You're Wearing the Wrong Duck on Your Head
| Meta | |
|---|---|
| Title: | You're Wearing the Wrong Duck on Your Head |
| Creator: | Merlin Missy |
| Date(s): | November 2, 2007 |
| Medium: | |
| Fandom: | multifandom |
| Topic: | |
| External Links: | You're Wearing the Wrong Duck on Your Head page 1 ; page 2; the entire essay |
| Click here for related articles on Fanlore. | |
You're Wearing the Wrong Duck on Your Head is a 2007 essay by Merlin Missy.
Series
This essay is part of a series called Dr. Merlin's Soapbox.
Some Topics Discussed
- the author is a fan who has autism
- trying to make sense of the world
- unhappiness with From "fanatic", an article for the "Baltimore Sun"
- discussion of LiveJournal and Warriors for Innocence ("Warriors For Idiocy")
- sockpuppets, fans outing other fans, fans who make other fans their enemies, ship wars
- the author's poem, "Slash is Like Pants"
- fans slicing it thin
- Strikethrough
From the Essay
We are not considered to be Normal People, especially by anyone who styles him or herself a Normal Person. We’re all wearing ducks on our heads, people. This is why it is unfortunate and a bit sad to look around our feathery little space and realize how often we criticize each other for wearing the wrong ducks.
Before we go further, I should clarify that I am not espousing the line of the Cult of Nice. Fandom has rightly navel-gazed that particular aspect of fannish interaction unto death. Complaining that people are “not being nice” silences discussions by hitting (primarily female) fans with the culturally-imposed dictate of “if you are assertive, you’re a bitch.” The Cult of Nice feeds on that, smacking anyone who disagrees or becomes (even justifiably) angry with the B-word.
This isn’t about that.
This is about not being stupid. Arguing over the type of duck someone is wearing is stupid. Disliking someone because they like slash / het / gen / this pairing / that character / RPF / ‘cest ‘fics / J.K. Rowling / Cassie Clare / Fandom Wank / etc. looks from those standing outside our little world like disliking someone’s duck. No one else cares.
This has come to my attention this week due to the experiences of a friend. Thanks to Livejournal’s unfortunate reaction to this spring’s Warriors For Idiocy fiasco, reporting journals (and MySpace pages, and Fanfiction.Net accounts) has been made even easier. My friend was reported for a Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) violation (also see OCILLA) for posting a list of songs in her journal. Not links to songs, not links to a download site, not even links to YouTube.
A list. And because of the way disputes are settled, in order to dispute the claim, she must give her personal contact information to the person who made the claim, regardless of the validity of the original claim. Since this was, again, a list of songs and not actual material covered by copyright, there is no valid claim. Someone is trying to cause her trouble and get her personal info in the bargain. She has a fandom enemy.
Fandom is hard, people. It shouldn’t be. It should be the place where we all hang out with ducks on our heads and go, “OMG, you know how to quack too? I thought I was the only one!” It should be a decades-long party with chips and dip and music we like and feathers all over the place, and sure, they’re going to get ruffled. But seriously? Work it out. Chat it out. And if you can’t work it out, go into separate corners already. Save it for something important. (For example, the racism, sexism, and religious bias arguments? Important. The arguments over who Harry eventually marries? Not so much. Fun to discuss, certainly. Fun even to argue about. Not to flame.)
I’m not saying you have to be nice. I’m saying before you enjoy that bit of schadenfreude when your current fandom foe gets struck by a run of bad luck (something we all do), take a step back and ask yourself if you really want to be adding to the pain in someone else’s life. Enjoy their bad day if you must, but again, heaping more onto them just makes you a jerk.
Short essay tonight, folks, sorry. I have to go feed my duck.
Fan Comments
[unknown user]: Everything you've said with this essay/poem is so true. Fandom should be fun. Instead, it's filled with flamers and "shipping wars". I'll be linking it to my friends that I know feel the same way.
[Storms]: Haha, that was a great poem. All of this was so true! Fandom is all about the fun!