On Being Told What to Write

 

So, here we are again entering the horrifying world of Prior Review and Content Control. I swear this topic comes up every so often as a matter of course these days, and nowhere is it more prevalent outside of politics than in the world of genre fandom. This particular incident was pretty extreme, reminding me of a certain Batman movie's devoted, fanatical base about twelve years ago whose ire and outrage resulted in several attacks when I posted a link to my review on the now defunct Yahoo! Message Boards.

This time was different, however. Not only did it take place on Facebook, but it also resulted in a volley of personal and professional attacks. The fanboy Battalion has mutated since those days of simply telling a person they were wrong and sending threatening emails to professional film critics for not liking a movie they adored. 

I wouldn't have even known about this if not for the fact that a Facebook friend had posted her views on James Gunn's "The Suicide Squad" by referring to it as basically a stupid failure. I concurred, posting my blog post/review to show her just how much. You can read that here. I saw a dissenting comment from a guy whose name shall remain undisclosed (I'll refer to him as "Soy" based on a comment another friend made) which I read and immediately forgot all about. However, at some point between me not being online for a while and finally going back on, my Facebook friend had unfriended and blocked this individual for comments she found obnoxious.

Like any juicy scandal-loving 'Murican, I decided to look him up. To my delight, I found that he had reposted the above review and written a disdainful commentary about it. This was so his like-minded, sycophantic followers could start making insulting comments about the review itself, the writing of it, and the various word choices they deemed pretentious. The post was public, so it was easy for me to jump in, first by thanking Soy for the repost and then responding to some of the comments about the review. I found it interesting how Soy kept trying to make it seem as if me seeing negative comments about something I wrote was some sort of turnabout is fair play situation instead of an expected part of being a writer...Almost as if he was some uber-nerd twit who didn't know what the hell he was talking about.

This suspicion was compounded by the fact that he seemed hellbent on telling me what I should have written, and how I should have written it. The review, in his opinion, lacked "nuance," a word he seemed to have just learned sometime this week and couldn't  wait to use over and over until he sounded like a special needs parrot. I began to wonder: What exactly had him so upset and offended? My dislike of the material, the way I presented it, or the fact that I didn't gently take him by the hand and explain every sentence and word choice so he didn't soil his diaper? I suspect it was all three.

In the midst of Soy's kiss-ass geek patrol calling my writing terrible and saying how much it sucked, he kept telling me how I should have written my review. Oh, and he used the word "nuance."

A lot.

I've dealt with guys like this before. They represent both cheeks on the political butt. Extreme righties tend to indulge the behavior more often, but extreme lefties do it, too. The tactic is to lure the person onto their page, insult them and then let their friends attack them from all angles while appearing to be the reasonable one "just trying to make a point." It is a tactic employed by both bully and bullied alike. It hasn't ever worked on me when dealing with people who were much better at it, and it sure as shit didn't work on me this time.

The intellectual lightweights on Soy's page were barely a distraction, but they definitely brought the entertainment value. Yet despite the constant back-and-forth with such gems as "I want to kill your high school English teacher 'cause you suck" and other award-winning zingers of the highest level, Soy was still telling me what and how to write.

Deciding I'd had enough fun with the dingleberries, I focused instead on the post's originator and his repeated insistence that my post lacked...sigh...NUANCE. 

At this point, I'd already had a relatively decent back-and-forth with the one person not necessarily following Soy's orders who had expressed an interest in knowing what my opinion of the movie might be now that the initial hostility had faded. And to be fair, I did give Soy one point: The review was not a *GROAN* nuanced take on the film. It wasn't intended to be; it was written as an extension of my Facebook live posting. Soy even admitted my views on the handling of Viola Davis' character were pretty accurate.

The conversation could have, and probably should have, ended there. We had found a point on which we agreed and did not agree on the rest because Soy had issues with the way it was presented. Fair enough. I've stopped reading many a novel for similar reasons. The difference is, I didn't contact the author and tell them how they should have written the novel. I moved on. It's what grownups do. Soy, on the other hand, chose this as a hill to die on, a cause he could not relinquish. He was, in essence, the fanboy cliché nobody can stand; a know-it-all expert on all things with no foundation in any of them who thinks he has the right to police content. 

I owe no one who isn't paying me for my work anything. The mere fact that he was ignorant of the difference between a journal-like blog post and a professional film review shows that he proceeded from a false assumption. I certainly don't feel obligated to some random shit-starter on social networking to accommodate him with my writing, nor am I fazed by a bunch of followers of this person to feel that I need to alter my writing style. Awards, positive reviews and over thirty published stories speak for themselves. Besides, anyone who gets that angry over someone's opinions about a silly movie has more emotional issues than I am qualified to deal with.

I will thank Soy and his too-cool friends for the blog post material. It's difficult to not write about someone who accuses me of getting upset about a post when the post I am responding to is literally the result of the person getting upset about a post, throwing a tantrum, and trying to gain validation. Pointing out a person's lack of self-awareness doesn't usually go well, and I wound up blocked for my efforts. 

However, in the interest of helping people get past their soft, squishy ego problems, may I submit for their use...

Oh, I almost forgot:

NUANCE
NUANCE
NUANCE
NUANCE
NUANCE
NUANCE
NUANCE
NUANCE
NUANCE
NUANCE
NUANCE
NUANCE
NUANCE
NUANCE
NUANCE
NUANCE
NUANCE
NUANCE
NUANCE
NUANCE
NUANCE
NUANCE
NUANCE
NUANCE

The Other Pandemic: Facebook Group Moderators and Their Out of Control Egos.

Okay, I admit that title is filled with hyperbole but hopefully it grabbed your attention enough to make you want to read further. To be honest, I am burned out on Covid 19 posts and this is one that has been demanding equal time in my head for about a week. Simply put, there are some truly messed up control freaks functioning as moderators on Facebook group pages. And when combined with an already toxic fanbase, what often results is a recipe for disaster.

Case in point: A group purporting to be a Star Wars fanpage that encourages positive commentary on the movies. On paper, its existence makes sense. Star Wars fandom has become rife with trolling, mysognistic, racist, hate-filled assholes who seem utterly clueless about George Lucas' intent. So, creating a safehaven for fans who legitemately love the movies sounded super keen and outta sight. And for a while, it was. Sadly, two things happened to change that.

First, a bunch of trolling, mysognistic, racist, hate-filled assholes started insulting and threatening a female moderator over something unsurprisingly benign, forcing her to threaten a page shutdown because she couldn't handle the attacks. A small group of moderators then stepped in and started bringing down the virtual hammer, banning and blocking jerk-asses until they'd been pretty much weeded out. Things were good for a little while, then the second thing happened.

At some point, at least one moderator, possibly more, began displaying signs of power consumption. Every perceived criticism of their flawless moderating activities resulted in swift retaliation, up to and including banning. One of the main complaints seemed to be due to a lack of consistency and clarity when it comes to the rules they seem so willing to use at their discretion. I wrongly assumed I would actually have to do something notable before I got banned, but as it turned out, all it took was GIF.

Before I show you the offending image, some perspective is in order. In the midst of a bit of a fuckarow regarding members posting things advertising their wares, a moderator attempted to justify her decision to remove posts and ban someone. Another member raised a mild objection while still praising the page overall, pointing out that maybe during a global pandemic, when people are losing money and not working, some leeway might be acceptable. To paraphrase that moderator's response, although our hearts go out to those people, nuh-uh. My response was below:



 Some hours later, I clicked on an alert where someone had liked my comment and it was nowhere to be found. I then realized the page wasn't either. I had been dropped and blocked. That was literally all it took...an opinion on what I still consider a shittily expressed decision that was neither insulting nor especially critical.

So, I started my own group. The conceit is similar: People Who Love Them Some Damn Star Wars but with one major caveat: The Admin and Moderators aren't control-hungry wackjobs. Also, at our discretion, we will allow some advertsing from members who have artwork and written material or even music that is somehow related. My moderators aren't going to be banning people because they had their fwagile widdle feewings hurted by someone finding a decision cold-hearted.

If you're interested, feel free to click here and get to joinin':

https://www.facebook.com/groups/starwarslovesanemoderators/

Open Letter to the Participants of "Operation: Gridlock"

Dear Inconsiderate, Uncaring, Self-Absorbed Children,

This video probably makes you feel proud. Actually, anything where you can be seen acting like spoiled fools probably accomplishes that and, thanks to the Internet, you can gain that satisfaction pretty much as often as you would like. And while I recognize the inherent risk of providing yet another, albeit smaller format for your stupidity, the gain from exposing you far outweighs it.

As I wrote two posts prior, yours is a movement filled with ill-informed, selfish, ignorant people who value the economy above the well-being of your fellow human beings. Many of you aren't shy about admitting it, either. Take this prize-winning scholar, for example who,  a woman asked him how he felt about doing exactly what is pictured to the left, referred to her as a "fat lesbian" and the "C word":

I know this person's identity and the city he lives in (I have the non-blacked out version) but unlike him and his ilk, I would not post his identity because I believe in actual Freedom, not "Freedumb." Besides, he's certainly not alone, as there are tons of complete pricks just like him espousing similar if not identical douchenozzlery. Apparently, using ANTIFA as some sort of example to justify your own behavior is favored by your movement as well. Basically, you're using a group of extreme left-wingers you despise and find morally bankrupt as your model of behavior. That just shows those of us who are reasonable how intellectually stunted and hypocritical most of you are.

Of course, it's doesn't help that you have opportunistic bastards like this encouraging your stupidity:

I expect this kind of irresponsible rhetoric from bought-and-paid for lowlives like him, but you're supposed to be real people dealing with real-life situations such as the biggest pandemic since 1918. Oh, right. It's all being exaggerrated and blown way out of proportion so the Governor can use fear to launch a coupe de tat against the occupant of the White House who issued similar stay-at-home edicts. The conspiracy theories that have resulted from this are legendary. Here are a few of the truly idiotic ones that you probably believe:

• All hospitals and their workers are part of a vast concpiracy to inflate the numbers of the dead for...reasons.
• This is really the result of 5G technology.
• Bill Gates wants to create a "digitial vaccine" so he can track our every moment. etc.
• The liberal governors (anybody who isn't a Trump ass-kisser) are working in tandem to overthrow the federal government by using the virus as a springbaord for taking away "our freedoms."
• Covid-19 was created in a lab as a weapon or a form of population control.
• The virus was created by Democrats, presumabley with the cooperation of several other countries,to "stop President Trump" because he's so damn awesome.
• (This one is the best!) It's part of a long-range plan to turn people into cyborgs!

Under normal circumstances, all of those would be prime fodder for lots and lots of amusing quips and you would be easily dismissed as mental furballs. But online culture has emboldended all of you and turned you into more of a unified uber-twit, ready to do battle for the right to not be mildly inconvenienced from mowing lawns and planting gardens in 30-degree temperatures. Boy, you're really showing that commie Whitmer by creating a traffic jam in the capitol!

I'm sure you take great pride in causing ambulances carrying people who might be dying to slow to a crawl because your cars are in the way. I'm sure you take great pleasure in defying social distancing guidelines like rebellious teenagers, at least until you start feeling sick in a couple weeks. I'm not wishing that on you, that's just how the virus works. And you are basically inviting it in by doing everything you can to show that supposed "dicatator" in Lansing. 

If you see her as a tyrant, you must have been seriously pissed off when Trump declared he has "total authority." No? Gee, I wonder why not? You dislike fascism in all its forms, right? Not just when it has lady parts and you didn't vote for it?

Well, leaving aside that unsolvable mystery, I would honestly like to thank you for something. You have done an excellent job of revealing who and, more importantly, what you are. Now we know your names, what many of you do for a living, and what towns and cities you live in. Now we know who won't be getting our business, who we don't want to work for or working for us, and for damn sure who we don't want to live next door to. For that invaluable gift, I am truly grateful.

To the obvious white supremacists among you, the so-called "Proud Boys" who have nothing to be proud of except their false perception that a skin color makes one superior, we see you, too. And despite all the anti-female horseshit that spews forth from the orifices located beneath your noses, despite all the abusive rhetoric you employ against Governor Whitmer, guess what?

So, suck it up, Baby Hitler!

How I Made an Ass of Myself and Other Fun Foibles.

Recently I wrote a post about the great science fiction writer Harlan Ellison. In it, I described him in glowing terms as essentially mercurial and a strong advocate for writers as artists and people that deserve to get paid for their work. The thing that prompted this was an ad for Ellison's short story collection "Under Glass," which he wrote in bookstore windows where the public could see him working. The whole idea was to serve as a living example of the fact that writing is work.

I knew about this before the ad came out; Ellison did this many years ago, after all. But the re-release prompted in me a need to point out the obvious: If you call yourself a writer and you don't appreciate the man's vast talent and willingness to defend not just the written word by the originators of those words, you probably aren't much of a writer. In fact, I'll go even further and say you probably just want to sell books to movie production companies.

The original post, which can be read by clicking here, was quite popular and viewed many times, helped in no small part by me sharing the link on a Harlan Ellison fan page via Facebook. And that, unfortunately, is where the title of this post comes in.

If you clicked on the hyperlink above that takes you to the ad for Ellison's short story collection, you also saw an image of the man himself writing in the window of a bookstore. On that image is the name of the photographer. When I first attempted to transfer the image of the ad onto this blog and failed, I decided that, since the photo had a clear copyright credit written across it in huge letters, I could upload the picture by itself and provide a link to the order site. Apparently, I was incorrect in my assessment, as the following message from the group's moderator made painfully clear:

"I've removed your post from the [page] because it has come to my attention that you do not have permission to use that copyrighted photograph of Harlan taken by Rod Searcey, who is also a member... As of this writing, the only other person or entity that has Rod's verified permission to use the photograph is Joe Stefko, specifically for Charnel House's upcoming publication of "Ellison Under Glass". Ironically, while you honor Harlan in your blog and point out his admonition to "pay the writer", you still helped yourself to the work of another artist, in this case a photographer, without paying for or acquiring permission, despite the very obvious copyright Rod marks on his images. Your blog is excellent, and I appreciate your sincere homage to Harlan, but there is any number of public domain photographs of Harlan out there that you could use instead of Rod's. Please change the image as soon as possible, and then you can post the link to your blog again on the... page. Thank you for your time and consideration in this matter."

 

Somehow my earnest attempt at honoring one of my writing idols had turned into a misguided copyright infringement situation. I confess my ignorance. I in no way understood that images used in advertising that are reprinted for the sole purpose of creating an extra platform for that advertising were an issue. I know I've done this before but it apparently never caught up to me until the one time it actually had the ability to hurt me professionally and personally.

 

Naturally I removed the image, which is why the current incarnation of the post no longer has one. Lesson learned. It's a lesson one would think I already learned when I was writing articles for different websites that required the use of public domain images only. So there it is, the tale of how I made an ass of myself.

 

But at least the group moderator called me a mensch and said he thought my blog was great. That was pretty cool.