And the prediction continues to unfold
Mar. 4th, 2014 09:58 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
yendiAs I noted in a comment on ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
sairaali's post here, my prediction continues to unfold, although it looks folks are opting for "bullying" instead of "censorship" as their rallying cry.
Haley Campbell's normally a solid, funny writer who writes snarky bits about farting and visiting sex toy factories*, but her piece in The New Statesman is a shit sandwich wrapped in shoddy journalism.
There's one legitimate complaint, of course. Yes, Seanan McGuire's tweets about Ross potentially making fat jokes. Seanan also publicly apologized to Ross's daughter, something Campbell knew, but doesn't mention in the piece (instead giving the bullshit line, "When I emailed asking McGuire to pinpoint a moment in which Ross had ever made a fat joke, I got no reply." Not like McGuire publicly tweeted about being offline for a flight home or anything).
(Of course, that also misses the real point of what McGuire said anyway. Ross might not have ever gone after fat people, and I'm sure not inclined to sift through eight million videos to find out, but a good part of his image is as an insult comedian. People who have been bullied tend to assume that insult comedians will go after them; they're often right.)
But the rest of Campbell's piece is a diatribe about how Ross is a real SF fan, and we should all shut up (Rich Johnston's piece in Bleeding Cool is similar flawed).
I've seen multiple folks ask online, but I can't find anyone actually accusing Ross of being a Fake Geek Boy. Campbell, for all her nifty quotes from Gaiman (who's her godfather, something that doesn't get mentioned) on the topic, doesn't quote any of those alleged tweets. I'm not actually doubting they exist -- given any internet argument, hyperbole will rear its head, and it wouldn't be the first time someone on "my side" of a debate has said something stupid. But I sure as heck would like to see some of those quotes.
But the majority of quotes I did actually see focus on Ross's insulting humor. Campbell, in a great journalist move that gives her plausible deniability, quotes Sarah Pinborough claiming that it's really just a bunch of Americans reading that one Mirror article, instead of possibly, you know, a reaction to shit like this. But hey, I'm sure we're all just ignorant and overreacting, and he'd be a great person on the podium.
We get the usual pearl-clutching, noting that "what the genre has lost in losing Ross is pretty much incalculable." Gasp! We'll never read books in this town again! Yes, as noted here, Ross certainly reaches a lot of people, and a tiny percentage of them would add up to folks checking out SF.
But so fucking what? SF is not Twine gaming or the US Curling Team or some other niche; I defy you to find one average person, the sort of person who follows Ross, who has never fucking heard of SF. Go on, do it. Yeah, they might not know what the Hugo Awards are, but they know what books are, know what SF is, even know what cons are, and probably know if they're interested. Watching a two-hour ceremony, even one that's somehow entertaining to an audience that lacks the inside-baseball knowledge normally required to watch the Hugos, would do what? Tell them that new SF books are being published, and a few hot titles. If they don't like SF, they won't care; if they do, they're not going to get a lot of new info here, and if they're not SF fans to begin with? They're not going to become them anyway.
Oh, and Campbell deserves a special fucking prize for this quote: "Does calling someone a “grating fatuous bellend” not count as bullying if your subject is famous? I call bullshit. Does saying horrible things about someone because you think they might possibly say horrible things about you make you the better person? In this tirade about insults and slights, nasty bullies with little self-awareness recast themselves as the victim." No, Hayley. I call bullshit. It takes a fucking heap of a privileged and lucky** to view "grating fatuous bellend" as bullying. Yes, it's certainly possible to bully someone like Ross (fame doesn't prevent it), but this wasn't even close.
*If you think I mean this as an insult, you don't not know how much I appreciate pieces about farting and sex toy factories; the rest of this piece slams Campbell, but not this clause.
**Yes, in this case you'd need both, and they are separate, if connected, things.
sairaali's post here, my prediction continues to unfold, although it looks folks are opting for "bullying" instead of "censorship" as their rallying cry. Haley Campbell's normally a solid, funny writer who writes snarky bits about farting and visiting sex toy factories*, but her piece in The New Statesman is a shit sandwich wrapped in shoddy journalism.
There's one legitimate complaint, of course. Yes, Seanan McGuire's tweets about Ross potentially making fat jokes. Seanan also publicly apologized to Ross's daughter, something Campbell knew, but doesn't mention in the piece (instead giving the bullshit line, "When I emailed asking McGuire to pinpoint a moment in which Ross had ever made a fat joke, I got no reply." Not like McGuire publicly tweeted about being offline for a flight home or anything).
(Of course, that also misses the real point of what McGuire said anyway. Ross might not have ever gone after fat people, and I'm sure not inclined to sift through eight million videos to find out, but a good part of his image is as an insult comedian. People who have been bullied tend to assume that insult comedians will go after them; they're often right.)
But the rest of Campbell's piece is a diatribe about how Ross is a real SF fan, and we should all shut up (Rich Johnston's piece in Bleeding Cool is similar flawed).
I've seen multiple folks ask online, but I can't find anyone actually accusing Ross of being a Fake Geek Boy. Campbell, for all her nifty quotes from Gaiman (who's her godfather, something that doesn't get mentioned) on the topic, doesn't quote any of those alleged tweets. I'm not actually doubting they exist -- given any internet argument, hyperbole will rear its head, and it wouldn't be the first time someone on "my side" of a debate has said something stupid. But I sure as heck would like to see some of those quotes.
But the majority of quotes I did actually see focus on Ross's insulting humor. Campbell, in a great journalist move that gives her plausible deniability, quotes Sarah Pinborough claiming that it's really just a bunch of Americans reading that one Mirror article, instead of possibly, you know, a reaction to shit like this. But hey, I'm sure we're all just ignorant and overreacting, and he'd be a great person on the podium.
We get the usual pearl-clutching, noting that "what the genre has lost in losing Ross is pretty much incalculable." Gasp! We'll never read books in this town again! Yes, as noted here, Ross certainly reaches a lot of people, and a tiny percentage of them would add up to folks checking out SF.
But so fucking what? SF is not Twine gaming or the US Curling Team or some other niche; I defy you to find one average person, the sort of person who follows Ross, who has never fucking heard of SF. Go on, do it. Yeah, they might not know what the Hugo Awards are, but they know what books are, know what SF is, even know what cons are, and probably know if they're interested. Watching a two-hour ceremony, even one that's somehow entertaining to an audience that lacks the inside-baseball knowledge normally required to watch the Hugos, would do what? Tell them that new SF books are being published, and a few hot titles. If they don't like SF, they won't care; if they do, they're not going to get a lot of new info here, and if they're not SF fans to begin with? They're not going to become them anyway.
Oh, and Campbell deserves a special fucking prize for this quote: "Does calling someone a “grating fatuous bellend” not count as bullying if your subject is famous? I call bullshit. Does saying horrible things about someone because you think they might possibly say horrible things about you make you the better person? In this tirade about insults and slights, nasty bullies with little self-awareness recast themselves as the victim." No, Hayley. I call bullshit. It takes a fucking heap of a privileged and lucky** to view "grating fatuous bellend" as bullying. Yes, it's certainly possible to bully someone like Ross (fame doesn't prevent it), but this wasn't even close.
*If you think I mean this as an insult, you don't not know how much I appreciate pieces about farting and sex toy factories; the rest of this piece slams Campbell, but not this clause.
**Yes, in this case you'd need both, and they are separate, if connected, things.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2014-03-04 03:17 pm (UTC)Not often noted is that when the name was announced there was no reaction among the staff. I mean none. No applause, nothing, a complete damp squib. If SO had not asked for a discussion the external reaction would have been even more unnerving.
(no subject)
Date: 2014-03-04 03:30 pm (UTC)No reaction at all is even more surprising than cheers or boos would have been, frankly.
(no subject)
Date: 2014-03-04 03:47 pm (UTC)Ross had fun with Claudia Schiffer on Saturday apparently. Strange idea of humour.
(no subject)
Date: 2014-03-04 04:27 pm (UTC)I don't think calling someone a bellend really counts as bullying, but I also think virtually shouting WHAT THE FUCKING FUCK in response to his name can be read in two ways: a. I am upset and afraid, and b. how dare anyone do something other than what I wish, ever!
All that said, I don't think Ross would make a good host simply because Worldcons should be trying to avoid any sort of controversy. Ross's own performance—and he's done professional hosting duties for genre-related events without insulting award-winners before—is really immaterial.
All that said, I was no-platformed by LoneStarCon for the exact opposite reason as Ross (for being against sexual harassment, for being the first person to name Rene as the Readercon Creeper, and for pointing to what I see as a structural problem with fandom and this sort of thing), and absolutely zero people very eager to make sure Worldcon and the Hugos were a safe place had shit to say about it, so I now tend to look at these controversies with a more jaundiced eye.
They probably mean these tweets
Date: 2014-03-04 04:44 pm (UTC)Follow
Also, call me, I don't know, strange, but I was told--when volunteering to host the Hugos--that the host would be from our community.
8:33 AM - 1 Mar 2014
Seanan McGuire @seananmcguire
Follow
Someone who GOT our community. Someone who could make Muppet jokes (like John Scalzi) or be sweet to Jay Lake (like Paul Cornell).
8:34 AM - 1 Mar 2014
Seanan McGuire @seananmcguire
Follow
Someone who ACTUALLY UNDERSTOOD THE AWARD and WHY WE WERE THERE.
8:34 AM - 1 Mar 2014
It's not text torture to read these, especially the first and last, as "fake fan" and it would be text torture to totally ignore these storified and widely disseminated tweets as absolutely not "fake fan" tweets.
(no subject)
Date: 2014-03-04 04:56 pm (UTC)Re: They probably mean these tweets
Date: 2014-03-04 05:10 pm (UTC)My take on the credentials bit is that JR has them, but no one seemed to know except those who knew, if that makes sense? Which doesn't scream Hugo host to me.
But I'd have swallowed that. The community is varied and I have no issue with people honouring someone from a different bit of it to me.
(no subject)
Date: 2014-03-04 05:12 pm (UTC)Re: They probably mean these tweets
Date: 2014-03-04 05:18 pm (UTC)McGuire's tweets saying almost exactly that were storified and widely reproduced.
It's pretty clear to me that the people talking about the fake fan accusation are simply reading these tweets using plain everyday language.
It is also pretty clear to me the people insisting that there were no fake fan accusations are engaging in a fair amount of creative misreading to make those tweets mean something other than what they say, or have simply forgotten about them despite them being storified and widely reproduced.
As far as who knows what about JR—well, that's true of everyone, isn't it? There are plenty of people who do not know who you are, who I am, etc. (Just this past weekend, six years after leaving and after being nominated for a Hugo for my "new" job at Haikasoru and putting out 50+ books with it, I was asked how things were going at Clarkesworld.) Hell, there were plenty of "WHO IS THAT" when Ken Scholes was co-MCing the Hugos a couple of years ago, for that matter.
(no subject)
Date: 2014-03-04 05:21 pm (UTC)(Basically, I find most of the defenses of Ross amounting to something along the lines of, "he's being accused of being guilty of B, C, and D, which are wrong," without any reference to A, which is enough of a problem by itself.)
Nothing but sympathy on the LoneStarCon front. I do remember us chatting about it on FB, but looking back, I somehow missed the 60-post thread on your LJ about it.
(no subject)
Date: 2014-03-04 05:25 pm (UTC)As far as I am aware, the only people on this planet who made any sort of useful remarks about my being no-platformed were Kate Kligman and Mark Finn, both of whom made public comments and then also attempted to use what pull they had inside fandom and with the LS3 concom to correct things. It was thanks to their work that my Japanese colleagues weren't also no-platformed as well, thanks to mere association with me.
Re: They probably mean these tweets
Date: 2014-03-04 05:28 pm (UTC)You're right about her tweets being easily read as fake fan ones (I don't read McGuire, and was only linked to Ross's daughter's tweet with McGuire's responses). When I saw multiple discussions last night on Twitter asking the same question, I didn't see anyone responding with the examples you gave.
(no subject)
Date: 2014-03-04 05:29 pm (UTC)Re: They probably mean these tweets
Date: 2014-03-04 05:41 pm (UTC)Well, I'd argue that there's a reason why nobody is giving those obvious, storified, and widely reproduced examples as examples. It is because communities are ever a mechanism for deciding who gets to sleep on the subway grates outside the community. So for people in the community, redrawing a line to exclude someone else is a largely invisible process. It is no surprise to me that people not in the hothouse of fandom politics could read these tweets and come away with the simple plain language interpretation, while those in the hothouse literally do not have eyes to see them.
(no subject)
Date: 2014-03-04 05:41 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2014-03-04 05:43 pm (UTC)I am utterly sure that Loncon will get the MC it deserves, one way or another. *cue ominous music.*
(no subject)
Date: 2014-03-04 05:44 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2014-03-04 05:45 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2014-03-04 05:46 pm (UTC)Re: They probably mean these tweets
Date: 2014-03-04 05:58 pm (UTC)That said, I'm completely on board with your point about viewing the issue from within the community vs viewing from without.
(no subject)
Date: 2014-03-04 05:59 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2014-03-04 06:46 pm (UTC)I'm not arguing against you, I just think a lot of Americans are assuming they know his shtick when they really don't and I see their valid arguments getting undermined by that.
(no subject)
Date: 2014-03-04 06:58 pm (UTC)(I admit that I am American, but I also am British and have lived in England since 2000. I've not even stepped foot in the US for a brief visit since 2006.)
And the whole Sachsgate thing? Yes, it was distasteful. But Americans need to know that before the Daily Fail picked up on it, not many people even knew about it. Not that many people even heard it when it was aired originally. Only a couple of complaints were made before the Fail picked up on it. Amazingly, the huge number of complaints came from people who'd never heard the show and only had read about it in the Fail. However, that's how the Daily Fail works. It likes to get its readers all riled up about all sorts of things, including, more recently, about how Labour leader Ed Miliband's late father, Ralph, hated Britain, which, of course, wasn't true. But the Mail wants its readers to fear a Labour government, especially one with Miliband as PM, trying to make its readers worry about how socialist it will be. (If Miliband only were a socialist, I'd be a happy camper. :)
Re: They probably mean these tweets
Date: 2014-03-04 07:15 pm (UTC)Re: They probably mean these tweets
Date: 2014-03-04 07:21 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2014-03-04 07:28 pm (UTC)Re: They probably mean these tweets
Date: 2014-03-04 07:39 pm (UTC)NB: Ross has a Hugo award in his house, as his wife won one.
(no subject)
Date: 2014-03-04 09:26 pm (UTC)I guess even in London they are provincial and aren't used to the concept that fandom is international.
Just because you think everyone knows who a guest is in the host country, if you have any ambition or foresight at all, a little reaching out is called for.
(no subject)
Date: 2014-03-04 09:29 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2014-03-05 04:50 am (UTC)I felt like I knew enough to know some things were wrong (or not quite right), but not enough to give proper context for why they were wrong. Was relieved when more folks from the UK started to weigh in.
(no subject)
Date: 2014-03-05 05:07 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2014-03-05 07:49 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2014-03-05 02:37 pm (UTC)Exactly