Just what does LOC mean, anyway?
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| Title: | Just what does LOC mean, anyway? |
| Creator: | Arduinna |
| Date(s): | May 1999 |
| Medium: | online |
| Fandom: | multi |
| Topic: | feedback, Letter of Comment |
| External Links: | online here, Archived version |
| Click here for related articles on Fanlore. | |
Just what does LOC mean, anyway? is an essay by Arduinna.
The essay was posted to Essays: Rants and Rambles.
"Written after watching "play nice" lists and people turn the concept of "LoC" from "tell the author what you think" into "pat the widdle author on her poor teeny fragile widdle head, yes"."
Excerpts
Slash fandom is NOT a group therapy session, okay? We don't all love each other; hell, many of us don't even like each other. I'm not going to pat you on your little head and stick a gold star on your forehead for being such a brave girl and posting a story. I expect adults -- as all slash fen reading this have declared themselves to be by entering this site -- to be aware that it takes more than just showing up to get applauded.
A letter of comment is just that -- a letter (or email message) that comments on a story. That's it; no other restrictions. "I really hated that" is a perfectly valid LOC (and is not a flame, btw -- it's simply a statement of opinion. "I really hated that, you stupid fucking cow, and I hope you die!" is a flame, OTOH.). I don't have to care about you to write an LOC; I don't have to love you, I don't have to like you, I don't have to know you. All I need to write you an LOC is to have been moved in some way by your story, and to have wanted to comment on it. But I seem to be in a rapidly dwindling minority. More and more, people seem to be adopting the "loads of caring" definition. I dunno, maybe it's an internal flaw on my part, but I just don't care about people I don't know, except in a fairly abstract way. I don't cry myself to sleep at night over the plights of strangers; I don't tear up in happiness as I go past a wedding party whose members I don't know; I don't mourn when a funeral procession passes me by. I don't call random numbers on the phone and ask if the person who answers is wearing a sweater, because it's a bit nippy today and I was worried about them. I can't send loads of caring to a total stranger, because I don't feel loads of caring. I feel amused or intrigued or stunned or exultant or annoyed or angry or satisfied or frustrated by people's fiction, but I just generally don't find myself feeling deep wells of caring for the authors. So I send letters of comment about stories that move me.