates a structure and hierarchy that cannot exist on the web. Physical zines have to be made, carted around to cons, packed, mailed, etc. Something that exists in this type of format would need a pretty solid structure to survive as long as zines have survived, if not become some kind of fetish object. And I'm sure they survived because they were the underground; they were the meeting place for ideas that were not shared by the dominant social group.

Now the internet is the underground, and more elusive and ephemeral temporary autonomous zone (TAZ) we might never find again. Hakim Bey, who hates the internet because it's more entertainment than revolution (but that's his problem), goes on and on about TAZ's and sometimes he's right: if you don't like or don't quite fit into your social structure, go make a new one, if only temporarily. And, unlike a con, you don't have to pay for parking on the internet. Also, one does not have to interact in somebody else's structure, even the fan run ones.

For several years I myself was hoping the internet would go away. It seemed economically and technologically elitist; as Raku points out fan fic on the web is free if you can afford a $1,500 computer. (I know it's free at the library but it sucks, at least in LA it sucks.) So now I have caved in like rotten fruit and am a big internet junkie.

And now I'm such a junkie of unfiltered fanfic, I don't think I could deal with reading what an editor has picked out for me to read. Why should I have my experience mediated when there is always the immediacy of the web?

It is true that 90% of the people I have met on the web who have roots in the print zine world have been wonderful folks. The other 10% have not been. Actually, that's a pretty damn good ratio, however, the 10% is like a splinter in the big toe of fanfic for me. I'm doing fairly well at ignoring it, but still, it's there.

<<K/S print fandom is not a single line of transmission from the Time of the Beginning to the present; it is a very wide river with many currents and eddies. Nor are the current crop of K/S printfen the lineal heirs of the K/S fen who gave birth to the genre approximately a quarter of a century ago. The current crop of K/S writers have been in fandom for less than a decade, if that. They came into fandom at a time when K/S was well-established and secure. Many of them have not even read the classic stories and novels of the early years of K/S. Those who have, seem to see little of value in the classic K/S works. For example, many of the current crop have not even read the novel "Courts of Honor" that many K/S fen consider the pinnacle of K/S writing. Some find it frankly unreadable because it is too complex, too full of ideas, too densely plotted. >>

I've never read "Courts of Honor" I wish you guys would put it on the Foresmutters webpage so I could. It's like the original Woodstock; everybody that was there talks about it with awe and the rest of us just smile politely as if we understand. It is interesting you mention exactly that novel and unfortunate I promised Mary Ellen I wouldn't discuss it in public ever. However, my understanding of the "Courts of Honor" scandal is exactly what creeps me out about the zine world.

I'm a musician not a lit crit type but the two stories I've read on the Foresmutters project have not exactly lit my fuse. I wonder why the writers are so restrained, why there's no graphic sex, why they take place in remote locations. Okay, I know this is my problem and I'm working on it. But what's the big deal with these stories? If the theory is that net fic evolved from the lineage of these two examples, I seriously wonder if there wasn't some kind of alien intervention around the late 80's. Please set me straight on this, I neeeeeeeeeed it. -- Raku

I tried to read some slash theory and actually managed to finish whatzername's _Enterprising Women_ before my head started to explode. My issues with printzinelandia are not addressed there. >> ROFL! A friend who's also keen on Trek gave me a copy. I flipped through the pages as she was sitting there with me, and we hit the pic of K and S together. I gather I emoted somehow, because she began apologetically explaining to me that there are some people who think K and S are lovers, they write stories about them, the stories are called slash, etc. For various reasons it's important she not know my ah hobby, so I couldn't very well say Oh yeah I know slash, I know some of the best slashers out there... I was gagging trying not to laugh at the bizarreness of the situation. Believe she concluded I'm somewhat homophobic and parochial... I still snort thinking of it. But I read the book end to end. Thought it was ok, in an academic kind of way. I assume it's been discussed a lot on the net? raku, musing on Karmen's long post...

raku wrote: >My view is that fanfic does indeed infringe copyright, and we're lucky they don't come to get us.>

I agree with the first part, but I don't think luck has anything to do with why TPTB don't come after us. First Bantam Books, then Pocketbooks paid for the right to be the exclusive publishers of ST fiction. That means, yes, profit or not, we are infringing on the rights of a corporate entity when we write.

However, copyright laws are designed to protect a creator's ability to profit on her/his ideas -- not to say, "This is my idea and no one else can even think about it." Back in the '70s when fanfic started, ST was a dead issue commercially. No one was making enough money on it to matter. Copyright holders and the companies who liscenced the right to use ST names and images felt lucky to make the profit they did and did not feel threatened by any penny-enny fan-generated merchandizing. Therefore they did not vigourously defend their copyrights... And the longer you go without doing that, the harder it becomes to prosecute because it becomes more and more difficult to prove that the copyright holder's ability to make a profit is being threatened.

I think looking back at the history of the Star Trek franchize and fandom, it's pretty clear that fan fiction has enhanced rather than detracted from the money-making potential of ST. Paramount and Viacom go after people posting pictures or spoiler scripts because they think that this may cause people not to go to thier movies or buy those images in the magazines they produce. If Pocketbooks became convinced that a significant portion of thier market was reading fanfic and deciding not to buy thier books for that reason, they might come after us. This hasn't happened and isn't very likely to now or ever.

Lucas went after SW slash for a while because he (or his lawyers) felt this hurt the "family" image of that series. I don't think they ever sucessfully prosecuted on these grounds, though.

Fan fiction is illegal, yes, but unethical? In my opinion, no. Storytelling is inherently collaborative. We all borrow on ideas we've heard elsewhere. ST itself was created collaboratively. "Mr. Spock" was the creation of a team of writers, directors, artists and actors -- not of any one individual. Fan fiction does no harm to the individuals and corporations that generated those particular manifestations of the cultural myths that are our *shared* inheritance. Creating more variations on these stories makes us all richer, not poorer.

> And I'm sure they survived because they were the underground; they were the meeting place for ideas that were not shared by the dominant social group.

True. Although as a middle-class subculture, Trekfans share a lot of attitudes and ideas in common with the dominant social group. This is the problem I have with Henry Jenkins, Bacon-Smith and the other analysts of fandom as the underground, the textual poachers, etc. They ignore social class and their works lack any real analysis of how fandom articulates with its parent culture(s).

The "structure and hierarchy" implicit in zine production that you noted is one of those areas of the areas of articulation, I believe. A class analysis of the printfan subculture would look at how fans reproduce within fandom the social structures, cultural values, and use of tools and artifacts in their "parent" culture.

> However, my understanding of the "Courts of Honor" scandal is exactly what creeps me out about the zine world.

Actually, that was an isolated example of something that has happened very rarely even in zinedom, and the reality was quite a bit more complex than I think Mary Ellen managed to convey. I have more compassion with the participants in that scandal than I do with zineds who regularly, year after year, crank out volumes of schlock to earn a few bucks and feel like a Big Name Fan (BNF, a term that once had wide currency in print fandom, believe it or not).

> But what's the big deal with these stories? If the theory is that net fic evolved from the lineage of these two examples, I seriously wonder if there wasn't some kind of alien intervention around the late 80's. Please set me straight on this, I neeeeeeeeeed it.

No, I don't think the theory is that net fic evolved from this lineage. There have been many generations in print and I think the net owes very little to any of them. The early stuff is worth reading for other reasons, IMHO, one of them being that it was written when it was a lot riskier to one's fannish well-being to write K/S than it is now.

> I suppose I am unusual, aside from a tepid desire to read "Courts of Honor" and so to know what all the fuss is about.

My point was merely that you can't presume that contemporary K/S printfic is the lineal descendant of the early stuff, and that it's inaccurate to view print fandom as a monolithic entity that stands against net fic and vice-versa. The current crop of printfen would like to appropriate for themselves the status of heirs to the "classics," because as a source of power in the struggle they see themselves engaged in with the net for the soul of fandom. If you will forgive the Protestant perpective, it is sort of like the Pope of Martin Luther' s era claiming to be the heir of the martyrs of the Early Church. All I wanted to say is that the contemporary print crowd has no more claim to be the heirs of the classics than does any other group of fans, including net fans.

And by the way, I wasn't suggesting that Killashandra is trying to perpetuate the myth of the Great Tradition of printzines (I know that she came into fandom through the net); at worst, I think she may have bought into it through her friendships with print fans. Or maybe all she meant to do was give the printfan perspective. Judith

> Now the internet is the underground, and more elusive and ephemeral temporary autonomous zone (TAZ) we might never find again. <snip> also, one does not have to interact in somebody else's structure, even the fan run ones.

Yes, and who ever said that revolution has to be *serious*? I actually think that one of the problems with the current crop of K/S printfen is that K/S has become so respectable and bourgeoisified. There's little fan fic left in TOS print fandom that is *not* K/S. So K/S fen are not the underground any more, they are the mainstream. They are the nice straight housewives. There's no edge left there anymore. IMHO, that is one reason why printfen cringe in horror from the freewheeling diversity and gender-bending of the net culture. I'm toying with the idea of attending the next KSP party at Shore Leave dressed in black leather and an "Internet Bikers From Hell" T-shirt. Print fen make me feel that way these days.

> Not that I don't have good relationships with my RL friends but there is really only so much you can ask of people, good, solid, reliable people, who can't quite remember who Mr. Kyle is.

Yeah, my RL friends are always letting me down, that way. Some of them can't even place Kevin Riley.

> And now I'm such a junkie of unfiltered fanfic, I don't think I could deal with reading what an editor has picked out for me to read. Why should I have my experience mediated when there is always the immediacy of the web?

I still buy most of the K/S zines that come out, but they seem bland and formulaic after the unfettered creativity of the web. And if it's editorial assistance you want, Web-style beta-reading is far more effective than the editing most zineds do (i.e. none at all, except for maybe gratuitously re-writing your tragic ending into a happy ending).

  1. ^ comments by Judith Gran
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