Rogue Judiciary
| Synonyms: | |
| See also: | Fandom Wank |
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Term coined by Cryptoxin to describe Fandom Wank and related communities' function in fandom.
"I'm not calling for a hierarchicalization of fandom -- I do see its anarchy as vital. And I don't know if anarchy is the precise term -- we have a variety of local, micro-structures: the invisible bureaucracy of mods and archive builders/maintainers and organizers of cons and fic fests etc., the rogue judiciary of fandom_wank, the BNFocracy...."[1]
That is, Fandom Wank serves a constructive purpose (aside from its hilarious one) in that it defines the borders of acceptable fannish behavior (by punishing -- with mockery -- those who cross that border). As one of the few venues where fans of many flavors commingle, Fandom Wank provides a pan-fandom baseline of when righteousness has turned into ridiculousness.
Later, Cryptoxin clarified in another comment about how difficult it is to differentiate between a conversation partner who's trolling and one who's simply unable to let go of a hobby-horse:
This is why I call fandom_wank the rogue judiciary -- without them, even as a symbolic panopticon, there's no third party to whom you can address those kinds of objections.[2]
In other words, Fandom Wank also acts as an outside viewpoint that can interpret events.
Other Mentions
- Vee Fic, Why Is There Not More Shunning? (in comments), The Schrodinger's Cat of Verb Tenses, May 5, 2008 (Accessed October 2, 2008)
- Seperis, i'm avoiding my actual work, The Toybox, May 9, 2008 (Accessed October 2, 2008
- Khym Chanur, Untitled, Fandom Lounge, May 11, 2008 (Accessed October 2, 2008)
References
- ^ Cryptoxin, In Defense of Burr86 (in comments), Crypto, August 5, 2007 (Accessed October 2, 2008)
- ^ Trolls: On the Care & Feeding, Detection, Gender, and Other Miscellaneous Lore Accessed Dec. 6, 2012.