fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #343 ]

[ SECRET POST #343 ]

⌈ Secret Post #343 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

If I may direct your attention to this poll → HERE

EDIT: I removed a few secrets because it was just brought to my attention (I have a crappy memory) that people are being banned for being flagged for this kind of stuff. SORRY. D:

Secrets Left to Post: 00 pages, 00 secrets from Secret Submission Post #049.
Secrets Not Posted: 0 broken links, [ 1 2 ] not!secrets, 0 not!fandom [ 1 ] secret revisted/link to fanfiction.
Next Secret Post: Tomorrow, Saturday, December 15th, 2007.
Current Secret Submission Post: ~~here~~ CLOSED.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

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... I find it hard to believe that you, or anyone else for that matter, don't have first impressions. It's like basic human nature. Even if you say that you don't judge gender at first sight, somewhere, in the back of your mind, a tiny part of you would be nagging and saying that hey, that person must be a girl.

Not online. I know, it's weird, but in an online setting, if there's no indicators beyond smilies, I don't read gender until told. Now, if the person's entire profile was pink and purple, if everything they said had a dozen smilies in it, if all their usericons were cutesy things aside from one of a really hot man, I'd assume they were a girl or that Miyavi finally stopped lurking and got an LJ, but there has to be a lot more cues than smilies.

Just how many males that use smilies do you run into on the internet, pray tell.

I've known at least five. . .

Five... Out of how many males on the internet?

But then, I DON'T KNOW ALL THE MALES ON THE INTERNET.

This is pointless. Fuck you.

With how you were talking about smilies and males using them I would have thought that at a good deal of the males you ran into on the internet used them.

It's pointless to swear at people too. Do try to be civil!

I only have a few males on my list, and all of them use smilies (of both the vertical and horizontal type) at least once in a while. :/

It seems to be less of a "girl" thing and more of an "internet" thing. It's just something that helps people get the tone of what you're saying.

Agreed. And I can't believe we've reached the low of defining smilies as feminine, especially with the combination of "I hate smilies." . . . Got to love sexism, no? *headdesks through floor*

Yeah, that's just plain bizarre. O_o

"I hate smilies" is a new thing. I don't remember it happening before last year. I am... Very, very confused. -_-;

I know! It's especially annoying since I know men who use smilies, and I believe using smilies is a way of conveying emotion.

I know! It's like a replacement for a tone of voice. I use them so people can tell I'm fooling around and not being mean or something.

Oh yeah. That's me, and I also use them to indicate happiness or anger or joking or whatever. Smilies, *emotes,* strikethrough text, whatever, it's about adding voice and trying to convey what we're meaning as well as what we're saying.

But maybe the ability to defuse wank and bitchiness and hate is what pisses people off so much about it in a way. If you want to take things in the wrong way, if you want to fight and troll and wank, it has to remain like a game, you can't see your enemy or your lulz as human. *headdesk*

Yes! Exactly! I always use stuff like that to give my text a certain tone, or make something seem funnier, or just because it works better with than without. XD And I also use made up words like "meh" and "wha?" and "buh" and "bleh" and the like, mostly because it seems more realistic that way since people say almost-words all the time in real life.

And that's a really great theory about it! I honestly think you're on to something because there does seem to be a dehumanizing quality to a lot of internet culture, especially with the cult of "Anonymous" that has become so popular lately. I mean, it's fine if you want to go anon, but the way it's done, people who post under a name get looked down on. I know I've drawn my share of "namefag" insults in my time.

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Same here. ^_^ I honestly think smilies and emotes and stuff like that actually does make personal communication (which much of fandom stuff and LJ stuff is) better. True, I wouldn't fill a professional e-mail or official blog post with smilies, but when I'm commenting to people, it's natural for me.

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And that's a really great theory about it! I honestly think you're on to something because there does seem to be a dehumanizing quality to a lot of internet culture, especially with the cult of "Anonymous" that has become so popular lately.

I agree! Even being tied to an account or an alias or something, even if it isn't a real name, gives you a "reputation" in a way (even if it's a bad one, I'm not proud of some of the things I've done and wish I could disappear and start over sometimes). I think anonymice in general are too cowardly to deal with the repercussions of having their jerkiness attached to something that could be shunned or banned or whatever, or are people logging out and posting as "anons" so they can still look good while they get to slag on people and be racist/sexist/homophobic/bitchy/whatever.

Re: 14

xreddestinyx.livejournal.com - 2007-12-16 04:21 (UTC) - Expand

Re: 14

pretentioustfu.livejournal.com - 2007-12-16 04:25 (UTC) - Expand

I never assume gender on the internet at first, either. I'm usually just curious but it's an awkward question to ask so I just wait. XD

Just jumping in to say, I presume everybody on the internet is female until proved otherwise. Yeah, completely irrational, but since fandom is populated mostly by women, it's just turned out that way. It doesn't matter how they write, heh.

(Also, most people I know in RL don't fit gender stereotypes at all, which has helped me in my quest to rid myself of gender sterotype prejudice.)

I agree with you lol, I can't help it.
I auto thinks guys don't write fanfics and stuff. But this is only for fandoms.

I do that with fandom, absolutely - but if I'm on IRC or whatever I always assume whoever I'm talking to is a guy. My nick on IRC is pretty gender-neutral and I always get taken for a guy there. I think most people on IRC assume male-ness. Online gaming is the same way - even if you play a female sprite they assume you're a guy (but they hit on you anyway if your avatar is hot. I mean, WTF, these guys are mostly straight, right?)

It constantly bugs me that fandom is mostly female. I mean, I like it fine, but why is it that way? It drives me nuts thinking about it.

Oh yeah, I meant in fandom, of course. I don't use IRC very often, but when I played WoW I already had the habit, and totally, assumed most people I met were female, haha. I know that most people in online gaming is male, it's just a reflex nowadays.

It constantly bugs me that fandom is mostly female. I mean, I like it fine, but why is it that way? It drives me nuts thinking about it.

This really interests me too. One reason is almost certainly that boys aren't really encouraged to play "quiet" games when they're small (or throughout their lives), like writing and telling stories, while girls always recieve praise when they're sitting quietly in a corner making up stories about their dolls (or whatever), and not making trouble.

So, at least partly a conditioned behaviour, I think.

Also, when they do grow up, the interests that they've been conditioned to have are readily available everywhere. Some of then things found in fandom can't actually be found anywhere else.

Take slash for example. The most popular pairings are between characters who are essentially on the same level. This is very rare in male/female romance, and as women have always been expected to be able to identify with any type of character (as opposed to men, who're expected to only be able to identify with male characters), we can still connect with the romance, while having characters on equal footing.

Then there's the enjoyment of putting male characters in the vulnerable position; making them extreme bottoms/uke. It's not really my kink, but I can enjoy it every now and then. Having a male character crying, having to ba saved, exhibiting all the traditionally "female" attributed in a story can feel very satisfying.

And then, of course, there's the "normal" queer character. That is, a charcter who's gay (or bi, or just not traditionally heterosexual) but is featured in a story that's not about their sexuality. They are heroes in a fantasy/sci-fi/alternative world, and though the stories are mostly about romance, it's the love that's the focus of the story, not the sexuality of the participants.

I mean, just try and find a film, or book, or even a comic that's about a gay chatacter and doesn't focus on AIDS/gaybashing/prejudice/omgTRAUMA.

I think this is why there are so many bi/gay women in fandom. Even though we're mostly writing about male characters, we write about charcters who get to be themselves first, and their sexuality only affects who they fall in love with. Many of us are extremely tired of the gay/bi stereotypes, even the "positive" ones.

Er, sorry for the extreme tl;dr. I'm going to write an essay one day, I think.XD

Oh, no, I like the tl;dr and I've been wanting to bounce ideas off someone about this.

...I just spent twenty minutes trying to track down statistics on male and female published writers in recent years and I couldn't find satisfactory, non-genre specific stats but - in all the articles I found (which were on SciFi/Fantasy and general interest magazines), men outnumbered women at about three to one. Even if you take, say, the romance genre to balance it out, you're probably not going to go past 50/50, and I think it's safe to say that women don't have more fiction published than men (and these were statistics of recently published work, like in the last couple years or so) While you might make a case for gender-based discrimination in the industry, it doesn't nullify the fact that men also enjoy writing.

So why is fanfic-writing female (almost) across the board? Sure, slash has become tightly linked to fandom, but it's kind of a chicken or the egg situation - is fandom full of slash because it's comprised of women, or is fandom full of women because there's lots of slash?

There's no law saying that what we have to write should always be romance, but fandom is full of it (shippers ahoy!), presumably because that's what women are interested in.

(On a similar track, most doujinshi-ka in Japan are also women - so it's not purely a culturally-related thing.)

Ahem. Anyway, I guess going back to what you said - that fandom has things (like slash) that you don't get in mainstream media. But why wouldn't gay/whatever guys be into reading about non-stereotyped not-focusing-on-gay-issues fic, too? Why just women?

But fandom isn't just about slash, and it's not even just about shipping - the unifying element is the fact that it's derivative. Yeah, sure you can divide it up into slashers and het-shippers and genficcers, but in the end they're all part of 'fandom x'. Orig-stuff exists online, (fictionpress and the like) but it isn't half of the monster (and I mean that in a good way ;D) that fandom is.

And it's not as if mainstream media doesn't have good female characters in it, otherwise we wouldn't be ficcing them! ...although I'm pretty sure the writers in most TV shows, for example, are largely male. Don't quote me on this.

And it's not as if guys don't have their own sort of 'fandom'. The vidding community - like at animemusicvideos.org - is mostly male. There exist plenty of male-dominated forums and fansites for popular media - the one that comes to mind, for me, is Skullknight.net, a Berserk fansite. Mostly what they've got there is an encyclopedia, forums to discuss theories and inanities, forums for photo manips and colourings, etc. There's a bit of fanart and an okeaki board, but the fanart is far outnumbered by the colourings, and of course there is not a fic to be found.

At any rate, it came to me a while ago - and I don't know if I'm way off base or what - but guys in general seem to be the 'ultimate canon-whores'. Guys are interested in the media and what is, but girls are interested in what could be. A guy will draw a fanart of Harry Potter waving his wand around, but a girl will draw him as a skate-punk macking on the goth Draco. (Yes, this is a grand generalization. I still think it stands... kind of.)

Anyway, that was a really tl;dr response that essentially boils down to 'dammit, I don't actually know.'

Somewhat unrelated, but I just had a thought - women's magazines with gossip about celebrities. It's pretty much like drabbles for tinhats, isn't it? I mean, it's mostly about celebrities' love lives (shipping) and their drug/anorexia/whatever issues (wangst). Guys don't read this stuff. It's a chick thing.

Tell me this is a crazy idea.

I just spent twenty minutes trying to track down statistics on male and female published writers in recent years

When it comes to being published, things immediately change though. When somehing moves to the professional field, men tend to dominate; take riding, for example. At the pure hobby level it's completely dominated by women. When I tried it as a little girl, we didn't have a single boy in our group. But when it comes to competition, the men outnumber the women by a ridiculous number.

It's something we get from when we're born - boys are supposed to be competative, and girls are supposed to be nice. Just look at the difference in how people treat babies from just looking at the colour of their blankets!

Girls and women have always had been encouraged to cultivate their creative side, while boys and men are generally discouraged, unless they can make money or fame from it.

Sure, slash has become tightly linked to fandom, but it's kind of a chicken or the egg situation - is fandom full of slash because it's comprised of women, or is fandom full of women because there's lots of slash?

The majority of fanfic is het though; most of what's written is still Mary-Sues, I think. The slash comes from (IMO) the fact that male characters are more plentiful, and more interesting. The amount of female characters that get actual character development are depressingly small, though it's getting better (which is why certain fandoms, like Bleach, can be mostly het-dominated nowadays).

There's no law saying that what we have to write should always be romance, but fandom is full of it (shippers ahoy!), presumably because that's what women are interested in.

I think it's what humans are interested in - connecting with other humans. Women are only more open about it, because we don't have to worry about looking weak or wimpy (mostly because the world at large already think we are, of course...). Also, when writing derivative fiction, canon has often satisfied us plot-wise.

Though the best and most popular stories tend to be action/adventure/horror with the romance as a subplot.

On a similar track, most doujinshi-ka in Japan are also women - so it's not purely a culturally-related thing.

Yeah, but Japan is more traditional in their views than even the States. OTOH, I don't think the professional field is as dominated by men there. Hm.

But why wouldn't gay/whatever guys be into reading about non-stereotyped not-focusing-on-gay-issues fic, too? Why just women?

I think they would if they knew that it existed? Actually, I'm not sure. I've seen a few in fandom that have expressed the view that I have, but basically I think it comes back to the fact that men are just conditioned to see writing as a hobby as something silly. Especially if it's romance.

But fandom isn't just about slash, and it's not even just about shipping - the unifying element is the fact that it's derivative.

Oh yeah, I wasn't trying to list all the reasons why women are in fandom. That would take forever. XD

Basically I think more men would enjoy it if they gave it a try. But I also think it's easier for men to find things they like in mainstream media. They don't really have to look for it anywhere else.

The vidding community - like at animemusicvideos.org - is mostly male.

Really? i had no idea! Hm, that's interesting. Most people who're not into fandom tend top assume it's male-dominated, though. And perhaps it is - it's just the fiction writing part that's female-dominated.

A guy will draw a fanart of Harry Potter waving his wand around, but a girl will draw him as a skate-punk macking on the goth Draco.

Hah, yes, that's exactly it, really. And just from talking to other fans I've noticed that there are pretty much as many reasons for being in fandom as there are people in it, heh.

I love these sort of discussions, though. XD

Girls and women have always had been encouraged to cultivate their creative side, while boys and men are generally discouraged, unless they can make money or fame from it.

You know what that made me think of? The classical music scene (especially violin, though this holds true for most instruments). You take a class, any class from elementary level to the the most advanced, and the vast majority of students will be female. At major competitions, it's still mostly female, and in major orchestras it's still mostly female (though there tend to be more men in professional orchestras than on the amateur level, and I suppose I don't even have to say that a guy is more likely to play trumpet and a girl is more likely to play flute *eyeroll*.) I wouldn't be able to say definitively when it comes to solo performers/quartets and such, but I would hazard that the ratio is a bit closer to 50:50 there. Major choirs tend to try and and go for balance for obvious reasons. The conductor, on the other hand? Almost always a dude. Go figure.

Anyway, my point... the reason I think orchestras maintain the female majority even on a professional level is because as a musician but especially in increasingly larger ensembles, teamwork, communication and all that jazz are half the battle. Soloistic and conducting roles where you're basically the star and everyone has to follow you fall in line with a more traditionally 'male' role.

Relating that to fandom - recently on f_s (was it on this post? Damn I'm losing track) someone posted a secret expressing their dislike of livejournal, and how they would have preferred fic be posted on an anonymous, 4chan-style message board. There were a few agreements and a few 'cry moars', but it got me thinking about fandom. I might be stating the obvious here, but an anon fic board, if it ever even happens, will never take off. The fic and the art and everything else are so heavily tied into the community. No matter if you hate the wank or the BNFs or the latest crap that livejournal throws at fandom, you've got to admit that the community is what makes a lot of - maybe even most - people stay in fandom.

I knew a guy in highschool who was really into writing. In fact, he was writing an original novel. Now, I never got to see it the jerk because he only showed it to a few friends, and by now he probably thinks, 'gah! I can't believe I wrote that!' And of course since he was a pretentious asshole he thought fanfiction was useless beyond writing exercise. - but the fact is that he was really into writing and he wasn't the only guy I knew at the time who was. The ratio of guys:girls in a couple of my highschool English classes who actually enjoyed writing was pretty even.

But I could never to what he did - sit down and start writing a novel and just show it to a couple people like a private thing. I write fanfic and I display it on the internet for anyone who bothers to click the summary, gathering ideas from reviewers (haha, when lucky) and things like prompts and challenges and interpretations of characters by other authors.

Anyway. Rambling. Point. Yes, the point. Fandom is about the community. ...partly, at least. I could have said that in so fewer words, couldn't I?

...And I basically agree with everything you've said, so I'll stop before I melt my brain or anyone else's.

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