Entitlement in fandom (2003 essay)

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Title:	entitlement in fandom
Creator:	seperis
Date(s):	April 19, 2003
Medium:
Fandom:	Panfandom
Topic:	Fan Entitlement
External Links:	entitlement in fandom; archive link page one; archive link page two; archive link page three
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entitlement in fandom is a 2003 essay by seperis.

"And lo, there's controversy. Of a non-fun kind."

It has many examples what the author describes as greedy fans acting in fannishly inappropriate ways. The links to most of those examples are long dead.

Some of those entitlemens: bandwidth thievery, fans making unreasonable demands on archivists, giving fanworks to the actors, posting fic on their own fansites without permission...

Other topics discussed are how technology has shaped our expectations, fannish manners, fandom as a gift economy, bad fans and good fans, and does mainstream merchandising and producing of content set fans up to emulate those behaviors with each other.

Excerpt from the Essay

You know, oddly, the biggest problems we've had in fandom can be traced RIGHT back to that idea that fandom is all about consumers.

Ideally, fandom is community in the purest sense--a group of people working together, each applying their talents and interests to make something together. Right, we don't live in Plato's Utopian Fandom, but I can dream.

In current reality, there DOES seem to be a movement toward the idea that fandom is, in fact, a kind of business venture, in which fans want other fans to produce exactly what they want and those same fans using those resources carelessly without regard for the creator.

Or, to put it more bluntly, acting like fucking socially-inept morons who need to get their heads out of their asses. Apparently working off the idea that because it's on the net, it's NOT property. And the idea that vids (stories, etc) aren't actually OWNED by the creators of it because they are derivative work of a show/book/comic, so therefore are open to being taken by anyone, altered, used, SOLD or GIVEN AWAY WITHOUT PERMISSION

This isn't new in fandom. TPM and Trek have both had their share of fic-stealing, as well as other fandoms. Plagiarism is so rampant that we get something on that once a week, or sometimes it feels like that. Vids are the new medium to be added to the list of things that are being treated as public domain toys, not property.

Oddly, this links back to another rant I could never decide what side I was on--the fic as gift thing last year, I think. Or why feedbackers should get responses and authors are being snobby not to send replies, because feedback is a gift, not fic, and the circle continues.

The idea that anyone in fandom is entitled to ANYTHING but common courtesey seriously stretches my imagination to its limits. Screencappers share their work because they love their show and want to share it with others. Ficsters share their work because they love the show and want to share it with others. Vidders--right, repetition. Artists? It's something we love to do, and damned if we don't get a kick out of others liking it too.

Now, far as I can tell? This doesn't equal 'you, fan-producer, owe the fandom'.

Livia runs the largest, most successful SV archive on the web. Because you, the fan, go there and use it for your fic needs does not equal 'Livia should do it the way I like and if she doesn't, she's a bitch because she's doing it for the fandom.' Being a reader does not mean you get to dictate terms. Uploading without reading the FAQ, breaking the rules of the archive as stated very clearly IN that FAQ and Livia deleting the story and then BLAMING HER for that?

She runs the archive for love of the fandom, but that doesn't mean you're entitled to it.

Debchan was the most productive and cleanest capper I've seen--Sarah T as well. This does not equal 'you do this for the fandom, therefore the fandom should decide your output'. The very idea that the act of sharing gives the anyone the right to decide content and use blows my mind.

And you know? Te writes fanfic. And oddly enough, this does not equal 'Te writes stories in the fandom, therefore as a reader, I am owed what I want when she writes. And I shall be bitch if she doesn't. And also flame if my feedback isn't responded to seconds after I send it'.

You are seeing where this is leading, right? It's called password protection and privatization. It's called ruining access for everyone. Firefly's poorer today because of this entitlement crap. Smallville might be coming up on the list. And God knows what has/will happen in other fandoms.

The entire point of the community is to share this stuff. Not respecting the wishes of the people producing, who invest free time, money, energy, enthusiasm, into their work, does not make them want to share. Exposing them to potential legal action, does not make them want to keep working.

Let's flip this and try it from another angle.

When we, the cappers, archivists, vidders, artists, writers, etc., post/do something fannish, there are some basic conditions that you'd think would be pretty much self-explanatory. This is a work of art/fiction/etc and we made it and are sharing it. The act of sharing does not preclude our right to distribute as we see fit and to choose where it is kept or what is done with it. It does not mean, because it is in the archive/on our webpage/open to the public, that it is up for grabs for anything a fan wants to do with it. I may let you play with my Clark action figure, but you sure as hell better not start writing on him with magic marker just because you want him Goth. Or whining at me because I don't have the one with bendable elbows. Or ranting because after you covered him with magic marker, I don't want you to touch him ever again. And you know, I CAN take him away and never share him again. Because it IS mine and I shared for pleasure, not because I owed you anything.

Seriously, this is kindergarten level stuff here. And I assume most of us are beyond kindergarten.

Abusing someone's bandwidth, thus costing them money, does not want to make them share pretties with you. Calling someone names because she asks you not to break the rules of a forum or an archive really doesn't make that person want to keep administrating the forum or archive for you. Stealing--and it IS stealing--art and vids doesn't endear you to vidders and artists. And does this really need to be spelled out in small, easily understood words?

Ignorance isn't an excuse, not here. Real life good behavior isn't an optional thing online. And if the only enforcement is to either remove the product in question or to make it a fucking war to force good behavior, well, I'm okay with that.

Comments at the Post

[claire]: I am grateful to those named, yourself and many others for sharing your stories, fanfic, vids, websites etc. Some of which I will download to my own computer if I know I'll look at them often. But they're not mine. I'm just lucky enough to know of people who produce mindblowing (and occasionally other-parts-of-the-body blowing) fic and art and that share it with us.

[meret]: Go, girl! I'm appalled at stuff like this.

[renenet]:

You know, oddly, the biggest problems we've had in fandom can be traced RIGHT back to that idea that fandom is all about consumers.

Yeah, and, you know, this makes me think about how the worst kind of consumer is the one who gets stuff for free. When I worked retail one of the lamest "jokes" that customers ever made was when an item didn't have a price on it: (say it with me now) "It must be free!" Not inherently unfunny, but the aggression and near salivatory glee with which so many customers said this always made me cringe. There are few things that can bring out a consumer's most grasping, basest instincts as swiftly as the thought that they may be entitled to something for free; it simultaneously allows them to demand it and take it for granted. It's so disheartening to see some fans treat fannish productions with this same attitude. The disrespect to both individual artists and the fannish community is astounding. And then to have many of these folks turn around and accuse the vidder/artist/archivist/capper/etc. of being the selfish one not committed to the fannish community...grrrrr...

[fleurbleue]:

It gets on my nerves when the stupidity can ruin everything. However, it’s not exactly complicated to understand that a fandom is based on altruism and courtesy.

As though there aren’t enough bad behaviours in real life *sigh*.

[ex zarah5106]:

Oh hell yes

And, you know, this is not just a problem that applies to Smallville. In the last, oh, four years oh so, I've been around quite a few different fandoms, and my general impression is that this costumer approach was less common in the beginning. Of course, it's possible that this is all about me having 'the good old days' issues, but I don't think so. People have become a lot more demanding.

After announcing that I wouldn't be writing for a certain fandom anymore, I had people flame me for leaving series unfinished, for not being interested anymore, for leaving in general. I had someone send me an email along the lines of "write, bitch, write! Where da fucking updates?" a full two days after the last update of the section the person was referring to. The fuck?

When it comes down to it, these people seem to have forgotten that we're actual people, too. We breathe, we eat, we sleep. We're not the computers that allow us to share our work, no, in fact, some of us may even ::gasp:: have a life. We may not always have time, we may not always feel like writing/capping/archiving, it can take us a while to reply to feedback. And, guess what? We have every right to.

We're not being paid for anything. We don't owe our time and work to anyone.

As for the plagiarism stuff... I don't know. Maybe it's different with manips or vids, but I had this happen to me a while back. Some idiot stole my stories, search-and-replaced the names, then posted them to ff.net in a different fandom. Someone told me about it, and at the time, I was mainly stunned that anyone would do something like this (doesn't that kind of thing always seem to happen to others?), and, yes, I was hurt.

By now, I can pretty much laugh at the idiot. I mean, how pathetic do you have to be to post someone else's writing as your own, gather the praise, all the while knowing that it's not really yours? It's sad, really, and deserves pity more than anything else.

I think that maybe this is the best way to deal at least with the rabid write-more crowd: laugh at them, pity them. The plagiarizers, well... Make sure their websites disappear, have as many people as possible be aware of what they did, and get them banned from ff.net or wherever else they're writing. And then laugh at them.

But! While some may be damn annoying, there are also many, many people who are incredibly nice and grateful, who understand the demands of real life, who send thoughtful feedback, who are always up for interesting discussions or, alternatively, fangirlish squeeage. They're the ones that make it all worth it, don't they?

[thete1]: *applause* Jesus, I hate fandom sometimes.

[amegoddess]:

This happens all over in every fandom I've been in, even original fandoms that produce original items. I've seen art and writing made for love be copied, passed around, and altered without permission ending up god knows where. All the person wanted to do was share their love or vision with fellow fans and instead they get the tired line of 'You put in up for free on the internet didn't you realize that means you gave up all your rights! Stop whining about it.'

Many people will just stop putting their stuff up for people to enjoy and that leaves us that much poorer or that much biter. =(

Don't know where this is heading other then when putting up art on the internet I now embed a copyright and a website because it makes it harder to just take. And still, I'm paranoid. Originally I just wanted to draw pretty pictures and share but now, bitterly I know better then to do that without some notices.

[manna]:

My husband has a theory that if you do something for someone more than three or so times, then they start to see it as their due, and also their right that you'll do it for them again. He was thinking more in terms of business -- doing free work for customers in a certain area of a project, giving staff a Christmas bonus -- but it probably applies to fandom too.

In one way, I think the the free nature of most fandom exchanges works against them, because if something is given away for free, then it can have no value, right? I think it's perhaps a fundamental part of human nature that if something has no cost and they have no immediate, personal knowledge of the effort it took, then it becomes 'worth' less, and certainly less worthy of respectful treatment. This is one reason why authors and vidders are probably more respectful of others' work than the people who haven't done it themselves and don't viscerally *know* the effort involved in production.

LJ itself had a similar problem and has tried to overcome it with the codes system, to make people see that what they're getting *isn't* a worthless thing. And LJ account now had some value. I'm not sure whether this is entirely a good thing, though because you only have to go to some of the news threads about LJ service to find free users who, damn it, have a *right* to some specific level of service. I wonder if this kind of complaint was higher or lower before the codes were introduced.

[anonymous]:

I read this with interest and not a wee bit of guilt. I am one of those spectacularly un-creative people who does NOTHING for the SV fandom. I do not cap, vid, write or draw anything but I consume plenty.

I'm very grateful to the artists and am rather worried that my free drug of choice might disappear behind closed doors even though I understand and appreciate the reasons why. Stealing is stealing!

But just a word about feed-back from the other side. I don't feed-back everything I read, just what I consider to be the very best stuff. This is because: I do need to get off the computer sometimes; I don't want to give luke-warm feed-back for a story I don't 100% love because that might be discouraging and who am I to talk since I can't write? Lastly, if I feed-back everything from say, one fave writer (Jen - I'm looking at you), I start feeling like a stalker! But OTOH I do feel a bit bad for reading stuff and NOT feed-backing. Protocol can be a bitch!

Starflower.

[la sigh]:

It is mind boggling to think that common courtesy needs to be explained. But sadly the concepts of polite, "please may I"s and "thank you for the ..."s are not taught or practiced in some peoples everyday life. Would these people walk into a museum and tell the curator to rearrange the exhibit more to their liking? Would they say "give me" and expect to be allowed to grab and walk out with a piece of art they happen to covet at that moment? And I don't think this is a hell of alot different. This fandon has so many talented Artists creating their visions and sharing with us their love of a subject that my fear is the idiots who abuse the artist's creations will ruin it for the rest of us who just are so happy to have the sharing. Wise up guys. Or the talented will pack up their toys and go home. Or lock in down so none of us get to enjoy it.

This is why I couldn't understand the earlier arguments about the right to feedback, or comments to feedback given, or writers meeting expectations, panhandling to the reader - stuff. These wonderfully talented folks who post and share their work are not getting paid to please us the readers! They don't *owe* us a single solitary thing and to expect or demand or steal from them is so fucked up. The only person an artist is *obligated to* is his or herself, fulfilling the spark in their imagination. So don't screw with them and if you do don't be surprised or rant when they slap you hands and tell you NO, BAD DOG.

I don't have to like an artist's work, I don't have to tell them why or comment, but if I question or comment my politeness is mandatory, common courtesy is mandatory. And if they produce something that moves me and I want to pet them and gush over them and tell them I'll have their babies, and I'll try to do so with correct spelling.

So to you Jenn and to the other authors, artists, filmmakers, and other wonderful sharing souls who post on Lj and on-line: please don't let the assholes of less than polite society spoil this venue for you. The majority of us out there appreciate your work and talent, your art lightens and brightens our days.

And note to the BAD DOGs: Wise up.

[cjandre]:

I think the 'consumer' mind-set of fandom has always existed, afterall - our obsessions are the product of our need for MORE of our favorite shows, favorite characters, favoriter writers.

As fandom spreads, using the Internet as a main medium, the speed with which people can enter into fannish dialogs and create fannish networks has increased to the point of being mind boggling. It is this speed which hampers the enculturation of new fans.

Between the high of immediate gratification and the lack of exposure to the ettiquette and traditions of fandom, people new to fandom can easily miss the point of the community aspect - at least at first. One hopes that they will learn, but since even before the Internet fandom had it's share of inconsiderate dumbasses, one must assume that a certain number will continue to behave as if the feelings of others don't matter.

[ellenore]: I agree that the conummer mindset has existed for a while in fandom. The idea that we have a right to criticize, say, the direction of a story comes directly from the idea that we have a right to criticize the direction of a show. (Specifically, we have a right to start a fan campaign to influence the direction of a plotline.) I know that there are different levels (tv show producers make MONEY), but the basic concept is the same.

[liviapenn]:

See, in my opinion, those kinds of fannish campaigns (petitions to bring back a dead character, or to get two characters romantically involved, etc.) are just... well, they come off to me as also being spurred by a *really* over-inflated sense of entitlement. Either that or a complete lack of understanding as to how TV shows *work*, you know? Network executives really don't *care* what fans want; it's all about ratings. Nor are they *obligated* to give fans what they want. They're really not. They're only obligated to *stay in business,* you know?

Fan support campaigns have helped cancelled shows get back on the air (from the original Star Trek to The Sentinel in the 90s) but to me that's totally different from, say, a "Bring Doyle Back" campaign aimed at the Angel powers-that-be. The writers of fanfic don't have an obligation to produce the plotlines/pairings/happy endings that their readers want; how much more ridiculous is it to believe that the *WB* has some obligation to produce the plotlines/pairings/happy endings that their viewers want?

It bugs me especially in SV where I've actually seen someone in all seriousness suggest a letter-writing campaign to get TPTB to add more "Clexy content" to the show. ^_^;;

[liviapenn]:

We are the consumers of that media, and, the consumer is always right

No-- the *customer* is always right. And we, the viewers, are not the customers in this situation. We don't have to *buy* episodes of Smallville or Alias or the X-Files; they're broadcast to us for free. And the *vast* majority of viewers do not buy action figures, tie-in CDs, novelizations, etc, the way fans do. The networks don't make the bulk of their profit off of fans, they make most of their money from advertising. How much they can get from advertising depends on the ratings of the show... which explains why so much TV nowadays caters to the lowest common denominator, and not to the wishes of the dedicated fans.

As loud as we are, we're really a very small group compared to the larger audience. There's 2000 people on the largest Smallville slash fiction mailing list that I know of. Even if you estimate that, say, there's *five times* as many people who feel just the same but are not on the list for whatever reason, that's still only 10,000 dedicated slash fans. And that's *worldwide,* so a lot of those people aren't even in the USA. That's a very small number when it comes to judging ratings.

As much as we wish they *would* cater to us, and as much as we feel like we deserve it, TPTB is not obliged to cater to the wishes of people who are basically receiving quality entertainment for free.

(Not to mention, often, fans want different things. Some people wanted Mulder and Scully to get together on theX-Files, and some were fervently against it. Should Chris Carter have held a vote to decide what happened? How else would he know what his fans wanted him to do? Etc.)

[hederahelix]:

You covered a lot of ground in this post, including one of my chief annoyances, the way that some people seem to feel entitled to feedback. When I write (which is rare these days), like anyone else who writes, I enjoy feedback. However, it's not the chief reason I write. I write because I get a scene in my head that won't leave me alone until I purge it by writing it in order to get it to shut up. Feedback is gravy. It does help me get a sense of what works and what doesn't, and I love every minute of it, but I do not look at it as an inalienable right, nor do I hold my fic hostage if I don't get feedback that satisfies me, as I've seen some authors do.

Which leads into my questions. Is it possible that some people either always have or are now starting to use online fandom as a means of instant gratification rather than strictly fannish interest? In other words, people who have a fannish interest to begin with get hooked less on the love of the fandom than on the interactions within the community itself? They are having a bad day/week/month whatever, and post fic, art, vid, cap, etc. in order to get feedback to cheer themselves up more than because they couldn't help themselves? To what extent do all of us do this in some form?

and most importantly . . .

is it the fact that fandom is now online and tied up with a technology where increasing speed feels like it's speeding everything up?

I was not active in slash fandom before it was online, so I've only ever been involved in the age of the web. But it seems to me that my involvement with fandom has gotten increasingly instant over time. First, I read websites and archives for fic. When those weren't being updated fast enough, I moved to mailing lists. Now I've moved on to livejournal. I find that since I've begun spending more time online, I expect things to come to me everywhere at an online pace. I find myself frustrated sometimes when I'm working on schoolwork, for example, when I know a quote is in a book somewhere, and I have to painstaking plow through an actual book page by page, when if the book were full text online, I could just do a global search.

I'm not saying technology is evil and utterly behind this, but given that the web does move information so fast and given that the web has also had a culture in which stealing it if it is up there has been part of the appeal for a lot of users, how much do you think the technology is contributing to these issues? I'm not saying it's just technology, because I can also see how people would argue that it's also partly the loss of the mentoring structure that was easier to maintain in zine-based fandom. I'm just curious what other people think.

[emrinalexander]:

Amen. Unless someone enters into an agreement with me which states "Nansi will write a story that contains x, y and z and deliver said story by such and such a date, for which Buyer will pay writer X amount of money," fans are not consumers.

If someone started an archive and made it subscription only for contributors and readers, then there might be some argument that said archive should conform to the consumer's wishes.

But that isn't the way things are done.

If you didn't create it, ask if you can use it.

If you get a no, it means no.

End of story. How difficult is that to process? Where are the boneheads coming from and do they, god help us, act the same way in Real Life? I doubt it. Can you see some of the bandwith thieves going: "Hey - I really liked your deck furniture, so I took it. What do you mean you didn't have it out there to share?" In RL that's where the police come along and arrest you.

[fyrdakken]:

I learned to hate the word "entitlement" way back in high school government classes.

There were some very good points raised above, about online culture breeding impatience (lord knows I've noticed this in myself) and the way the internet has encouraged the casual flouting of copyright with the concomitant loss of respect for a creator's right to control distribution of their own products. Lack of newbie "acculturation" is quite probably another factor.

And then I started wondering if some of the problems aren't coming from that same old divide between fic/fanart/whatever as art vs. fic/art/fill-in-the-blank as fannish dialogue. Newbies especially who have run into many more of the latter than the former might be proceeding under the assumption that everyone is doing this for the attention, would be flattered to have folks running off with their pics for personal usage, squee with glee at the thought of the actors seeing what's been done with their own likenesses, might actually lose interest in finishing a story if not nagged feedbacked heavily, etc. I can definitely see a few teenagers falling in with ff.net the wrong crowd and thinking that this is the way things are supposed to be...

So, yeah. That Centralized Fandom Primer -- bloody good idea.

[jainieg]:

Hi, Jenn - I'm not sure if you know me or not, so let me just introduce myself. My name is Jainie and I run a site called Access Denied. It just opened today and it deals with a lot of the problems you've outlined here. I can't personally contact every fan artist who's had problems, in every fandom, because god knows, I'd be old and gray before I got them all sorted out. So I have to count on the 'you tell a friend and they tell two friends... and they tell two friends' technique in order to spread the word about the site.

The site is for people who have had their work and/or their bandwidth stolen by thoughtless thieves. At the heart of the site, it's a project to cut the stealing off at the source: by systematically shutting all of the participating AD sites down for 24 hours on May 19. What better way to hammer home the point about fans stealing from other fans by having the fans shut down their sites. Because we don't have to do what we do - we don't have to provide screencaps, we don't have to post our vids and art so that everyone can see them. This is an opportunity to show the thieves just how empty and dull the 'net would be without all of our contributions to the fannish community.

If you, or any of your friends, might be interested in taking part in the project, please do let me know. And if any of your friends are interested, make sure to direct them to the Access Denied site: denied.mizjain.org.

Thank you.

Loves,

Jainie

[loki niflheim]:

Wow, I was searching for Firefly slash and where it took me...

I'm surprised at the extent of this problem, never been behind the scenes of fandoms and are merely munching on any fanfics that 'popped-out' from archives and write a little (2 pages in what... 5 years? Hahaha) original fic, and a writer friend of mine recently sought advice on a fanfic that was very similar to hers (especially the last line of the fic). Since the first time I dipped my toes into the world of fanfiction, I never had the urge to write demanding emails to writers, firstly because it's free and secondly because I never thought 'I deserve it', so it came as a surprise that anyone would think that they deserve free access and free use of other people's work. Where's the logic in that? You get what you put in, anything else is bonus.

I wonder if this is the reason to the 'dying out' of SV fandom fanfics? I know I've been having SV-fanfic deprivation and even though I feel like I'm so close to offerring chocolates (if I make a lot of chocolates comments, it's because I stock a lot of chocolates at home, having friends who are chocoholics) to the writers for anything with pairings that doesn't squick me, I didn't. I don't think it's polite of me to barge into their lives and demanding my satisfaction when they either have lost interest, are undergoing a difficult time, have something far more important to do, etc. I'd still offer chocolates though (looks at Jen and other her fav. writers). As I wrote on one of my feedback to a CSI fanfic writer, "If you decide to write a sequel to it, then I'll look forward to read it, but if you decide not to, thank you for writing this one and wish you the best on your future fics." Unfortunately I forgot which fic/writer this is anymore and I wanted to re-read it *bawls* *sniff* Anyway, I'm grateful for all the works out there, the good and the can-be-improved ones, it takes time, ideas and writing skills to make one and the dedication... just makes me want to hug you, kiss you and... keep... you... forever? In my dreams, maybe!

I never really got into vids or visual aspect of the fandom. My TV's sex life is better than mine, and that's not saying much since it only got turned on a couple of times a week for CSI episodes (Smallville's not aired here), if he's lucky. So I usually got hooked into a fandom from fanfics, So, fanfic-> watch serial-> buy DVDs and proliferate. First music vid I saw was a HP (or rather, Snape) vid by Diana Williams and God I thank her for that since it cracked me up when I was totally morose. I have the fandom to thank for my sanity and as the saying goes, "You don't bite the hand that feeds you." and for my financial state (who needs drugs when you have fanfics?). Come to think of it, that's how I got here. I was curious about a Firefly video.

Sometimes I wish that all these fandom stuff comes out of a black hole, that they'll endlessly comes out no matter what. Every season I worry that my favourite serial would end because they've gone past the second season and I know that's wishful thinking because if the show doesn't sell, the actors/actresses and the staffs working on it won't get fed, etc. (I know the business big guns are involved in there somewhere too, but I don't care for them that much) so I do what I can do to support them, buying the DVDs and turning on the TV during the show even though they're re-runs while I'm doing other things in another room, getting my friends hooked too, etc.

Lately there's a tendency for people to disregard the concept of ownership, easy access to digital content, where the material obtain comes in an abstract form, makes people believe that they are getting nothing from nothing. Separation from the sender to receiver, poster to postee, lack of recognition between a nickname to an individual obscures the real life from the reader, so to them perhaps it is a proverbial black hole that takes your orders and dispense goodies.

If there's anything I can help in this effort to 'kill the copycats', 'burn the flamers' or just have a bon fire and dispense marshmellows and Graham crackers (and chocolates), let me know, I'll be glad to help.