Episode 208: What Fans Owe Each Other
In Episode 208, “What Fans Owe Each Other,” Flourish and Elizabeth share a letter from longtime friend-of-the-pod Destination Toast about whether we can make fandom culture kinder and more nuanced (spoiler: they take a far more pessimistic stance than Toast!). Topics discussed include good old-fashioned “netiquette,” whether we’re at the end of big social media, the dangers of toxic positivity, and systemic versus individual change. They also share and respond to a pair of listener comments on the recent “Fanfluencers” episode, and the way fans’ comments online connect back to the WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes.
Show Notes
[00:00:00] As always, our intro music is “Awel” by stefsax, used under a CC BY 3.0 license.
[00:01:40] That’s Episode 205, “Fanfluencers.”
[00:14:11] In case you hadn’t heard, AMC—which is not a part of the AMPTP—got waivers from the striking unions to resume production of IWTV and two Walking Dead spinoffs in late August, so……….
[00:18:06] “The Hollywood Writers AI Deal Sure Puts a Lot of Trust in Studios to Do the Right Thing”
[00:20:26] Our interstitial music throughout is “Here's the thing” by Lee Rosevere, also used under a CC BY 3.0 license.
[00:21:31] You can check out the show notes for our newest “Tropefest” episode, “Friends to ?” But to listen to the audio or read a full transcript, you’ll need to pledge $3 a month or more. (When you do, you’ll get access to 30 other special episodes, including a whole host of “Tropefest” topics!)
[00:24:10]
[00:24:20] That’s Episode 202, “Dylan Marron,” where we talked about Dylan’s new podcast, The Redemption of Jar Jar Binks (highly recommended!).
[00:29:52] The Zero Comment Challenge.
[00:49:15] We talked about Flourish’s head-in-sand strategies—and began the perhaps tortured climate-change metaphor—in our anniversary episode this year.
[00:55:48] Major spoilers for the final season of Halt and Catch Fire in this post, but it has links to the period-appropriate sites AMC made for Comet, Rover, and the Cameron fansite:
[01:06:13]
Transcript
[Intro music]
Flourish Klink: Hi, Elizabeth!
Elizabeth Minkel: Hi, Flourish!
FK: And welcome to Fansplaining, the podcast by, for, and about fandom!
ELM: This is Episode #208, “What Fans Owe Each Other.”
FK: And we’ve got a couple of different things to talk about in here. First, we have a couple of comments about the strikes.
ELM: Which strikes? The auto strikes?
FK: Ha! OK, to be clear, at the time of this recording, the Writers Guild has come to an agreement, but SAG has not yet come to an agreement. And so, that is the moment in which this is, you know, going into the microphone. The moment at which it goes into your earholes may be a different one.
ELM: [laughs] Yeah, so the—it’s been, what? Three, four days now, since the writers’ strike officially ended.
FK: Mmm hmmm!
ELM: Yeah. It seems like SAG-AFTRA will be coming soon for the same reasons that they caved…
FK: Right.
ELM: Like their fourth quarter projections were coming out, and…
FK: Womp womp! [laughs]
ELM: They didn’t want to get fired. “They” being the executives at the studios. [laughs]
FK: Well, I mean, we’ll see. But this is why we’re giving this disclaimer. In any case!
ELM: Yes.
FK: One of the two entertainment industry strikes is still going on at this moment, and even if it wasn’t, this would still be an interesting thing to talk about.
ELM: Yeah, so both of these responses were to our “Fanfluencers” episode, where, if anyone didn’t listen to that, it was a few weeks ago, and we were talking about fans being kind of pulled in to be a part of the marketing of properties and whether that was being leaned on more heavily in the absence of the writers and, in particular, the actors not being able to promote any new stuff, and the kind of murky lines between journalist, content creator, you know, influencer, fan, et cetera et cetera.
FK: Yeah! OK. That having been said, should we listen to our voicemail?
ELM: Yeah! So this is from Claire Rousseau.
Claire: Hi, Fansplaining. This is Claire calling, and I just wanted to react on the discussion you had in the “Fanfluencer” episode about the whole stance of, you know, “We support the writers’ strikes. We’re OK waiting for new content.”
And honestly, for me, what really bugs me about that particular stance or that way of putting it is it puts the sole responsibility—or fault or blame, if we want to go that way—for no new content on the striking workers. And the thing is, the writers and actors on strike are only one portion of this, right? And, like, the strike could be over today, and we could have actual new content if only the studios would, like, stop being so bloody greedy and give in to extremely reasonable demands about [laughs] working conditions.
And it’s like, it’s OK if you’re annoyed about no new content. I’ve not got to that point yet myself, because I have so much to catch up with, but it’s OK to be annoyed. Just don’t be annoyed at the striking workers. Like, there’s an extremely rich executive over there that don’t want “writer” to be a viable career, so [laughs] you know, so that they can make more money and go out on yachts and, you know, have an amount of money that we’ll never even be able to fathom in our everyday lives.
So it really does bug me to think about, you know, “Something’s a little bit annoying but we’ll let it slide because we support the workers.” And, like, obviously support the strikes. You should always support strikes. But, like, yeah. Let’s reframe it a little bit and, like, say whose fault it actually is that there is a strike going on, because no one who is on strike wants to not be working and not be getting paid and have to be on strike right now. I’m sure they all would rather be continuing to advance their careers in good conditions.
So, yeah, that was just my two cents. I really, really love the podcast so thank you so much for all the work that you do on it, and I look forward to hearing many, many more. Bye!
FK: Thank you, Claire. Excellent point. [laughs]
ELM: Yeah, I think that this was speaking to, I mean, I’m the one who brought up towards the end of that episode, the post that I had seen being like, “Stop saying that you’re OK waiting forever for new content to come, because that actually sends signals that there’s no actual value—”
FK: Mmm hmmm.
ELM: “—that there’s no reason for the AMPTP studio executives to really come back to the table, because no one is really eager for this,” right? You know?
FK: Right.
ELM: We can just coast on the back catalog forever and ever, right? And I think that Claire is speaking to some of that, and our other message that we’re gonna read was directly responding to that. So I just wanted to bring that up and summarize it again.
FK: Yeah—should we read the other one, too, so we can just sort of talk about it?
ELM: Yeah, why don’t I read it. So this is from Majorie, who writes:
“Point taken about the implications of saying, ‘Go ahead and strike, I have plenty of backlogged media to watch,’ but how much do private citizens with no connection to the industry need to toe the line when talking about the strikes—not even about the union or industry working conditions, but ripple effects of the strikes on our own media habits?
“I think that question ties back to the theme of the episode—what constitutes crossing a picket line or anti-strike behavior when you’re not connected to the unions or the professions they represent?—and also the late lamented fourth wall. I’m not really talking to media companies when I talk about how much stuff I already have to watch, but being online means that they’re part of that potential audience anyway. I think that ‘demonstrating there’s demand’ also feels a little futile when show cancellations seem so disconnected from audience demand.”
FK: “The late lamented fourth wall.” [both laugh] Ain’t it the truth.
ELM: That we should steal for an episode title at some point.
FK: Yeah, we really should. Absolutely. So thank you ahead of time, Majorie, [ELM laughs] for, you know, giving us that. [both laugh] Yeah, I mean, I think this also puts a really good finger on another of the elements within this, which is that—you know, I mean, this goes back to discussions that people have been having since social media became a thing at all, which is, “What, can’t I have a conversation with somebody that’s officially public but everyone knows it’s not really public?” [laughs] Right? Or, it’s not intended to be public? It’s socially not public? But, then again, when you, you know, have big data tools that are scraping the internet for all of the comments, I guess it is public. Or, you know, when somebody, like, Googles you, then it becomes public, even though you didn’t intend it to be that way.
ELM: Sure, I mean, in this specific instance, I kind of think it’s not so much individuals saying things like this. It is a scale thing, right? So—
FK: Yeah.
ELM: I saw a bazillion posts expressing that sentiment, like, “Take all the time you want. I have 10 years worth of stuff I want to catch up on,” that had tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of retweets or reblogs on Tumblr. And yeah, that’s certainly—at that scale? That’s certainly is a sentiment that will get back to—
FK: Mmm hmmm.
ELM: —you know, anyone who’s even sort of looking, right?
FK: Yeah.
ELM: Because it’s not like people are scraping your original blog post that has, you know, 10 likes on it, right? You know? Maybe they are. You might have dug down to that level if it was a particular franchise or character or something that you were researching.
FK: Yeah, maybe. But that scale, you’re right, is going to get picked up on any—there’s all of these companies out there that will do, like, a sentiment analysis about whatever topic it is. And at the scale that this is happening, those things are at least going to be popping up. Maybe not your comment, but a comment like it.
ELM: Right. So there is that scale element, and that didn’t happen in the internet of yore, that certainly—you know, there’s no way to say, “Oh, you know, 50,000 people agree with this statement,” when people just had forums and mailing lists, you know what I mean? Right? So that’s something that social media has brought us, that scale.
You know, I think that the original sentiment that I was bringing up, it wasn’t meant to be like, “You're not allowed to say this.” I think it was more about saying…it was saying the general discourse online seemed sort of disconnected from how strikes work, right?
FK: Mmm. Mmm hmmm.
ELM: And I think, yeah, it can seem like we’re not actually involved. But we are the consumer, and in the end, we are a part of it, in that role. I think that there’s this murkiness of, like, I still have been seeing people being like, “Well, until the SAG-AFTRA strike ends, I’m not gonna express my opinions about any new shows.” [FK laughs] Not actors, to be clear. You know, people who are not that in way, right? And not in the WGA. And it’s like, “No one asked you to do that, so I’m not sure why you’ve taken this stance,” you know? But we are—that person, and you and I, and Majorie and Claire and all these people, we are consumers in this arrangement, right? You know? And so we do have a stake in that regard.
But I also take Majorie’s point that it also feels, like, kind of disconnected and pointless, because what, I cancel one streamer and then, you know, or, like, I sign up for a streamer to signal I really, [FK laughs] you know, like, I’m voting with my dollars, and then they’re like, “Uh…for mystery reasons we’ve decided to cancel this thing.” And it’s like, I absolutely understand why it feels disconnected in a way that, like, I don’t know, if the UPS drivers had gone on strike this summer, we would have all felt that immediately, [both laugh] you know? That would have just been chaos, and no one would have been able to stand for that, because that would just bring our capitalist society to a grinding halt, right?
FK: Yeah.
ELM: And that would directly affect us in a way that felt very tangible, and this feels a lot more amorphous, I feel like.
FK: Right, just because there’s, like, among other things, because there’s more time, right? The UPS strikes, and you’re not getting the thing that you ordered tomorrow.
ELM: Not even that. Not even that direct consumer, like, “I didn’t get my Amazon package,” or actually—
FK: Yeah yeah.
ELM: —I don’t know if that comes from UPS or whatever. But, like, business would stop, [laughs] you know?
FK: No, I mean, that too, right? I mean, I’m just saying, like, whether it’s “I don’t get that package” or “the factory doesn’t get their package of 10,000 things so that they can—” You know what I mean?
ELM: Right.
FK: No matter what it was. But this is, like, well apart from being less dramatic, it’s also just a sort of longer timescale before you actually feel, you know, the pinch.
But I think the other thing that is maybe tying into this, and this something that I didn’t think about when we were talking about the “Fanfluencers” episode, but I’m beginning to think about now: there is an element of parasocial relationship here that is sort of, I think, messing with this, and here’s why. When I hear those, like, “Don’t worry, we can wait.” Like, “I can wait forever for this.” That’s the kind of thing that I could imagine saying to, I don’t know, somebody who was going on strike and, like, “I don’t know if I should do this because people really want the thing I’m making.” And to say to an actor, “No, you need to go on strike and don’t worry, we will all wait.” That seems like a nice thing that you would say to a friend, right? If I had a friend who was an actor who was on strike stressing out about this, I would say to them, like, “Don’t worry. We’ve got plenty to watch. We will wait for your show to be back on when you come back from the strike. Do your strike. You do you. You gotta do it.” But that’s not actually the audience that is hearing this, right? It’s an audience thing, right? [laughs]
ELM: Yeah.
FK: You’d say that to a friend, not to the corporation that they’re striking against. [laughs]
ELM: Well, I mean, this actually ties really nicely into what Claire said, you know? Because it’s like, the whole thing with strikes, if anything, you know, the striking auto workers right now, or the UPS folks, you know, and disruptive action, like, activists who shut down the highway or whatever, right?
FK: Yeah.
ELM: Whatever, you know? And the kind of mantra people trot out on my internet spaces, which is like, OK, I get it, is like, “Strikes are supposed to be disruptive.” Right? And the point is not to direct your annoyance at the disruption, at the strikers, it’s supposed to be at management—
FK: Right.
ELM: —who will not give them a fair deal.
FK: Right.
ELM: And so I don’t even know if you need to—I do think there is a parasocial element, and I do think there, in addition to a, like, wanting to feel like it’s your direct fight—
FK: Mmm hmmm.
ELM: —and centering yourself when you aren’t a member of the WGA—
FK: Oh, of—yeah yeah yeah. Sure.
ELM: —or SAG-AFTRA. [laughs] And I think that fans definitely are super susceptible to that, because you really feel like you’re all in it together because you’re all—this is your whole world, too, [FK laughs] in addition to their actual jobs, you know?
FK: Yeah!
ELM: For your favorite show or whatever. But I also think it’s an element too of, like, where do you direct that sentiment? I can’t wait all day. And that is not saying, “Writer, go back to work.” [FK laughs] That’s, like, “I can’t—hey, like, I don’t know, Paramount, or whatever—”
FK: Yeah.
ELM: “—I cannot wait. I cannot wait for this. I’m giving you money, and I need you—”
FK: Right.
ELM: “—to solve this. You fucked this up, you need to solve it.” Right? So that’s where that anger should be, and then the, “You take as long as you need to achieve your goals” sentiment [both laugh] goes to the striking actors and writers, right?
FK: Right.
ELM: And that’s, like, that’s almost impossible to, like, get the nuance of that in, like, a two-paragraph Tumblr post, you know what I mean? Not impossible, but, like, hard.
FK: Yeah, much less a skeet. [laughs]
ELM: Yeah. It’s not happening in a skeet. So I think that stuff is really kind of challenging to sort out, because, like, I don’t know. Interview with the Vampire got a waiver a few weeks ago from the AMPTP because AMC isn’t even really a part of this.
FK: Yup.
ELM: And now they’re filming again.
FK: Yeah!
ELM: And I’m like, “Yeah!” [laughs] You know? It’s like, I’m happy now, my thing’s going, you know? And obviously I’m, like, still invested in this.
FK: Yeah. RIP Star Trek. [both laugh]
ELM: Right? So it’s like, I don’t know. Do I feel, like, selfishly pleased that the one thing I want to keep shooting is now shooting? [FK laughs] Yes. You know what I mean? And I don’t feel bad about saying that, right?
FK: Yeah.
ELM: So I don’t know. I think that, like, I absolutely think that we shouldn’t beat ourselves up for any particular sentiment, but I do think—I do stand by the point that I brought up, that prompted Majorie’s response of, like, framing it—I think it’s hard, because it’s like, there’s a lot of different posts with different sentiments going around. I do think there’s a big misunderstanding I see on the internet every day in talking to people about how strikes work.
FK: Mmm hmmm.
ELM: Not least because labor unions are so diminished now.
FK: Mmm hmmm.
ELM: I think, you know, a generation or two ago, it would be much more in the air because it would be happening a lot, right? You know? If you look at a time like the thirties—
FK: Yeah.
ELM: —when it was just constant labor actions, right? And it was just, like, a part of everyone’s lives.
FK: Yeah, yeah.
ELM: And now it’s, like—now it’s like you have to do an education campaign to explain what’s even going on.
FK: Mmm hmmm.
ELM: So, like, I get it. But I also understand why those—I absolutely take all of Majorie’s points here, you know?
FK: Yeah. Yeah, I do know.
ELM: I mean, all right, I will say also, too, in other countries, I shouldn’t—this is a very American-centric— [FK laughs] Other countries do have way more strikes than we do. [laughs]
FK: That is true.
ELM: But I’m talking—I think we’ve seen a lot of—I mean, these are American, this is the American entertainment industry, and most of the commentary has been from loud Americans.
FK: Yes.
ELM: So I think that we can caveat that. I just don’t want anyone—
FK: Great. Great caveat. [laughs]
ELM: —who comes from a cool striking country to be like, “Excuse me.” You know? [laughs]
FK: I loved—I have to say, I loved watching your face as you, like, came up with a caveat. As you were like, “Oh wait!” [laughs] It was great.
ELM: I was like, “What about France!” You know? [laughs]
FK: What about France? What about France?
ELM: Yeah. Well, I was just like, there are plenty of places where it’s happening constantly, so…
FK: Yeah yeah yeah. Love a strike.
ELM: Yeah.
FK: Love to burn a cop car.
ELM: Yeah, I mean—
FK: In France.
ELM: Yeah.
FK: I mean, French people do. Not me, personally. I’ve never burned a cop car in France, to be clear. [laughs] Or anywhere! Or anywhere.
ELM: Wow.
FK: I’ve seen it happen, but I’ve never done it. OK. Moving on.
ELM: I was gonna say, there were a lot of cop cars burning, um, in 2020, right by your house.
FK: Yes, I watched one do it from my window.
ELM: [laughs] It wasn’t you? You didn’t do it?
FK: It was quite an experience. [both laugh] I mean, I guess I didn’t, like, go down and throw water on it, so, [both laugh] you know.
ELM: [laughing] I think that’s fine. I don’t think that was your responsibility.
FK: [laughing] No! It felt perfectly reasonable for me to sit on my fire escape and go, “Wow, look at that.” [both laugh]
ELM: All right. All right, you took us here.
FK: All right, moving on!
ELM: That’s good. Great. OK.
FK: Moving on. [laughs]
ELM: Thank you to both of these comments. Yeah, you know, I just think, because the WGA strike has wrapped up, I think it might be worth taking, like, two seconds to say, first of all, I know there are people who are in the WGA that listen to this podcast and, like, congratulations— [laughs]
FK: Yeah!
ELM: —for all of your hard work. You know, I think that everyone is really relieved, but I personally, like, looking at the agreement and some of the commentary, I still feel like there’s space to worry.
FK: Yeah.
ELM: [laughs] Particularly on the AI stuff. So it’s weird, because it just feels like we’re in this huge moment of transition, and they’ve gotten these protections, and there was a good article. Did you see this? I put it in The Rec Center, from Alex Winter, who was Bill of Bill & Ted, and—
FK: What? I did not see this.
ELM: He wrote an op-ed in WIRED where he was basically like, “This deal really counts on the studios to do the right thing when it comes to AI.” [both laugh]
FK: Because notoriously the studios do the right thing all the time. The term “Hollywood math” doesn’t mean anything bad about studios!
ELM: Is that like boy math or girl math? Or is that, like, a third gender? Hollywood! [both laugh]
FK: Wait, you don’t know this term?
ELM: No, I know this term, but boy and girl math are so trendy right now.
FK: I guess they are.
ELM: So, yeah, I don’t want to be too doom-and-gloom the second a victory is won, and I think there’s a lot of relief, but it’s also like, [laughs] I don’t trust them! So…
FK: Yeah.
ELM: I think that is a fair sentiment, and it’s definitely something that we’ll keep watching for. I mean, I’m curious how and when the SAG-AFTRA strike is gonna be resolved and what they’re gonna get out of it.
FK: Me too, because I don’t know that it’s—I mean, [laughs] the writers were not easy, but I’m not actually sure that the actors’ points are either, because I actually think that they’re—yeah. I’m—yeah. I’m very interested to find out what’s gonna happen. [laughs]
ELM: Well, I mean, sorry, not to go too deep into it, too, but it’s like, yeah, the writers’ stuff, the non-copyrightable status of AI works is, like, a big stopping point, whereas for actors?
FK: Yup. Yup, exactly. Exactly. It’s a—that’s a different—yeah.
ELM: Remember earlier in this podcast when I was like, “I don’t care about copyright law, and I don’t see how that really affects anything”?
FK: I do remember that time, and you’ve learned lots of things since then. [laughs]
ELM: What a journey I’ve been on.
FK: You have.
ELM: Now I think it’s the only thing that matters.
FK: Thank you for walking the Appalachian Trail with me in this regard, [ELM laughs] you know?
ELM: The Copyright Trail.
FK: Yeah!
ELM: That’s great. OK, cool. So, um—
FK: All right, thank you, [both laugh] to both Majorie, who, I hope we’re saying your name right, and Claire.
ELM: We’re not saying your name the same way, so one of us is probably right.
FK: [laughs] We’re—
ELM: Majorie. [pronounced “May-jor-ee”]
FK: We’re making our guess. Majorie [pronounced “May-jor-ee”].
ELM: Majorie [pronounced “Muh-jor-ie”]?
FK: Majorie [pronounced Mah-jor-ee]. Or Marjorie? But—
ELM: There’s no—
FK: —said that way? I don’t know.
ELM: I don’t know. We apologize. Thank you for humoring us.
FK: Anyway. Thank you, and thank you to Claire. Those were great comments.
ELM: Yeah, absolutely. All right, do you want to take a quick break?
FK: [laughing] Let’s do it.
[Interstitial music]
FK: All right, we’re back, and it’s probably time to talk about how we support this podcast.
ELM: [laughs] You could sound a little more enthusiastic.
FK: Yeah! Let’s talk about [adopts a cartoonish voice] Patreon, boys and girls!
ELM: Oh, Jesus Christ.
FK: Yeah, see, you don’t want that from me. You don’t actually want it.
ELM: Patreon.com/Fansplaining. How we make the podcast: we are very pleased to announce we have released a new special episode for people at $3 a month and up. It is called “Tropefest: Friends to ?”
FK: [laughs] Yes! It is about all kinds of friendship-related tropes. So, you know, you definitely want to listen to that.
ELM: What it’s really about is shipping, actually. Having edited it.
FK: Yeah, it’s too bad, because we were like, “This is not gonna be about shipping.” And then, you know, it was about shipping.
ELM: [overlapping] No, I mean—a lot of it is about, like, why does shipping, like, take up all the oxygen—
FK: Yeah.
ELM: —around, you know, when there’s lots of different kinds of human configurations. So if you’re interested in that topic, that is one of nine “Tropefest” episodes. We also have “Enemies to Lovers,” “Trapped Together,” “Found Family,” “Fake Relationships,” “Canon-Divergent AU,” a bunch of other ones I’m not naming right now. So you get access to that, and, like, 20 other special episodes, for only $3 a month, you get that entire back catalog. I think I’m selling it hard, but I think it’s a great deal.
FK: I think that you’re doing a great job, and also, let’s note that you can give us as little money as you want, or as much money as you want, and at higher levels, you can get cool things, like a sweet little enamel pin, or a Tiny Zine, so go and give us the money that you feel comfortable doing.
And if you don’t want to give us money, you can also support us by spreading the word about the podcast, and especially our full transcripts. Or, by writing in. Sending us voicemails, giving us things to talk about and think about, because actually a lot of our episodes come from listener and reader feedback. So you can do that by calling in. That’s my personal favorite way that you can contact us. 1-401-526-FANS. You’ll get voicemail, and you can just leave a voicemail right there. Or you can send us a, like, less than three minute audio file at fansplaining at gmail.com, or, you know, a text if you want to write it and not read it out loud. You can also get in touch with us through Tumblr. Our ask box is open, anon is on. That’s @fansplaining over there. And generally speaking, on all social media we are @fansplaining.
ELM: Wow, you really just went for the whole thing. You didn’t give me a chance to jump in.
FK: I barrelled right through it!
ELM: All right.
FK: It’s because I’m so excited to get to the next bit.
ELM: Well. Let’s do it then. Let’s get to it.
FK: All right, we’ve got a very long letter from Destination Toast, and I’m gonna read it so then you’re going to have to respond to it initially, because I’m gonna be voice-tired.
ELM: [laughs] All right, I’m ready. Do it.
FK: All right.
ELM: Also, I gotta say, side note, I think that we should keep the formatting of this letter in the transcript.
FK: Oh, yeah.
ELM: It’s—for listeners, you’ll never—there’s no way to express how this looks. It’s got bullet points. It’s got bold. It’s mostly those two things. It’s bullet points and bold.
FK: It is written by a person with an extremely orderly mind.
ELM: [laughs] All right, so Toast.
FK: All right.
ELM: The Steve Martin of the podcast wrote this letter. [FK laughs]
FK: OK.
ELM: You do it.
FK:
Hey Fansplaining,
This is Destination Toast. I wanted to say thanks for your recent episode with Dylan Marron. It was one of the most thoughtful and nuanced discussions I’ve ever heard about the ways online conversations can go awry, as well as how fandom interacts with those broader patterns. I listened to it, then listened to The Redemption of Jar Jar Binks, as well as some episodes of Dylan’s earlier podcast, Conversations with People Who Hate Me. Then I listened to your episode with Dylan again.
Some things that particularly spoke to me included:
The importance of judging someone by their intent as well as impact and fighting against the impulse to cancel them without understanding where they’re coming from.
This includes trying to understand the context and intended audience of someone’s remarks. People online often don’t mean for their words to quote-unquote ‘breach containment’ and get taken out of context or seen by a very broad audience.
But at the same time, thinking about the impact of online remarks at scale, as well as at the individual level. A whole bunch of well-intentioned people, all making similar jokes or critiques, can end up feeling like an unbearable pile-on to someone who has unwittingly ended up the target of those comments. This in particular is a point that I haven’t heard discussed much and thought was a really valuable discussion.
A related thing that I think many people don’t think about is that, in many cases, the content you interact with gets amplified and shown to more people—so controversial content often appears a disproportionate amount in people’s feeds, and the pile-on or flamewar is also increased. So even if very few people agree with OP, that can make everything worse.
I now find myself wondering whether and how we can spread any of these kinds of lessons through online fandom spaces. I recognize that there will always be some assholes in any large group, and therefore in any large fandom space. But I guess I’m wondering if it’s possible to give people who aren’t looking to stir shit some tools to get along better in fandom spaces.
On the one hand, that feels like pie-in-the sky thinking—because online fandom is mostly just a microcosm of online culture as a whole, and online culture is a function of big difficult things, like the behaviors of online platforms and the increasing cultural and political polarization of many countries right now.
On the other hand, I think a lot of folks who are active in fandom communities are unusually invested in making fandom spaces pleasant places for us all to geek out in. And fandom is also talented at creating and spreading memes. I don’t just mean things like Goncharov, although that is amazing—I also mean behavioral memes, like ‘Don’t Like; Don’t Read,’ or ‘Don’t Tag Your Hate.’ Obviously, some people ignore these, but I wouldn’t be surprised if those memes gave a lot of well-intentioned fandom folks some guidelines about how to play nice.
Anyway, part of me has been thinking since the show about how to memeify some of the lessons I mentioned above. Like, I’m envisioning a series of posters like the old ‘Loose Lips Sink Ships!’ but instead, they have messages like,
AYTA: ARE YOU THE ASSHOLE? If you wouldn’t say it to someone’s face, don’t say it to a public space!
INTERACTING SPREADS BAD TAKES! Don’t make the algorithm think this is good content!
FANDOM NOOBS ARE EVERYWHERE! Don’t get tricked into arguing with a 16 year old!
EVERYONE MAKES MISTAKES! Reward people who started with good intentions, and who listen and improve. If we chase them offline, the internet gets worse.
I’d love to also have something about how we as fans treat the creators of the media we’re fannish about, but I’m not sure what.
I also have to admit that I’ve started like five drafts of a manifesto about how fandom is a collaborative space that we can all help to make better.
Anyway…this leads me to wonder whether you’ve ever seen any attempts to make fandom culture better, and what has made them succeed or fail. Also, whether you have any other advice or thoughts on how to spread online generosity, kindness, and nuance to make fandom spaces better, and/or are any of your listeners interested in helping to brainstorm other ideas, or illustrate memes, or anything?
ELM: Thank you very much, Destination Toast. I can’t believe I have to reply first.
FK: Well, that’s what happens when you make me read the long letter.
ELM: OK, so, there’s a lot. [FK laughs] There’s a lot here. That’s the first thing I’ll say. Where do we wanna start?
FK: Well, we could start from the back end, which is, what have attempts been in the past to make fandom and online spaces better, right? Because I feel like we’ve both seen a few different rounds of that.
ELM: Yeah, I mean, I can think of a few things off the top of my head. One is, especially in transformative fandom, the idea that rather than saying, “Why doesn’t anyone care about X?” or “Why isn’t there more of X?” like, events, right? Or challenges that encourage people to make more of X, right?
FK: Mmm hmmm.
ELM: And to actually, like, put what you want to see into the world.
FK: Mmm hmmm.
ELM: So, you know, thinking very specifically about, you know, things around female characters or characters of color. That sort of thing, right? That stuff I think is great. I have seen—and we’ve heard from people on the show—I’m going to be very pessimistic in this conversation. [FK laughs] I’m sorry in advance, Toast. You know, we’ve had comments from people, and I’ve seen them out in the world, but, like, we’ve had people directly send us these thoughts being like, “Yeah, I tried that for a while. It’s exhausting. [FK laughs] It’s really depressing to be the only one making the thing.” So of course you’re gonna want to go back to writing the angry post being like, “Why is it like this?” You know?
FK: Right.
ELM: Because you tried to take the positive, proactive approach to—
FK: Mmm hmmm.
ELM: —making things less biased, and no one cared.
FK: Right.
ELM: And I totally get that. And so that’s one thing I can think of. And, you know, similarly, even when it’s not about, like, trying to bring different kinds of fanworks into the world, just, you know, seeing challenges like, comment challenges, you know? Comment on the—the Zero Comment Challenge for fics, right? Go find a story that has no comments and comment on it. That’s inherently positive, right? You know?
FK: Mmm hmmm.
ELM: And that’s not sitting there writing, you know, sometimes self-righteous posts [FK laughs] about how fandom is about comments, and if you don’t comment, fandom will die!
FK: Mmm hmmm.
ELM: That is instead going out there and just adding more comments and probably making the days of people who feel marginalized within—you know, if you never get comments on your works, you probably feel a bit isolated in that regard, right? So that can make a big difference to people on an individual level. I don’t know about on a whole.
FK: Mmm hmmm. Yeah, although wholes are comprised of people. I mean, just like how pile-ons can, like, each individual comment is totally fine and reasonable, but when, like, 500 people are saying the same thing, it feels horrible and is, like, much more impactful than anyone intends it to be. You know, I mean, individual acts of kindness actually do add up to good things, right?
ELM: Sure, sure. Yeah, and I’m not trying to diminish that. And, like, who knows? Maybe, this is gonna sound cheesy, but maybe it’s like a pay-it-forward thing, and someone receives a comment and then they are like, “I’m gonna go leave a comment somewhere else!” [FK laughs] And then everyone’s getting comments, et cetera, et cetera, you know?
FK: Yeah.
ELM: Sure. Why not? You know? I talk a lot of talk on this podcast about how, like, “Who needs them comments?” But, like, obviously people need them, [FK laughs] you know what I mean? Obviously people—
FK: You admitted it!
ELM: No, I mean, like, you know, I just feel like a lot of people are externally motivated in that way, right? You know?
FK: Mmm hmmm.
ELM: Whether it’s something they naturally crave or something they’ve been trained into wanting by [laughs] social media platforms. It’s just, that’s what’s going on now, you know? So…
FK: Yeah, absolutely. You know, it’s funny that you’re talking about all of these very sort of—all of these things that feel very of the moment, very decentralized, you know, sort of pay-it-forward things, all that, because the first thing I thought of when I read this letter was actually, like, ye olde internet, right?
ELM: OK.
FK: It felt a lot to me like, you know, in the internet of the past, of the nineties and the 2000s, you would always have, like, there would be a thing about netiquette, in any forum that you were in, there’s going to be a set of rules—
ELM: Netiquette.
FK: —but it’s not just rules for that forum. I mean, yes, there’s that, and that still exists sometimes, right? Like, if you’re on a subreddit, there’s going to be rules for the subreddit, and there will be moderators, and it still functions that way.
ELM: Sure.
FK: But more than that, there was also a sense of, when someone new showed up in a community, there would be people who would be like, “OK, great, let’s teach you about community norms. Let’s do that.” And that is not realistic for the internet now for a variety of reasons. One of them being that it’s hard to even define who’s the sort of new person who’s there to be shown the ropes. Those people don’t usually feel like they’re new to be shown the ropes, right? Because you’ve been using the internet for a long time. Maybe not in the same way, maybe not as a power user, but it’s weird, and I would resent a little bit someone being like, “Oh, you’re new to this community, can I show you how to do it?” Right?
ELM: Yeah.
FK: “Can I give you some good advice about how to argue or not argue?” [ELM laughs] Which I feel like, in 1990, that was just normal—I wasn’t doing it in 1990—and it was kind of normal in 2000. But today it just feels really, you know, not possible. [laughs]
ELM: You know, I think it depends on the platform. I mean, I think, you know, so we’ve seen, like, these Reddit users came into Tumblr this summer.
FK: Oh, that’s a good point.
ELM: And the Reddit users were looking for rules, maybe because they were coming from Reddit where there are stated rules.
FK: Yeah!
ELM: And I saw a lot of posts on Tumblr that I felt were in a very good spirit, where they were like, “Hey, real talk, this is what this site’s like.”
FK: Mmm hmmm.
ELM: They were not trying to make anyone feel like—you know, it was welcoming without being cloying or—
FK: Yeah.
ELM: You know, the old classic forum, like, “Pull up a chair, there’s cold beer in the fridge!” You know? It’s like, [laughs] it wasn’t like that kind of vibe, you know what I mean?
FK: Yeah.
ELM: Of the awkwardness of old forum talk. [FK laughs] But I found that very charming.
FK: [overlapping] I’m nostalgic, I’m a little nostalgic [ELM laughs] for the awkwardness of old forum talk. It’s terrible, when I look back on it, but I’m like, “Oh, yeah, I remember back then. There was a cold beer in the fridge for 13-year-old me.” [laughs]
ELM: I just imagine the guy with a goatee and a long ponytail being like, “Hey!” [laughs] Anyway.
FK: Yeah! You know?
ELM: That’s literally who it was.
FK: I liked—those guys are not all bad. [laughs]
ELM: No, they’re fine. They’re fine. They’re, like, great sysadmin—anyway, so…[laughs]
FK: Yeah!
ELM: I shouldn’t make fun of that era of the internet. But it is a little cheesy, right? It always was cheesy.
FK: Yeah, totally, totally.
ELM: So those posts were interesting, and it was—it’s fascinating kind of to contrast them with the way the Tumblr developers and other folks who are communicating on behalf of Tumblr, are approaching new users.
FK: Ha!
ELM: Which is absolutely bananas and doesn’t—it isn’t—I mean, I just truly don’t believe they have any UX people working there, even though I know they do. [FK laughs] And so they’re, like, actively changing the design of the site to try to make it more approachable. Whereas you have people using their human words to say, “Hey, here’s how this works. Here’s the basic things, basic things.” And you have newcomers being like, “Oh, that makes total sense, I’ll give it a try.” [FK laughs] And then you have the actual Tumblr staff frantically trying to change it to make it look like other websites, so it looks more familiar.
FK: Yeah.
ELM: And it’s so…patronizing, you know?
FK: Yeah, yeah. Yeah.
ELM: It’s so lowest-common-denominator, too, right?
FK: Yeah.
ELM: I think a lot of people who make social media platforms have such a low opinion of users.
FK: Yeah, yeah.
ELM: And so that’s one example. But then, I haven’t spent time on Mastodon. You have.
FK: Mmm hmmm.
ELM: Some of the reports from Mastodon—certainly there are people setting community norms, and some of them don’t sound great.
FK: That’s very true.
ELM: You’re not allowed to talk about race without tagging it with a content warning, even if you’re trying to talk about your life as a person of color.
FK: In certain part—OK, Mastodon, let’s be clear—
ELM: Yes. Yes, clarify.
FK: Mastodon is not one thing, in case anybody doesn’t know this. Mastodon is a bunch of different instances. So it’s like having a Discord, where people are like, “You can’t talk about race.” It’s like, “OK, wow, fuck that.” It’s not exactly like that, but, you know. [laughs]
ELM: Yeah, so it’s like, even “instance” might not be a word that everyone knows. So it’s like, different, like, overlapping circles, right? You know?
FK: Right.
ELM: Communities.
FK: Right.
ELM: And they can touch each other, and you can see each other, but there are different rules—
FK: Depending on where you are.
ELM: But they do touch each other in a way that, like, two subreddits wouldn’t.
FK: Right, right. So it’s a little bit more complicated, but the point being that—
ELM: Yes.
FK: —it’s like, you can be on Mastodon and not be in one of these spaces that has really any particular rule that you might not want to have. You can find a space that won’t have that rule. But, then it gets complicated, because… [laughs]
ELM: Right. And there are pros. Like, if you are in a certain Mastodon instance, and there’s another one swirling up that’s full of neonazis, yours can totally block that one, right?
FK: Yeah. You can just—yeah. Never—
ELM: And then you’ll never—it’s like you’re erasing those neonazis from the platform for you, right? As a group.
FK: Yeah.
ELM: And that can be a great safety feature.
FK: Right.
ELM: But also, there are norms that some of them are imposing that make it not a great place for people to hang out.
FK: Such as the neonazi one. [laughs]
ELM: Well, sure. OK, yeah, so it’s a double-edged sword, right?
FK: Right, exactly. Exactly.
ELM: Yeah, yeah. So I just think these are some examples. So I’m saying, five years ago, I feel like, the internet, if I were to characterize and respond to what you said that led me down this path, I would say, yes absolutely, and part of the problem, too, is because social media platforms are so interested in signups and growth in numbers—
FK: Right.
ELM: —they make a completely frictionless experience where all you have to do is put in an email address and create a username, and then instantly, boom, you’re in the platform, you can do whatever you want, no one’s given you any indication of netiquette.
FK: Right.
ELM: I think we may be moving past that now.
FK: Yeah.
ELM: I’m not saying in a positive way.
FK: No. [laughs]
ELM: But I think that that era of, like, the 2010s, you know?
FK: Yes.
ELM: The infinite growth of Instagram kind of era.
FK: Mmm hmmm.
ELM: That is over.
FK: I definitely agree with that. I definitely agree with that. And, I mean, I might even say that I feel like the era of big social media, in the sense of, like, everybody on the internet seeing the same thing, on one platform, right?
ELM: Yeah.
FK: Is maybe coming to an end.
ELM: I mean, I think that started to come to an end when Facebook started to lose users.
FK: It definitely did. [laughs] But I think that there’s another aspect of this which, I mean, touches on exactly what you were saying here, because where I would take what you were saying is, in the past, Lord knows it wasn’t perfect and we’ve talked about this many times, but you had maybe communities of more human size online.
ELM: Yeah.
FK: Like, a human-scale internet, because there just weren’t as many people on it. And the internet has become super non-human scale, and now we see—I mean, in fandom we see people retreating back to sort of human-scale communities.
ELM: Like Discords.
FK: Yeah.
ELM: Closed Slacks. You know, even group chats.
FK: Exactly. And I think that the thing within those communities is, you know, a lot of the things that Toast is talking about have to do with, honestly, personal growth for each individual, right? Many of those ways of making discourse better involve actually looking at yourself and becoming a better person, [both laugh] and being able to deal with other people better, right? And I would like everyone to want to do that. I’m certainly very interested in doing it myself. But not everybody does. [laughs] And that can be hard.
ELM: Yeah, I mean, I also think, I mean, I’ve talked about this at length, so stop me if you feel like I’ve beaten this drum to the point where it’s now snapped.
FK: [laughs] Do drums snap? The sticks snapped.
ELM: The material of the drum…snapped? It wouldn’t snap? It could, like—
FK: Tore?
ELM: Yeah, I guess so.
FK: Yeah. OK.
ELM: I don’t know. I play the cello. Our strings snap, OK?
FK: Great, got it.
ELM: Tell me if I’ve played this cello so hard—
FK: —that the strings—
ELM: —that my A string snapped, OK?
FK: OK, I will tell you.
ELM: That’s not usually why they snap, by the way. They just wear out over time. It just happens. You’re tightening them, you know?
FK: Because you played it enough. Because it took time.
ELM: Yeah. [laughs]
FK: Great. Go on.
ELM: Or did I ever tell you about the six months I played the harp?
FK: Don’t get off on this story right now! [ELM laughs] I want to hear what you actually had to say.
ELM: A lot of snapping strings on that baby. [FK laughs] The celtic harp, by the way. Anyway.
FK: Uh huh.
ELM: Yeah. [laughs] So I feel like, yes, yes, yes, people are retreating into Discords and smaller spaces and group chats, and yada yada yada. A lot of people aren’t, and a lot of people don’t want to.
FK: Mmm hmmm.
ELM: Because they want scale.
FK: Yeah.
ELM: And they’ve been trained to want to do the numbers, and they want their content to be seen by as many people as possible. You have people advertising their fics on TikTok. Like, “Read my fic.”
FK: Yeah.
ELM: On TikTok. You know?
FK: I mean, yeah.
ELM: That’s not a desire that I can wrap my head around.
FK: I guess I can understand it in an intellectual way.
ELM: Yeah! I’m just saying I can’t, desire-wise, in a desire way, I can’t grasp it, you know?
FK: Yeah.
ELM: I get it. If you want more readers, that’s a place to do it. Just tap into the intersections of, like, fanfiction TikTok, and BookTok, right? You know?
FK: Yeah, sure.
ELM: And promote your work, et cetera. And in a more generous way, you know, talking to friends who are in K-pop fandom—
FK: Mmm hmmm.
ELM: —or other huge, international fandoms that really rely on scale to kind of do all the operations of fandom, like translations. There’s a huge amount of material to translate, and—
FK: Yeah yeah yeah.
ELM: —these, like, cultural exchanges of things that you would never be able to get access to if you weren’t in Korea, and Koreans are interested in sharing with the world, et cetera, fan labor, blah blah blah. All these things have to happen at scale. I also think that because so many people are trained to want virality or to want internet fame, we have people, like, even going back to Dylan, to The Redemption of Jar Jar Binks, when he talks to the guy who did the “Kill Jar Jar” website—
FK: [laughs] Yeah.
ELM: —and the guy was like, “I don’t even care about this that much, I just wanted to have a viral website,” you know?
FK: Yeah yeah. Yeah.
ELM: It’s like, that wasn’t a sentiment that was, like, a special, “the internet is new” in the late nineties and that was a curiosity.
FK: Right.
ELM: That is, like, a fundamental mode of operation for a lot of people on the internet right now. And so, like, yeah, you’re much more likely to go—
FK: A lot of people in life, right? You know?
ELM: Sure. Right?
FK: Like, “I want people to look at me.”
ELM: Yeah, absolutely, for whatever reason. And so you’re gonna have the take that’s spicy. You’re gonna pick a fight with a bad, you know—every one person who writes the, like, “The pedo website doesn’t need more donations” every time AO3 has a drive, and one person writes this, and then 50,000 people have to chime in with their defense posts, right? And it’s like—
FK: Yeah.
ELM: Why! Why are you giving that—you know what I mean? It’s just like—
FK: Because people need to do some personal growth! [ELM laughs] I’m just saying. You are feeding back into my statement, you know?
ELM: That’s not—that’s not helpful, though. Like…like…
FK: [laughing] I know! [both laugh] That’s part of my point here, right? Is that, like, some of—I definitely think that it can be helpful. I do think, actually, that the idea of, like, “Hey we made ‘don’t tag your hate’ a meme, can we make anything else like this, like, a little bit catchier?” You know? Can we do that? That seems to me maybe good, you know? I think “don’t tag your hate” actually, as a thing, has helped. So much of this is just—
ELM: [overlapping] Do you?
FK: Yeah, I think that there are people who genuinely didn’t know at one point, or who might not know initially that, like, that was a problem.
ELM: Yeah, explaining platform dynamics to people, saying, “Hey, you may think you’re just talking to yourself, but by the way, if you say, like, ‘Bucky…’ and then, like, ‘Bucky hate post’ or whatever, it’s gonna show up in the spots with all the Bucky love posts,” right? And you’d be like—
FK: Yeah, I think that was helpful.
ELM: And to understand that. The person who hates Bucky does not give a fuck. They would like people who love Bucky to know how awful he is.
FK: Yeah, well, that also is a personal growth issue, [ELM laughs] and this is my point—
ELM: [laughs] You can’t just keep saying—
FK: —is that I think that there’s some of this in terms of giving people information that is helpful, but I don’t think that there’s much we can do if people want to, you know, if people are not willing to look at themselves and be like, “Wow, I’ve done some things that were not prosocial.” [ELM laughs] You know? I say this about myself, right? I certainly am guilty of some internet dickery over the course of the years. [laughs]
ELM: Wow, what are you gonna own up to right now? What crimes have you committed online?
FK: Oh, many. Dude, I was a member of the Harry Potter fandom in the early 2000s. What crimes haven’t I committed?
ELM: Who did you catfish?
FK: OK, I didn’t catfish anybody. [ELM laughs]. I was the catfish-ee. Moving on! [laughs] You know what I’m saying though, right? I mean, this is my point is, I do think that those memes can be useful from a giving-information standpoint, but I think that what people do with that information depends on human nature, which is bad.
ELM: I’m less positive about these memes. No offense to you, and no offense to Toast. I think that people haul out some of these phrases as a way to shut down conversation—
FK: Mmm.
ELM: —and as a way to signal they’re part of a poorly defined group. When you think about “your kink is not my kink, but that’s OK,” like, “kinktomato” or whatever, right?
FK: Oh, yeah. Yeah. For sure.
ELM: And people, like, bust it out just kind of as a slogan.
FK: Mmm hmmm.
ELM: Or, like, “pro-ship” or whatever, right? Or, you know, that kind of thing, and then it turns into weird camps.
FK: Yeah, it takes on, like, a cultural meaning that is way beyond whatever the original thing was and has all these valances.
ELM: Right, and so I think that’s the danger of reducing down to a meme, or to a slogan, or something like that, is that people start to use that as shorthand for something that they haven’t actually—like, folks haven’t agreed upon, right? You know what I mean?
FK: [laughs] Yeah.
ELM: Especially when you think about something like pro-ship, right? You know?
FK: Right.
ELM: Or, like, certain emojis that get used or whatever. And then the people who are on the, quote-unquote, the “other side” see those and assume things about—and then you’ve got two camps—
FK: Yeah.
ELM: —and no one’s actually really talking about any of the nuances, and it just becomes, like, “they said, they said” situation, right?
FK: Mmm hmmm.
ELM: So that’s why I’m less jazzed about these slogans, though I do find Toast’s presentation of them very charming, and I love the idea of making, like, war propaganda posters [laughs] with these phrases on them. [both laugh] That’s fun, but I also, I think there’s a danger there, and yeah. I don’t think that, like, stuff like “don’t tag your hate” has been as effective as you are claiming it might have been.
FK: Yeah, I mean, I don’t know. Like I said, I don’t know about “effective” in the sense of changing people’s behavior away from doing it. But [laughs] I think it told people what they were doing who might not otherwise have thought of it.
ELM: Sure. I think it’s helpful to remind people, “Hey, you’re here on Al Gore’s Big Wide Internet, and this is how they designed Tumblr.com.” Or, “This is how they designed Twitter,” or whatever. You know? And, “Understand that when you do this—” You know, continually reminding people that yeah, you are not in a private room right now.
FK: Right.
ELM: I think that absolutely is important, because that’s also the source of, like, people say things that are really meant for their circle, and then…
FK: Right.
ELM: You know, and then it gets blown up and et cetera, et cetera, right?
FK: Right. And I am very sympathetic to the issue of, like, “Well, but we all are living online, and, you know, this is where we are.” And, like, I do get that. But I don’t know. Maybe I have a very particular perspective on this, because I have been in retreat from the internet yea these many months now, [laughs] you know?
ELM: It’s true, it’s true.
FK: And I have missed some things, but it is the only way that I can think of to be sure that I am not participating in a pile-on that I didn’t intend to, you know? [laughs] There’s really, like, there’s no safe way to deploy Twitter when you’re talking about, like, your personal opinions about another human being, and be sure that you’re not going to…I mean, I know Twitter is not our issue right now, because Twitter is now X, and X is now, well, it is what it is. But you know what I’m saying, right?
ELM: It’s Nonsense Town. Yeah.
FK: Yeah. There’s no safe way to deploy this technology and not risk being part of a mob, which you may or may not agree with, you know?
ELM: You could not retweet and not reblog anything.
FK: But if you make a statement, you’re still potentially part of that. I guess if you didn’t tag anybody ever, and you didn’t retweet or reblog anything ever, but you’re still, like, searchable.
ELM: We’re specifically talking about participating in pile-ons.
FK: Yeah.
ELM: I think if you just make your own post, it’s unlikely that you’re going to be instigating a pile-on.
FK: Oh, but you might be talking about something that lots of other people are also talking about, right? You might not be instigating it, but you might be taking part in it, even if it doesn’t feel that way to you, you know what I mean?
ELM: Sure.
FK: So…
ELM: I mean, then, it’s a scale issue then, too, right? Are you not entitled to have your opinion?
FK: Right?
ELM: Oh, this person is shitty and problematic. Am I not allowed to say so on the internet?
FK: Yeah yeah. This technology is unsafe at any speed. [ELM laughs] Genuinely! I mean, I am coming to this conclusion, personally, and I know that’s a pretty extreme statement, but I am, [laughs] I’m getting there, you know? I’m becoming an old man who yells at clouds about this.
ELM: Right, but I don’t think that, you know, and I feel like I’ve critiqued you before for this, and you can do what you want. But, like, I don’t think you’re yelling at the cloud. I think you’re burying your head in the sand.
FK: Yeah.
ELM: I think it’s all well and good for you to say, “I’m not doing this personally.” But you’re not going to live in a cabin in the woods where you never talk to anyone ever. [FK laughs] You are interacting with people daily, and you’re gonna be interacting with them for the rest of your life in your new job, that are participating in this. That are just—
FK: That’s true.
ELM: —just opening Instagram like a total normie and then encountering nonsense, you know what I mean?
FK: Yeah.
ELM: The problem is structural. I mean, we talked about this a few episodes ago, right? You know? You can sit in your garden—
FK: [overlapping] I agree with you that the problem is structural, for sure. Yeah.
ELM: Yeah. You can sit in your garden, drawing drawings and then—
FK: Yeah.
ELM: —but actually the planet is warming all around you.
FK: Mmm hmmm.
ELM: And it’s just, like, a hot day in the garden, right?
FK: Yeah.
ELM: The problem is the platforms, and it’s hard to say—sometimes it feels like, it’s like, “What can fans do?” And it’s like, I don’t know. Fans participating in platforms that are designed to reward the worst behavior. That’s, like, literally, they A/B-tested their way into the absolute worst-behavior engines.
FK: Right! This is exactly what I’m saying, though. It’s like being—it’s like refusing to use something that is the worst-behavior engine. Sure, one person isn’t gonna do very much on it, but if everybody refused to use the bad-behavior engine, then nobody would be using it, right?
ELM: But that’s not, like, a useful statement. “No one should use social media or the internet anymore.” That’s not happening.
FK: [laughs] I know! I’m just saying that, you know, maybe not social media or the internet anymore. I’m just saying that I do feel like we can, you know, sometimes when things are that toxic and that hard to resist, the only—I mean, it’s never going to change if we don’t change our behavior, either, right? There’s nothing that any individual can do to fix this structurally at all. So what is there, other than opting out?
ELM: I mean, there is the idea of curation.
FK: Sure.
ELM: I personally have experienced this. I’ve talked about this before on the podcast.
FK: Mmm hmmm.
ELM: You know, starting to have a feed that is making me actively dislike [FK laughs] the thing that I came to that space for, and making some choice unfollows or mutes.
FK: Sure.
ELM: And instantly having a vastly better time. I think that there is an instinct that a lot of people including myself have to wait for everyone else to change. To be like, “Oh, just stop doing this.”
FK: Yeah.
ELM: “Just stop being like this.”
FK: Mmm hmmm.
ELM: And I think a lesson that I’ve had to learn [FK laughs] is that people are not fixing themselves—
FK: Yeah.
ELM: —and looking inward like you’d like them to.
FK: [laughs] Yeah.
ELM: And so then you just have to make them silent [laughs] on your feed. You know?
FK: Yeah.
ELM: Whether that means unfollowing them or muting them or whatever, right?
FK: But isn’t that—I mean, two things I would say to that. One is, but that doesn’t fix any structural issues. All it does is, again, sort of hide them from you, right? It doesn’t change the fact that people are still being, you know, brought into this system which rewards the worst-possible behavior. It just means that you’re, like, trying to go for the people who are doing it less.
ELM: Yeah.
FK: And that feels to me like it’s also sort of a head-in-the-sand position, right? You’re still not making any change. You’re still another user of the platform.
ELM: What change can I make to the large social media platforms, personally?
FK: Well, that’s my point, right? Is that we can’t, except by opting out and not giving them our—you know, this is not actually—
ELM: Right, OK, but—
FK: [overlapping] This is not actually what I intended to say, because this is not something I actually practice. [ELM laughs] I have been led down this argumentative rabbit hole, and now I’m, like, preaching a position that I don’t actually believe in entirely, although—
ELM: You’re, you’re—good, walk it back, because your opting-out stance is not useful to anyone who actually wants to be in fandom on the internet, [FK laughs] and actually wants to find other people who like the thing that they like, too, and wants to make things with them. Quote-unquote “opting out,” that’s not realistic.
FK: Yeah, I mean, I agree, because you’re going to be in—I mean, well, maybe you find a Discord or something like that, right? I’m talking particularly about certain kinds of social—but I agree with you. You’re gonna be in some structure, and the structure’s gonna be not something you control.
ELM: Right, right.
FK: I don’t know the answer to it.
ELM: Yeah. Take this opting out off the table, because you can’t opt out of living on a warming planet—
FK: OK—
ELM: —and you can’t, if you want to be a fan—
FK: —you can opt out of Facebook, you can opt out of Twitter, you can opt out of the worst offenders in some of these areas, right? People have opted out of Twitter when it became intolerable. We’ve seen that.
ELM: Sure.
FK: People said you can’t do it, but they have done it.
ELM: Right, but, if you don’t know where—but I’ve heard of toxic behavior happening in Discord.
FK: Oh, for sure.
ELM: Don’t talk about that like that’s some sort of great utopia, you know? Where it’s all, like, safe and controlled.
FK: No no no, I don’t think it is. I don’t think it is. I don’t think it is.
ELM: If you wanna be in fandom, in a participatory way, you’re going to have to be somewhere on the internet at this point. I mean, yeah, obviously, you could have a fully IRL experience. But that’s not super realistic for most people.
FK: Right. If nothing else you’re gonna have to find out about it somehow, which probably is gonna involve the internet, at least a little bit.
ELM: Yes, and—
FK: You need to buy your Comic-Con tickets on the internet. [laughs]
ELM: Right. And if that’s what you wanna do, is only go to Comic-Con, then I don’t know how that’s—I don’t know what’s going on in your life, but that’s fine.
FK: Ehh, you know.
ELM: Let’s work within the world that Toast is talking about. The normal world with people who wanna be into something, [FK laughs] and don’t wanna participate in toxic behavior and wanna help minimize toxic behavior, right?
FK: I just—yeah. Yeah.
ELM: It’s just, it’s something I really struggle with. And I will say, too, like, I think there’s a real danger of veering towards toxic positivity.
FK: Mmm hmmm.
ELM: To stay on the “toxic” frame, you know? And to say, why can’t we all be friends? Why can’t we all be nice? And, like, totally shut down any lines of critique, right?
FK: Yeah.
ELM: Which then makes it an unsafe space for people.
FK: Right.
ELM: For other people, right? You know what I mean? So it’s like…[sighs] I think that we’re—OK, you know what I’m gonna mention for the 150th time? This is, like, subliminal messaging to anyone listening to this podcast. I’m watching Halt and Catch Fire, [FK laughs] the greatest television show ever made. And I’m in the fourth season, and the world wide web is being created and implemented. And it’s a very hard part to watch. I know a lot of people said this, because it’s got the hopefulness of the early web, right?
FK: Right! “Everything is—this is gonna make everything better.”
ELM: Not just everything better, but, like, “This is so incredible. I’m connecting. Look at all these connections. I’m connecting,” right? And it’s so human.
FK: Yeah.
ELM: And they’re, like, hand-indexing websites, and they’re all looking at their little websites, and they’re like, “look at this guy made this,” or “she made that,” right? And they do such a good job at showing how people were really leaning into that element of, there is another person—there’s two people at either end of the computers.
FK: Yeah. Yeah.
ELM: And something I think really significant was lost with scale and also with, like, algorithms. Automation.
FK: Yeah.
ELM: Big, slick tech that minimized friction in signups, right? You know?
FK: Mmm hmmm.
ELM: This big mass, you know? Like, where you’re trying to achieve the numbers on TikTok or whatever, right?
FK: Yeah.
ELM: And it’s not about making—you’re not trying to make friends on TikTok.
FK: [laughs] Yeah.
ELM: You know? You’re not trying to—and that’s utterly—the scale is utterly dehumanizing.
FK: Mmm hmmm.
ELM: Like, how often do you go to someone’s, like, feed and just think about them?
FK: Yeah.
ELM: Think about the other person who’s there, right?
FK: Right.
ELM: I think about—but I don’t—do I think about them as a whole human? Sometimes no, right? And sometimes their human experiences come through, and it’s so jarring. Like, for example, there was someone I was mutuals with. I didn’t know her at all.
FK: Mmm hmmm.
ELM: Beyond, we’d just been mutuals for a long time on Twitter, and she tweeted about having a bad cough, and then she died of COVID.
FK: Whew!
ELM: Right? And I learned that when her husband tweeted on her account—
FK: Wow.
ELM: —“She passed away.” I don’t know her at all. I never met her. I don’t know anything about her life. I don’t know anything about her health.
FK: Yeah.
ELM: I mean, I knew roughly how old she was, I knew what she looked like, I knew the things she tweeted about.
FK: Yeah yeah.
ELM: And it was so weird to just see the, like, four days prior—
FK: Yeah.
ELM: —tweeting about having a terrible cough, or, like, you know—
FK: Yeah.
ELM: —and then imagining that gap, right? And it’s so weird that I never had any part of her as a human. You know what I mean? It’s like, after the fact you wanna be like, “Oh, what was her life like?” [FK laughs] And it was like, this wasn’t—what, am I gonna sit here with all the hundreds of people I follow on every platform—
FK: Right.
ELM: —and try to construct a whole human life for them? I think that’s literally impossible.
FK: It is. Yeah.
ELM: You know what I mean? Just like I don’t go to the coffee shop and, like, try to imagine what the barista is doing with the other 23 hours [laughs] and, you know, 55 minutes of their life. That’s not my business, and it’s nice to have a brief exchange, you know?
FK: Yeah.
ELM: But I think it’s especially hard online. It’s not even dehumanizing. That’s not even what I’m trying to describe, but it’s kind of like, I think it’s impossible for us to hold that many humans in that way.
FK: Yeah.
ELM: You know what I mean?
FK: I do. I do. I mean, I don’t know what to say to that, [ELM laughs] because I agree with you. I mean, the only thing that I have been—I think that we agree about a lot of this, you know? I think that if there’s any place that we disagree a little bit, it’s maybe that I just so strongly feel like I love Toast’s enthusiasm for this idea, and I wish that everybody could hear and process some of these things that Toast is talking about. But ultimately we have so little control over anybody else’s behavior, and so little influence on them, because, for most of those people, right? We are just the tweet, you know? We are just the Tumblr post. We aren’t actually friends. We don’t actually have that connection. We can’t necessarily influence them in any significant way. So the only person that you can really control their behavior online is yourself.
ELM: You’re saying this is where we disagree?
FK: No, I mean, I think we agree, I just think that I emphasize that a lot. [ELM laughs] And then sometimes that turns into, like, you know, and I agree with you that, like, this does not solve structural problems. It doesn’t, [laughs] you know?
ELM: I guess I’m also more pessimistic about people’s abilities to fix themselves, because I also think that, like, you know, you’re seeing little bits of people’s lives and you can tell even from the most basic posts that people are having a hard time.
FK: Yeah.
ELM: You know? It’s just, like, complaining about things to the degree that it’s, like, I get it, this is your outlet, maybe, but also, like, if these little things are setting you off this much, something, you know—
FK: Yeah.
ELM: —whether it’s mental illness, or you’re just totally burnt out—I mean, this is very much of, like, the last few years, too.
FK: Mmm hmmm.
ELM: Since the pandemic started, I would say, you know, watching people just kind of be at their wits’ end, and just seeing it in the way that they are quick to lash out and react, right?
FK: Yeah.
ELM: And so, I feel like saying people need to individually work on themselves seems as unrealistic to me [laughs] as the structures need to be fixed. You know what I mean? I understand—
FK: [laughs] Yeah.
ELM: I understand why you, in particular, will say this, as a priest in training.
FK: Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think it’s likely, [ELM laughs] but it’s just the best hope that we have. Also, I mean, as a priest in training, I have to say that, religiously, I don’t believe that any of us can fix ourselves individually. But that’s a different podcast. [laughs]
ELM: I don’t even—I’m not even gonna follow that path, because I’m gonna start making jokes about—
FK: I know.
ELM: No, I’m not gonna. I’m not going there. I’m not going there.
FK: Don’t. Thank you. Thank you for restraining yourself. I felt like there had to be a disclaimer in here. All right. [laughs] We probably ought to get close to wrapping up, though. I don’t really know where to go from here, though, you know? I mean, it’s just like, man, the world’s real fucked up! [both laugh]
ELM: Poor Toast wrote this really cheerful, hopeful letter.
FK: I know! [laughs]
ELM: And then I’m like, “I think everything’s awful.” Like, drag of the cigarette. And you’re like, “I think people could change!” And then by the end you’re like, “No, you’re right, though.” [both laugh]
FK: Well, I do think that people can change. I think that people can do it. I don’t think it’s very likely. Like, if you’re looking statistically, person by person. But I hope that, like, I don’t know. I’ll end with a note of hopefulness. I hope that I can try that every day. And I hope that people who listen to this, like, will just think about it every once in a while, you know? That’s a start.
ELM: I mean, I certainly feel like I don’t put that much negativity onto the internet these days.
FK: Yeah, I don’t think that you do.
ELM: Mostly, I keep it in the DMs. [FK laughs] And that’s quite cathartic, right? You know?
FK: Yes. I value this about you. [laughs]
ELM: Yeah, we’re just gonna DM it, and we’re gonna raise our eyebrows privately, and be like, “Look at this idiot.” No, like, also, so I don’t really like Bluesky very much, but I’m giving it a shot, because I would like something like Twitter that’s not awful. And there’s just not a lot of fandom chatter on Twitter. And it’s—
FK: Mmm hmmm.
ELM: Or, on Bluesky. And it’s very interesting. There are things that I would have publicly dunked on. Like some stupid, you know, high-profile journalist said something dumb about fandom, or whatever. And on Bluesky, it doesn’t even feel like there’s anyone there to kind of be like, “Good job, [FK laughs] haha, yeah, you got him.” Right? So then I don’t.
FK: Yeah.
ELM: And that’s interesting, right? The idea that I would get validation for that on Twitter.
FK: Yeah.
ELM: I would get 20 people being like, “Oh my fucking God, I can’t believe this person. You were so right to bring this to my attention.” [FK laughs] And I’d be like, “Haha. Yeah Suck it.”
FK: I wish that we were a video podcast, because the motion, [ELM laughs] the neck motion that you’re making is exquisite.
ELM: I gotta say, one person who I think blocked us both, because he was being such a dummy about fanfiction, he’s a professor at a college in Massachusetts, a university.
FK: Yeah, that was—yeah, I remember him.
ELM: He got, like, reskeeted onto my Bluesky feed, because he doesn’t block me there, and I’m like, “Wow, I was not missing anything.” [both laugh]
FK: Yeah—
ELM: I was like, maybe I should just block him preemptively, so I don’t have to look at his takes, because they are bad.
FK: Yes. If I recall, this was a classic case of, I would say, extreme male fragility on the internet, this guy blocking us.
ELM: Well, it started with—it was Columbusing first—
FK: Yes.
ELM: —because he was, like, a—and all the fan studies people got mad, and then we made fun of him, and then, yes, he went and blocked us.
FK: He blocked everyone. Which is, you know, a great look, is to block all the other people working on the topic that you as a professor are working on. [ELM laughs] That’s—
ELM: Just learned about. [laughs]
FK: That’s how you have a successful academic career, but anyway.
ELM: I think he’s got tenure, don’t you worry about him.
FK: Oh, I was not worried. [both laugh]
ELM: But, you know, I think that’s even an interesting thing to recognize.
FK: Yeah.
ELM: You know? And it’s like, did I get a lot of pleasure out of making fun of people on Twitter for saying bad—yeah, sure. I got some self-righteous little jolt of, like—
FK: Yeah.
ELM: Because I do feel like, you know, it’s not like punching down. It’s like, they are being shitty about fanfiction, so I’m gonna be shitty about them.
FK: Yeah.
ELM: But then we’re all just putting negativity out in the world.
FK: Yeah.
ELM: And so it’s just like, I’m tired, you know? I can’t do this anymore. There’s only so many times you can yell at people for the same thing.
FK: [laughs] That’s, like, a—that’s just a direct quote from Jesus. “I’m tired.” [laughs]
ELM: When did he say that? Did he say that on a mountain, or by the sea, or?
FK: “I’m tired. There’s no more table flipping to be done here.”
ELM: Yeah, and he said to Mark, “I’m so fucking tired.”
FK: Yeah.
ELM: And he put his hand on his shoulder.
FK: Yeah.
ELM: Yeah.
FK: Yeah, “Peter, it’s your job now.”
ELM: Mark? That’s the one he’s romantic with?
FK: It’s—
ELM: Who was this guy?
FK: So the beloved disciple, there’s debate. But John [ELM laughs] is the real contender. But also, I think when he’s telling anybody this, it’s gonna be Peter. He’s like, “Buddy. I’m so tired. I have to go die. You’re gonna be the one who has to do the flipping tables now, bro. Brosky.” [ELM laughs] Great.
ELM: For the record, we were talking about this because I saw a poll that said, “Who had the messiest divorce?” And Jesus and Judas beat Charles and Erik, and I think that’s wrong.
FK: Yeah. It is wrong.
ELM: They had the most consequential divorce, but was it the messiest?
FK: Yeah.
ELM: No. It was pretty fast—
FK: And direct.
ELM: Judas didn’t last long afterwards.
FK: Yeah, yeah.
ELM: That was it, you know? Boom.
FK: All right, why don’t we stop this episode before I say anything that’s gonna get me in priest trouble.
ELM: Kicked out of priest school! [both laugh] I would love to hear people’s thoughts on this, as Toast directly asks for.
FK: Me too.
ELM: Whether it’s people who think that I’m being needlessly cynical or, you know, I would love to hear from anyone else who struggles in the same way, you know? Because it’s like, I think that these are—the structures make it extraordinarily difficult—
FK: Yeah.
ELM: —to do the things that Toast is talking about, and [sighs] yeah, I don’t know. I just, I really worry about reductiveness. I think that one of the great values of Dylan’s work and The Redemption of Jar Jar Binks is, that series unspools, you know, it’s not slow, it’s six half-hours, but he really takes his time with it.
FK: Mmm hmmm.
ELM: You know, and I think we even said in the episode, if only you could do this with every single bit of internet drama, right?
FK: Yeah.
ELM: But that’s not realistic. But, like, the fact that it takes six episodes and all these guests and this, like, slow unpacking of it, I don’t know. It just doesn’t feel like—it doesn’t feel like there’s space for that—
FK: Yeah.
ELM: —for most of this kind of thing, you know?
FK: Absolutely. All right, so we’ll look forward to hearing from all of you dear listeners soon. And I guess on that note, [ELM laughs] I’ll talk to you later, Elizabeth?
ELM: All right, well, you know.
FK: We didn’t solve the problems of the internet.
ELM: Yeah, I’ll talk to—yeah, it’s fine, don’t worry about it. I’m sorry, Toast. Thank you for writing this letter! [both laugh]
FK: Yes! All right. Bye, Elizabeth.
ELM: OK, bye, Flourish!
[Outro music]