Saturday, June 2, 2012

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This has been quite a week.

A week filled with excitement. A week filled with broken friendships. A week filled with deception. A week filled with shock and confusion.

An exhausting week. 

But it did start off very pretty!!

Earlier in the week, there was pure unadulterated excitement filled with Cannes. A gorgeous city filled with gorgeous people. The Cannes Film Festival was upon us and we were fangirling to new levels with the premiers of Cosmopolis and On The Road. Amazing honors for both films to be invited to the festival. And best of all...gorgeous pictures of Rob and Kristen with some amazing PDA. They are such private people. So to witness them so personally nearly brought the fandom down with heart pounding gasps of excitement.

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Picture after picture was being tweeted. One more gorgeous than the next. The excitement was overwhelming and it thrilled us for days! It was a lovely way to start the week. It still makes me smile looking at all the pretty pictures.

But alas, the joy in the fandom did not last long.

Mayhem was upon us.

By Tuesday evening mayhem was sprouting it's ugly head with the public airing of arguments and misunderstandings, better known as bullying.

What would possess grown women to exhibit such bad behavior is beyond me. And over what? Personal opinions. A misunderstood comment. The refusal to agree to disagree.

Whatever.

Bullying at no time is acceptable and should never be condoned.

And by condoned, I mean...DO NOT PARTICIPATE in any way!

Do not forward the nastiness. Do not comment on the nastiness. Do not join in because you think maybe the bully is right. They're not.

And either are you.

Bullying leads to lower self-esteem, increased suicidal ideation, and a variety of emotional responses, retaliating, being scared, frustrated, angry, and depressed.

One of the most damaging effects is that a victim begins to avoid friends and activities, often the very intention of the cyber-bully.

Yes, a proud and worthy accomplishment of any bully.

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Instilling and pushing those feelings on anyone for whatever reason just makes you an ugly person. The fandom is filled with so much pretty. Why would you want to be ugly? Why would you want to betray a kinship?

And what can a victim do? Sadly, not much.

Your only real alternative is to block the bully. Ignore them. And most importantly, report them to the administrator of the site in the hopes they act.

But whatever you do, and I know many will find this next statement a bit odd, do not fight back on a public forum.

Trying to achieve the "last word" accomplishes nothing but the continuation of the bullying.

Bully's want you to fight back. It is the only power they have. Do not give them that power. But like with anything else, easier said than done.

That brings me to mischief. My favorite behavior, most of the time.

Fanfic.net was on quite a roll this week removing stories. And I mean 100's of them were removed with no warning to the writer's. What the blazes is going on we were all thinking and tweeting. There are always stories given the proverbial boot from time to time, but this was ridiculous.

Right away, witch hunt was being *whispered*. Was it? Kind of we were all soon to find out.

I received an email earlier this week that left me dumbstruck.

It seems there is a tween group, yes tween, ages 13-16, that are running around Fanfic reporting stories in groups that they deem unfit. 

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LawlClan Critic Group is a group manly made up of kids, though I have been hearing there are some adult members.

Their sole purpose is to rid the fandom of stories they consider "bad" or "porn". They have taken it upon themselves to interpret the terms of service that FF.net supplies. They issue members homework assignments of lists of stories to go through and report in large groups causing FF.net to remove them.

AM Gray aka as mrstrentreznor was one of hundred's affected.

Here is a review of Bells's by AM Gray from a member of LawlClan Critic Group -

r u kidding me: this is porn! and not even good porn! learn how to write decently and post elsewhere and maybe i'll read your stuff but this is garbage. and you think you're so great? i've read third graders book reports that's written better. it's not allowed on this site. consider yourself reported.

AM Gray's response -

Both stories have no sex at all in them, let alone porn. It is rated M because I rate most of my stories M and M ratings ARE allowed on your site. This is a shotgun blast from someone who can barely write and clearly cannot read. At the very least in their cut and paste response, they could have turned on spellcheck and grammar check. This person presumes to tell me that my writing is below par.

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You can read AM Gray's full post and her letter to FF.net here.

Stories are being pulled with no warning from FF.net which is not the norm. Normally they issue a warning prior to pulling. Not the case anymore. Stories are being pulled based upon anonymous reports without being given due diligence by FF.net support.

But when did FF.net ever offer due diligence in terms of support?

Never as far as I am aware.

But this is such a level of extreme and FF.net's silent participation can only bring to mind...


It is a very scary world when things like this can occur with no recourse. Very scary.

When does it stop? Basically when the group get's bored and picks on someone else or FF.net's laziness kicks back in and they stop pulling in large mass.

And the results?

A bitter and fractured fandom. Stories that we know and love gone. Writers gone. Readership gone. Contests gone. Can't have contests if the stories are gone and you don't know where to find them now can you?

Is there a bright spot in all this? Yes. Things will eventually go back to normal. This happened two years ago and the fandom rebounded. We always do and we will again.

And an even brighter spot? FF.net ultimately will receive the biggest kick of all...loss of revenue. After all, their money is made by viewer traffic and advertising. Allowing this witch hunt to continue only causes loss of readership and members. So eventually, they will get their due diligence and might actually wake up one day.

Here's hoping.

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