The Middle Distance

*sigh*

No, I'm not going to summarize the whole thing - metafandom has some excellent links that talk about the issues here, as do some of the smarter comments in the LJ biz thread. I can't be bothered.

I won't be flagging my journal, though. I wouldn't even have noticed that anything was unusual if I hadn't happened to look at my friends page while not logged in accidentally, and wow, those cuts are FUGLY and insulting.

Different people use their journals for different things. For some people, it's primarily a personal diary. For others, it's primarily a fic archive or political soapbox or newsletter. All of these are fine.

Me, I look at mine like I'm hosting a salon or holding court in a cafe. I might set the random topic-of-the-hour, but tangents are encouraged and so are strangers. Anybody who surfs in from friends-of-friends-of or what have you is welcome to comment--that's how I've found half the journals I enjoy reading most now! I don't view my larger 'friendslist' as really meaning "bosom buddies I trust with everything." It's a list of Journals I Like to Read. Some are bosom buddies, and some are random people who said nice things about my fic three years ago and are groovy, and some are random people whose fic I liked three years ago and are still groovy, and some are people I wish would talk to me more and some are people I don't really need to have conversation with, I just like what they do. If I need to talk about personal stuff, I'll smaller-filter it, but that's not the main point of LJing for me.

I doubt there are many severely underage people reading this (and if there are, my policy is "don't ask, don't tell"), and even my (nowhere near the majority of my journal, not as prolific as I'd like) pr0n content is not anything I think is "damaging" to "minors." My favorite writer when I was 15 was Henry Miller, for fuck's sake. If you can buy his stuff at Borders with no hassle (which you can, and Burroughs and De Sade besides!) you can certainly read my relatively tame witch/wizard and angel/demon smut.

Attracting random folks from the aether (self-selected from within the larger fandom social substrate, of course) to interact with is the reason I have this journal in the first place! I won't be doing anything to make it less hospitable. If circumstances dictate I have to, I'll just work harder at moving everything over to IJ; the main reason I haven't yet is that, well, there aren't enough people there.

sansa1970 is compiling a Directory of everyone's alternate blog IDs here, bless her.

Over on GJ, Viralstar is compiling a directory of Fandom Communities on GJ.

Purge-related PSA: Be VERY careful if you go to the Warriors of Idiocy site: it's been widely reported now that the site loads you up with spyware.

These charming folks have now attracted the notice of dark_christian, the Dominionist/theocrat watch group on LJ, and one of the most informative posters there, dogemperor, has a post here about some very unsavory connections this group may have. (But the Confederate flag and homophobic and racist rants on the WoI individual's personal blog don't take much detective work, they're out there for all to see. Looks like it gets even worse).

As for general LJ-fandom related things, ms_katonic has a terrific roundup of links here.

There is the community innocence_jihad on LJ, and fandomtossed on GJ. (I'm vulgarweed over there too - friend me!)

Now I'm working on a post about the importance of alternative archives. Coming soon. What are your favorite archives? (Multifandom, your fandom, etcs.)

Here's a great post linked from metafandom on the FanLib controversy.

Hmm. A fanfic "company" that has a board of directors with no women on it? Riiiiiight. Who are they trying to kid? The gullible, clearly.

I've realized that the reason I felt so quickly comfortable in fan culture even coming to it later in life than a lot of people is this: my main subcultural background is in indie-rock/DIY-scene culture. Where news that a band has been signed to a major label is greeted not with unqualified congratulations but deep worry, trepidation, and morbid snark - it's been the beginning of the end for ten times more great bands than have ever found fame and fortune that way (and fame and fortune isn't all it's cracked up to be, is it, Kurt?). Lots of people in that scene feel it's better to keep the day job so that the music can stay among friends and on its own terms. Lots of small labels feel it's better to stay small and equitable than grow rich and rigid. And if it means that listeners have to work a little harder to find what they want rather than having it spoonfed to them on the radio and TV, well, that's fine. (The fans have a hunter-gatherer mentality anyway: they like the chase.)

Lack of money, career pressures, and recognition under my own name are the reasons why I enjoy fanfic so much. It's a feature, not a bug. It's freedom. And the "sisters doin' it for themselves" culture is what makes this possible--it's a potluck/barter economy, not a centralized one, and that's what keeps it free, in both sense of the word "free." And I much prefer a smaller, smarter audience to a corporatized one lured in by advertising. (If that makes me an elitist, so be it, but I think it's more of a natural human tribalism, related to the way folks naturally form affinity groups and carve small neighborhoods out of big cities).

Anyway, these are just random thinky thoughts, not any kind of coherent essay.

In other very sad news, Lloyd Alexander has died. bellatrys, tartanshell, and lixtetrax have written beautiful tributes to him in their LJs. Me, I just remember how he stirred my imagination and love of stories when I was very young (he and Evangeline Walton were directly responsible for my intense literary Cymruphilia). I hope he's gone where the stories go on forever and are dazzling.