Category: Community

CW: referencing sexual assault and transphobia among authors, maternal and infant mortality

For my first post under the “community” heading, I thought about discussing at length my general focus, including why my need to write these lead to shifting to a blog format, but that would be quite a writ for a beginning. I think I should start with some more specific examples.

This is both a prediction and a suggestion, in the hope that what has to change by necessity can be changed with intention. A pattern that emerged in the 1990s and 2000s, which has persisted up until now- and while this may have influenced international culture changes, I will be addressing what I observed in the United States- is a top-down structuring of genre events, specifically Science Fiction and Fantasy conventions, or more often “expos.” Yes, commodification and capitalism played parts in this. While The Big Bang Theory purported to portray the culture of these events, they failed in significant ways (at some point I will write about the chasm between the media portrayal of Renaissance Faire workers vs. the actual experience thereof, and the vapid misconceptions, but for now understand that while my suggestions also apply to best practices in the Renfaire community, the examples from that are not as glaringly obvious as they can be in the convention circuit.) While the show portrayed the protagonists as scientists and inventors in academia, they failed to show much of the grassroots creativity for which the older SF/F conventions are known, and the main characters largely functioned as fan-boys in those circles. The impression that many people, who had never been to a convention before watching the show would have, is of hierarchical events, where celebrities are worshipped by adoring fans, lining up to meet them. In reality, even the conventions featured in the show had other vital elements, discussions and interactions which were not portrayed because they didn’t fit the narrative and would require too much background information for a general audience to relate. The economy that was built to cash in on Geek Chic in that era focused more on the fame and less on the creativity, such that many modern expos have little to nothing in the way of workshops for up and coming creators to learn their craft and interact locally. It was against this backdrop of non-cooperation that the worst toxicity in parts of the fandoms was magnified, e.g., Sad Puppies and Gamergate.

Now, we are are faced with betrayals from some of the former heroes of these kinds of gatherings, not the least of which are the heavily documented sexual abuse charges against Neil Gaiman and the blatant bigotry of J. K. Rowling (full disclosure, I have met Gaiman years ago and used to perform at Hogwarts themed events before Rowling revealed her terfdom.) We need to look at how some responses to that will be organic and based on individual decisions, and what intentional collective responses can achieve. A parallel can be seen in how misogynistic draconian changes to U.S. healthcare results in less young adults having sex or relationships. This is a natural result of the circumstances that individuals find themselves in, where the outcomes of sex and pregnancy are more dangerous than ever with reproductive healthcare under attack and the resulting uptick in maternal deaths and infant mortality. At present, rural areas where I have lived and where I have family no longer have medical facilities within hours’ drive that will handle a standard delivery, let alone a high-risk one with complications. Pundits who treat the drop in relationships as a philosophical choice miss that people with no ideology are considering their own safety and survivability. A Lysistrata-like movement could help connect the dots between the social isolation young adults experience in higher numbers now and the reality of how much more dangerous the risks of relationships are in a nation without comprehensive care, but the underlying conditions are what will have to change. Back to the world of conventions: after these betrayals, and the general rise of authoritarianism in society, I expect a psychological backlash to the nature of the celebrity-fan model of genre convention events. People are no longer invested in the idea of meeting their favorite author. They are creeped out by queues of adulation. They are protecting themselves from manipulation. How do we respond to this with intention?

While there can still be toxicity and abuse at smaller events, the shift I hope we can choose can be seen in some of the foci of both older and smaller conventions. Some writers, especially as it concerns the abuse Neil Gaiman and Amanda Palmer perpetrated, have suggested that any dissolution of boundaries between celebrities and fans is inherently abusive. I not only disagree but assert that an inherent role of in-person conventions is to redefine roles and power dynamics. Every person that attends a Sci-Fi convention has the potential to create a story that other people enjoy, and the workshops available to them should reflect that. A school-child’s art can be displayed next to an award winning fantasy artist- both bring happiness to people who see them and make people think about possibilities. A local crochet artist you have never heard of might make your most treasured memento of your convention experience. Intentionality means we have to ask: how many creators will feel empowered to write, to draw, to record future treasures in this genre decades later as a result of this experience? How do we make more circles and less lines?