Unless you’ve been living under an internet-less rock for the past couple weeks, you’re probably aware that a couple popular professional writers have made some rather… ahem… pointed statements regarding their dislike of fanfiction involving their characters. Check the metafandom archives if you want more on this. It’s not actually the main point of my post.
(Aside, though. There was a kind of awesomely brilliant Livejournal post that someone wrote in the past couple days about how Diana Gabaldon, one of the above-mentioned pro-writers [George R R Martin being the other], after ranting about fanfic for several now-deleted posts on her blog, then went on to post about how she’d written to an actor from Dr Who about how he’d inspired her own writing… which involves putting her beloved and to-be-protected-at-all-costs characters into some notably sexually and violently abusive situations. If any of you can find that post again for me, I’ll love you dearly. It was clever and well-argued, and I thought it was great, but I can’t for the life of me remember who wrote it.)
I mean, I’m obviously in favor of fanfiction. This is no surprise, and it’s not really a debate I’m going to weigh in on right now.
Instead what I’ve found myself thinking about is anonymity and what a slippery role it plays in our online fannish world.
I mean, these pro-writers are hardly anonymous. They’re putting their own opinions out there, signed with their own names, on their own blogs and connected to their professional reputations.
That’s more than many of us (myself included) do.
Keeping our real names and our usernames separate is a high priority for a lot of us out here in the vast blogosphere/intarwebs/online universe. My online activities and my real life ones aren’t necessarily things I’d like to see blended or things I’d like everyone and their dog to know about, either. I’d rather keep some of my online haunts away from my real life friends, and my real life activities from my online circle.
When pro-writers jump into the fanfiction debate (or when fanfic is discussed by canon-creators at convention panels or when fans mention fic in correspondence or conversation with actors from canon sources), they do so with a face and a name attached to their opinions, and I can’t help but think that’s brave.
OK, so no, I’m still not peachy-keen on hearing comments about how anyone who likes fanfiction is doing disgusting, immoral, illegal things, because that’s not at all what I’m doing when I like fanfiction. But compared to viciously attacking someone’s morality and character in an anonmeme (which, yes, has also been happening recently) or spewing out vitriol with nothing but a screenname attached, I have to say I have some respect for people who aren’t afraid to voice their opinions and stick their own damn names on them.
Admittedly, deleting posts and/or freezing/deleting comments after the fact, which both Gabaldon and Martin have done, lessens my respect. If you’re going to say it, say it. If it’s going to cause an uproar, well then a) that should come as no surprise to anyone who’s spent 15 seconds in fandom, and b) let it. If you’re convinced by arguments against you, then offer up a mea culpa later on. If you’re not, then respond or don’t respond as you see fit. Retracting seems like a wuss move.
But if you’re going to cower behind a screenname (as I do; as many of us do), then the least I think you can do is respect the courage of those who don’t to stand up and say what they think with names fully attached.
