Ahem some harsh words

[sombrefan]

Stop complaining about Buffy season 8 on LJ. You bring forward some great arguments and criticism but no one outside LJ takes a blind bit of notice about what you write in your LJ. If you're really bothered about it, you need to get your concerns debated as widely as possible. As far as people are aware, the fandom as a whole likes Season 8. Let's look at the level of success regarding your complaints.

Pop-culture press awareness of your concerns - 0%
Online Fandom awareness of your concerns - 5%
Getting Joss and Dark Horse to seriously address your concerns - 0%

So well done there. Look LJ is safe, you can do a nice long rant and get all your friends agreeing with you and everything is lovely and glowly but you've achieved sod all. Maybe that's what you want, armchair criticism without actually having to do anything. And using terms like "crackfic"? Seriouly, good job in putting forth a term that the casual fan knows nothing about. The joke is even funnier when you have to explain it.

"So Mr Conscending how would you go about it?" I hear you ask. Well if you didn't get the hint earlier, avoid LJ. Instead you and a trusted handful of friends should set up a site. Something along the lines of "Fans concerned about Buffy". Introduce yourselves and write about what the show and the characters meant to you and why you feel dismayed about the direction Season 8 took. Talk about why you felt so concerned to stand up and speak on the matter. I wouldn't go on and on about the failings of season 1-7 cause then you look like a picky sod and people might wonder you were a fan in the first place. Have banners, regularly update the site with blog entries on commentaries on season 8 issues, why the characters feel different etc. And as already stated avoid fannish terms like OOC, OTP etc.

Now ideologically driven essays can put people off. Just saying. By all means write them but be aware that some of them come across may come across as very zealotry and people will focus on that rather than your argument. So remember that when you write. You want to get your message read by as many fans as possible rather just preaching to your band of friends who share the same views as you. And don't make demands like "Joss should answer this right now!" etc etc. You just look silly . Coach your words in such a way that you don't come across as a hardliner.

Now obviously you want your site to be read. Target sites like IO9.com and SciFi Wire. Their writers get paid by the hit. And what do people love to read more than anything else on the Internet? Negative stories of course. What do you think gets more hits on Whedonesque? Items like "Praise for Dollhouse" or "Criticism for Dollhouse"? The latter. Believe me when I say, the pop-culture sites will eat up items like "Growing fan backlash against the Buffy comics" or "Fans launch site to save Buffy". And obviously get the site linked to at Whedonesque as well. You might also want to think approaching Newsarama, Bleeding Cool, Comics Beat, Comic Book Resources, Girl-Wonder etc. Now obviously this is just my way of doing it. "And why are you doing it", you ask? Well the game needs to be raised and I want to see worthy arguments out there rather than happening in a fan space that's isolated from outside.

ETA: I redraft on the fly which can cause problems who link here. But I will state it's not just season 8 we have to think about, it's also season 9 and beyond. Because as far as I can see the Buffyverse's long term future is comics. And a open debate is needed. Those critical of season 8 need to have their voices heard.

Comments

[esmerelda-t.livejournal.com]

Perhaps the aim of posting commentary on LJ is merely to discuss the topic with friends and perhaps I'm just a particularly lazy fan but going to all the effort of creating a site to express your displeasure and to let the whole world know about it just seems, well, mental.

[simonf.livejournal.com]

Well there's a section of fandom concerned about that the direction Buffy is taking. There's the usual yellers but there's also some thoughtful discussion and it's not registering with anyone that matters. And it should be really. But anyhow, it's just my thoughts on the matter.

[sueworld2003.livejournal.com]

"but going to all the effort of creating a site to express your displeasure and to let the whole world know about it just seems, well, mental. "

Yep, I totally agree there. *g*

[http://users.livejournal.com/woman_of_/]

There is a few reasons that people complain to their friends on LJ (and in many cases a select group), rather than a messageboard.

A) Don't want to start a fanwank. We are pretty sick of it, and can kill a fandom. LJ is where fandom people hang out and talk.

B) Fed up having topics/replies nuked by brown nosing and/or biased Mods.

C) Know fine well that the people involved in the francise will mearly moan about critisim, but do nothing about it.

So, with our years of experience, we have our lj's where we can talk and express our concerns, mostly to our friends. If it annoys you so much then maybe you shouldn't click the links to read those posts. We don't ask for them to be pimped out, but really don't mind if they are. It is up to the person whether they click or not to read them.

[flake-sake.livejournal.com]

You know in principle I agree with you. It's why I post on sites, where I know the ceative is reading, it's why I write letters to the editor and so on.

It's a doubleedged blade though. Lj focuses on creative fandom and I find that it gives me a lot more joy than the comics do. Focusing on the things I liked about the show and how other folks imagine it would go on really gives me a boost while S8 largely drags me down.

I agree that the arguments should be heard, but I can understand if people just want to vent and don't spent too much engergy on that part of fandom, mainly because it seems so futile.

I think there are things that could be changed through fan reaction, maybe a better artist could be found and so on. But ultimately I don't think you can pressure someone to write good.

[simonf.livejournal.com]

I genuinely don't think it's futile otherwise I wouldn't have said what I did.

"But ultimately I don't think you can pressure someone to write good."

Agreed. It's a very subjective thing but you can get them to take on board what the fandom thinks and get them to respond to the fans' concerns.

[gillo]

Here via a link, though I am a regular, if infrequent, Whedonesquer too.

If we were the campaigning types, I think you're right. But quite a few of us choose to use LJ because it's non-confrontational, unlike some of the boards, and it is possible to agree with like-minded people about what disappoints us in S8 (for me the abandonment of feminism is the crunch) without opening ourselves up as targets.

I have several LJ friends, RL too in some cases, who have given up on the boards because of perceived bias, who have found Scott Allie's pro-Angel, anti-Spike bias just depressing and who just want it all to go away. They've mostly stopped buying the comics, but they don't want to indulge in public attacks because it just leads to bickering. A few tens of thousands like S8, which is fine. I don't think Joss will change because of a few dozens becoming vocal - and that's the sort of numbers I see here. S8 is not the show I loved, and its characters bear little resemblance to the characters I loved in that show.

A couple of dozen folks have moved to a new board, TheCaritas, which has similar rules of politeness and courtesy to Whedonesque, but it's never going to be on a grand scale. We discuss good and bad things about the Whedonverse there, and feel safe; we vote with our (closed) purses.

Personally, I admire Whedonesque hugely, and it's always on an open tab for me. But I, like many of my LJ friends, just don't have the energy to embark on a probably-doomed campaign to rescue the Buffyverse from the fanboys, with the sort of splash it would take for even Whedonesque to take notice..

ETA:

I've added you to my flist; hope you don't mind.

[simonf.livejournal.com]

I think I know you as Gill? Is that right? And I understand about not wanting to be seen as a target. A lot of people do find that uncomfortable and unfanlike (if that's a word). I keep meaning to go to Caritas, I've heard good things about it.

[ubi4soft.livejournal.com]

Stop complaining about Buffy season 8 on LJ. You bring forward some great arguments and criticism but no one outside LJ takes a blind bit of notice about what you write in your LJ.

Thank you for stating the obvious!

Allie's letter re accusation of porn wasn't generated by LJ complains! Cased closed.

[simonf.livejournal.com]

And no one outside in the comic book world picked up on it and Scott filed it away and nothing more will ever be said about it. Because there was no constant pressure about it.

So yes, case closed.

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

I'm not at all sure what the point would be in complaining elsewhere. Dark Horse and Joss are allowed to write whatever they want, and it's far too deep in the process for anything to substantially change now. Nor do I think it's the fans responsibility to have to make their displeasure known so as to try to effect any change.

That doesn't mean that I can't call it crap or crack!fic when I do bother to discuss it. It's my opinion. I don't expect it to change Dark Horse or Joss, but it is still the way that I react to it.

And honestly, outside of the fandom, exactly how aware is the general pop culture of these comics? I mean, other than knowing that Buffy 'did it with a girl', I don't think that the BtVS comic knowledge is particularly pervasive.

[angearia.livejournal.com]

It's really not. BtVS Season 8 isn't hitting the zeitgist of pop culture anymore. Which actually is perhaps an opportunity. To set the tone for how Season 8 would be received in pop culture as a... lookism capitalization on women's bodies, artistically sexist, narratively unsound attempt at a canon continuation.

But while the names of the characters and the guy in charge remain the same, the spirit, the essence of BtVS that made it a pop culture phenomenon are absent. Season 8 without the soul of BtVS.

It seems our detractors work has already been done for us by natural selection. Season 8 isn't a mainstay of pop culture. BtVS the show is a cornerstone of pop culture--not the comics.

The people have (already) spoken.

[treadingthedark.livejournal.com]

I appreciate your post Simonf. You make some great points. I happen to believe that the space fucking happened in part because of the constant fan input of a few obsessed Bangels. But I think a lot of us have gotten to the point of hopelessness when it comes to Season 8. When we try to post our feelings on other sites we are derided and mocked almost incessantly. I was found condescending and infuriating on Whedonesque just yesterday. It's a very emotional situation, for me anyway, I need to talk about it, I'm a little bit in mourning. Here on LJ I get the emotional support I need instead of being smacked down. Sounds silly, but I have spent more than a decade obsessed with the Buffyverse and it's coming to an end and it hurts.

[simonf.livejournal.com]

You wouldn't mind showing me where you got accused of being condescending? I wasn't around that much yesterday. You can email me if you want. fraser49@hotmail.com

[angearia.livejournal.com]

This is an important point. Much of what we're discussing right now, that is important criticism, when posted in the places where it would get noticed, it instead causes a shoutdown. No! Wrong wrong wrong.

And lest we forget all the recent posts where people got annoyed by all the literary criticism and feminist criticism. Recall needing to do Literary Criticism 101 and Feminism 101? Lirazel and Dana5140 (who I believe is professionally involved academic literary analysis) remember.

This is an evolving, ongoing discussion. Speaking from a pulpit is what one does when you feel confident and sure of your message. The essays I publish are more an exploration of the threads unraveling before me. This is real time. Individuals coming to realizations. And these realizations are ones that are violently argued and denied in the wider fandom spaces.

Adamant denial and refutation. Discussing on LJ has led my viewpoint to evolve when it would have turned stagnant if I'd stayed purely in forum circles.

[bitsyrant.livejournal.com]

This is not a bad idea if people are really interested in making certain changes. I'm not a big believer in the idea of a fandom altering the future of the narrative but I do think a lot of important points have been made re: Buffy as a feminist story. Season Eight really faltered in that regard. Faith's bubble bath, Buffy's night with Satsu, all the female nudity, and the undoing of the slayer army... some of these could have been handled better and, arguably, some of them shouldn't have happened at all.

In my opinion, the trouble with LJ isn't so much that DH is unaware of it so much as the space has been used to make personal attacks and, once that happens, I doubt very much there can be a real discussion between the creators and the fans. If people want to keep to LJ, then I would recommend turning comments off of any post that a writer would want the creators to read. Most of those personal attacks come in the form of comments on otherwise well thought out and intelligent articles.

Just my two cents.

[deborahw37.livejournal.com]

See I think writers shouldn't be influenced by fan comments/feedback be they on campaign sites or LJ or boards.

The comic writers should follow their own path/ the directives from their creative lead and if fans don't like it then they do what I did and stop reading it. If my opinion is in any way representative of the general opinion then sales will fall and internet buzz cool off. If I'm in the unpopular opinion camp then sales will rise or stay steady.

If the publishers respond to anything it's money not fan discussions or campaigns.If a fan campaign ever works it's because some exec somewhere thinks there might be money to be made.

I have no idea whether the comics are selling well or badly because I no longer read them or follow the debates and I don't click on board threads dealing with the comics.

However I do read LJ posts and, though I still skip most comic related discussion that's how I know that this particular debate is going on on your LJ.

[flake-sake.livejournal.com]

Just one little thing I wanted to mention regarding the whole, lj is a secluded corner no one looks at thing.

My first contact with someone from behind the scenes has been on LJ (when Jo commented on a review of mine on her manga) and many writers I'm interested in are here. Maybe not from Buffy fandom, but we just recently had a very intriguing discussion on fanfiction on george r.r. martin's journal with him and there are many other examples.

The more popular Buffy journals are something you happen pretty quickly upon.

[angearia.livejournal.com]

Stop complaining about Buffy season 8 on LJ.

No.

You bring forward some great arguments and criticism

Thank you.

but no one outside LJ takes a blind bit of notice about what you write in your LJ.

Which is why I repost much of my essays, reviews and meta on Slayalive, Buffy Forums, and in appropriate discussion threads on Whedonesque. Should I be sending them to MTV.com too?

If you're really bothered about it, you need to get your concerns debated as widely as possible. As far as people are aware, the fandom as a whole likes Season 8.

So far as appearances and worldwide success goes, America (and the pop culture world) as a whole likes Twilight. Your point? The majority of people are...? Hmm. Interesting point you've raised.

Let's look at the level of success regarding your complaints.

Pop-culture press awareness of your concerns - 0%
Online Fandom awareness of your concerns - 5%
Getting Joss and Dark Horse to seriously address your concerns - 0%

First, what are you defining as fandom? People who are on Twitter and casually follow the series? The sort of fans who typically don't go out of their way to read such reviews and meta in the first place?

As for pop-culture awareness, you're assuming anyone with something negative to say is seeking to start a campaign. Simply put, people who write meta like the thought process and discussion of critical analysis. You're looking for an end result when most of us are in it for the journey.

But then you also have my sending my concerns directly to Dark Horse and being told "wait and see." Essentially that my concerns have been duly noted, but I should sit back and let the story finish. So what? We're supposed to take our concerns to the masses to start an uprising and thus pressure Joss and Co. into political, social and all-round sensitive awareness? I also recall you telling me on several occasions that interacting with professionals directly never goes well, so are you saying instead of interacting directly I should have made it more public in order to pressure and coerce my desired result?

And this seems too obvious to point out, but if the topics raised on LJ are of interest, then why not simply... link them at Whedonesque?

As far as writing essays on my journal goes, it's free for anyone to read. But I'm not posting so I can stand up on a pulpit. And now you're suggesting I (and others) have been standing on the pulpit improperly and ineffectually.

You: "Emmie, you're preaching to the masses but you're doing it where no one can hear you!"

Me: "I'm preaching to the masses...? Wait, and I'm doing it wrong? I thought I was posting analysis and discussion to ruminate with my friends about."

As has been pointed out many times in recent days, fandom is primarily for fun. It's just that some of us have fun critiquing literature. Crazy, right?

Not every fan is in fandom to be an activist. Perhaps what you read as something to cause a stir over, I read as my own personal growth and enlightenment over political and social issues as represented in fandom.

Oh, and there's an anthology of essays being published about Women in the Whedonverse. Many essays are written by these self-same folks on LJ who are doing it "wrong." How's that for you? Pop culture literature headed to your local bookstore (also available on Amazon! Pre-order now! Okay, you can't pre-order it yet but it's catchy!).

[penny-lane-42.livejournal.com]

Word.

[next_to_normal]

Yep. What she said.

part 1

[penny-lane-42.livejournal.com]

I will admit that this post made me cranky, and I've been thinking about it all day.

First I want to give a big old fat "Word" to everything angearia said. I loves her. She knows my soul and often speaks it.

On to your actual post:

What I think is happening here is that you're operating from a different...well, "worldview" seems too strong of a term, but it'll have to do. It seems to me that the default Whedonesque reaction to not being satisfied with something is, "Let's do something!" They seem to do this whenever a show's about to get canceled--Angel, Firefly, Dollhouse. Which is all well and good and certainly one way to approach things. Sometimes it's successful, sometimes it isn't. Such is life.

Whereas most of the people I know here on lj just want things to be good--and not riddled with *isms--without us having to tell the creators how to go about that (that's their job, not ours), and when it isn't good, we want to be able to to A) rant to our friends that it isn't (as a way of getting it out of our systems), B) make lots of creative works about it (meta, icons, fic-a-thons, etc.), and, mostly importantly, C) just not buy it. The idea that the onus is on us to fix things by throwing a tantrum doesn't really appeal to me.

I think the forum reaction to things is campaigning, whereas the journal reaction is to take the energy and pour it into fanworks. That's a generalization, of course, but I don't think there's anything wrong with either approach. You may think one is inherently better than the other (which is what I'm seeing in this post), but I would disagree. Of course, making things more complicated is that every single time (that I'm aware of) that Whedonesquers have campaigned it's in a positive way: wanting to save their shows. What those of us who are critiquing the comics are doing is fundamentally negative: this is failing, and it's hurting us. Plus, saying "We want to save our show!" might make some people roll their eyes, but it isn't going to get backlash from haters, whereas saying, "We find this problematic on a gender level" most certainly will. Those two different motivations are going to prompt very, very different reactions.

part 2

[penny-lane-42.livejournal.com]

As for the whole "no one pays attention to lj outside of lj" thing? I'm pretty sure that RaceFail09 (and to a lesser extent, the recent kerfluffles about the nature of fanfiction) would prove you wrong. I'd be interested to know if you'd tell deepad that posting I Didn't Dream of Dragons (http://deepad.dreamwidth.org/29371.html) on her lj was a waste of time and that she should be out there campaigning somewhere else, especially when she writes so insightfully about why the cost of engaging is so high (http://deepad.dreamwidth.org/46893.html?format=light). Our complaints about S8 obviously isn't on the same scale, but I think there are similarities. Emmie's already written thoughtful and respectful letters to Allie about her feminist concerns, and she's been dismissed with a "Wait and see" that, frankly, isn't very comforting.

If our concerns were just quality-level stuff, we could definitely campaign without any back-lash (though we probably wouldn't, as we wouldn't care nearly as much. We'd just say "crackfic"--and yeah, we're gonna keep using that word, because most of us have read crackfic before and know it when we see it--and move on with our lives). But since we're talking about one of those lovely *isms here, there will be backlash, and for those of us who work for social justice all the time and are deeply committed to it, we sometimes just don't want to have to deal with a whole bunch of people who can't see their own privilege telling us we're wrong. We want to pick our battles instead of being told that we need to engage here. I feel like basically what you're saying is "It's your job to educate! If you don't like things, it's not okay just to talk about it in your safe spaces--you have to educate those doing it!" Which comes perilously close to derailing (http://www.derailingfordummies.com/#educate), which I know is not your intent.

And if there's anything I've learned from RaceFail, it's that it isn't an oppressed group's job to educate. It isn't.*

*Btw, I'm not saying we're oppressed because we don't like the comics. I'm saying that when an historically-oppressed group (in this case, largely women) complains about the manifestations of an *ism (in this case, sexism), then that group is the oppressed group in the current discussion. Hence, fans of color critiquing Elizabeth Bear's erasure of Native peoples is the oppressed group, just as the concerned feminist S8 readers/observers critiquing Joss's work are now.

[yourlibrarian]

I agree with those who point out that the PTB don't really care that much about fan opinion. They care about fan pocketbooks. look how well most "save our show" campaigns work. They don't. Money talks, everything else is cheap.

When it comes to the comics the people who like the storyline will continue buying and the ones who don't, won't. I know I and several other people stopped. We're voting with our dollars, that's all that counts. I regularly see people reporting on their encounters directly with the comics editors. They don't seem to be particularly positive or valued.

I'm not clear why people unhappy with the comics should be trying to convert other fans, which seems to be the point of this post. Why should we care what other fans think? Everyone's free to do as they like.

There are fans who are in fandom for the fun of sharing with other fans. And then some fans seem to be in it for self-importance. I don't think a lot of fans on LJ are interested in being "spokespeople" or driving traffic for other websites.

[elisi]

I've been debating with myself whether to comment, but in the end I thought, why not? Because for a lot of us, we've been going through The Five Stages of Buffy Season 8.

So - we still love the show, but have generally lost a hell of a lot of respect and admiration for Joss. Which is sad, but in the words of Riley (and I never thought I'd quote this particular passage when defending Buffy):

Me: "You want me to say that I liked seeing you in bed with fucking in space with that idiot? Or that blinding orange is your very best color wearing revealing outfits half the time doesn't demean you? Or that that ... burger smell bankrobbing is appealing? Buffy, none of that means anything. It doesn't touch you. You're still the first woman I ever loved ... and the strongest woman I've ever known."

What happens in the comics doesn't touch show!Buffy. Heck, if it wasn't for LJ I wouldn't even know that the comics existed, and that's my point. The comics are for the fans, and much as it hurts me to see my hero written in a way that makes her utterly unrecognisable to be, I know that this is only a concern for a very specific group of people, and won't ever impact on Buffy's cultural status as a feminist icon. And that, in my book, is not a bad thing.

[simonf.livejournal.com]

Well first of all, thank you for your thoughts.

"The comics are for the fans, and much as it hurts me to see my hero written in a way that makes her utterly unrecognisable to be, I know that this is only a concern for a very specific group of people, and won't ever impact on Buffy's cultural status as a feminist icon."

Whilst I would agree that it is a concern of a specific group, these comics are going to be around for a long time. And are getting turned into motion comics which will get them a wider audience. My gut instinct says that eventually seasons 8 & 9 (and possibly 10 - who knows) will get bundled with the rest of the seasons in some sort of Ultimate Buffy Box Set. I really do think that the comic books will have a wider impact on newcomers to the fandom than we previously thought.

[probablecylon.livejournal.com]

Since Scott Allie had to post a "hey-it-wasn't-really-porn-because-we-didn't-show-these-bits" on Dark Horse's OWN site -- and the debate that was carried on in the Buffyforums & Whedonesque was repeated in DH's Buffy Zone -- I venture to say that your statement is off-target.

Joss Whedon is a very very silly man, and he admits freely in all his comments on his work that he's a very silly silly man. He heads the Ministry of Silly Shows (Which Happen to Be Brilliant). By extension, his fans are Very Very Silly fans, who don't mind telling incredulous acquaintances & co-workers that their favorite show is called BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER. From all accounts, he's also too modest to accept with too much gravity the accolades fans give him and having had three shows unceremoniously cancelled & his signature show rescued from the bin by another network at the last moment (almost), I suspect he's glad that people are discussing his work in terms of its merits rather than in terms of bottom line.