Fan Fights or fighting over perspectives?
Sep. 21st, 2010 10:23 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shadowkatSo, flist is busy posting about the Buffy comics again. Must be time for the next issue to be released. Personally, I'm on the fence about getting it.
Great quote today in a business meeting - can't remember who said it, but..."The thing about verbal communication - is everyone hears what you say differently. It never fails to amaze me how people can leave a meeting and have completely different memories of what was said, and/or agreed to. Which is why written communication is so important." Unfortunately people interpret that differently as well. Edward Albee was right - no one sees the same play. Heck, I'm not even sure we see the same colors - I've lost count of the number of folks who look into my eyes and tell me they are a wonderful bright shade of blue. I am not color blind. They are green with flecks of yellow. They merely appear blue when I wear blue. Gray-green eyes have a tendency to pick up whatever color you are wearing or change in certain lights. That said? They always look green to me.
And I spend my worklife - basically arguing with people regarding their interpretations of things.
That and negotiating. I am really good at arguing. I have a degree in arguing. Heck even got a professional license to argue. (okay maybe negotiation or discussing.) That's the thing about the word "argue" - people are afraid to use it. They are constantly substituting euphemisms for it - such as "discussion" or "disagreement" or "negotiate" or "litigate" or "debate" - please, say what it is. If you are insisting that your character is lovable and I'm insisting they aren't - we are "arguing"! Discussion is just a polite form of it. Negotiate is also fairly polite. Litigate - is aggressive. Debate - politely aggressive. Doesn't mean I don't get sick of arguing after a bit and just want to slap someone upside the head. Online arguments make me crazy. Mostly because the person is usually misunderstanding my intent completely - so I spend 85% of the argument saying, "no, no, no - that is NOT what I meant at all, you doofus! I meant this!" To which they respond, "no, no, no - that is EXACTLY what you meant, you evil person you!" All very politely of-course.
Until I reach the boiling point and end up getting very snarky and writing something that I regret - and ends with me deleting the whole kit and kaboodle. Slinking away feeling like a rat, and considering ending my online existence forth-with. (By ending I mean deleting the journal or never posting again. Not killing myself. I'm not crazy.) Of course, I never do. Because hello? That would be nuts. It's nutty enough just deleting the thing. I fear what people must think. But obviously not enough, not to do it whenever I damn well please.
In other words...fan fights are in some respects worse than political debates. Weird I know. But I've gotten into worse battles online with a fan, a person I otherwise respect and admire greatly, over a character, relationship or tv show. It's silly. I mean why do I care that they think Spike is an unredeemable rapist and if he ever ended up with Buffy that would send an anti-feminist message to the masses, because hello, he tried to rape her? Outside of that one little flaw in their overall outlook, they are really cool person and we pretty much agree on just about everything else. Being adults - we've learned not to discuss Spike. I'm the same way with people at work, actually, except we agree not to discuss politics and religion. Saves my blood-pressure. Actually I had an Uncle once, long dead, who said that politics and religion aren't meant for polite company or never discuss in polite company. Not bad advice. Let's face it - it's a bit like trying to convince someone that my eyes are green, when they see blue eyes. One of us is color-blind and it's not me! ;-)
On Tv Show front...Glee - continues to rock. Possibly the only high school show that has a diverse cast in shape, size, color, race, ethnicity, and gender. May also be the only one that
understands that there are actually women out there who do not look like the girl in the Calvin Klein Jeans ad or walking the catwalks on Project Runway that can be cast in a tv show.
In this respect if none other - Glee actually does a better job of depicting high school than Buffy did. To be honest? I thought the first three seasons of Buffy were fairly juvenile and boilerplate. Not much there. I enjoyed Buffy back then, but more or less the same way I enjoy
Vampire Diaries now, although Buffy was definitely better written. No, in my opinion, Buffy did not become an interesting or notable piece of work until Season 4. If it had ended after three seasons? It would have been forgotten. Just another teen high school series. Glee to its credit, actually does depict the hells of high-school and in a fairly realistic and fun manner. Glee is aided in this by understating the romantic entanglements. That was Buffy's main flaw - it spent far too much time on the whole Romeo and Juliet bit (which was cliche before Buffy aired - as anyone who has watched teen shows and movies and read romance novels can testify to, the most overdone of Shakespeare's plays is that one) and on the romances, and far too little on the rest.
The latter seasons - after the Romeo and Juliet crap went by-by, actually explored a wider range of metaphors and issues. Once they dumped the mainstream romantic gothic stuff - things got interesting. Granted people like that stuff - or it wouldn't be mainstream and Twilight wouldn't have a following, but yours truly got sick of it fifteen years ago. Or rather burned out. I read Anne Rice, Ann McCaffrey, the Regency's, the Harlequinn's, the Bodice Rippers, the Romeo and Juliet wannabees (there's a great one about a ghost and a non-ghost), and watched them as well.
After a while it gets stale. And you just want something new and shiny. I think if Buffy hadn't gone the new and shiny route in S4, I'd probably have dropped it and never become a fan. And thinking back - I'm not sure it was the romances that pulled me in and made me crazy for the show, so much as moments like the one where she is standing on top of a debilitated tower, looking out on the ruins of her world, and asks her sister - is this hell? Am I in hell? That happened two weeks after 9/11. And in my mind was the only show that spoke to the emotional turmoil I felt at that time.
I think what we feel about our cultural obsessions, speaking for myself obviously, is so rooted in what we are feeling about things unrelated to them. Our own rejections, dreams, hopes, desires. And I think that's why fights with people online over these obsessions can get so heated. You don't know what someone else is seeing or why they are seeing it. IT's like what Don Draper states in Mad Men - "We see what we want to see." To ram at that pov, to attempt to change it to fit your own - can feel to the other person who wants to see it that way, like you are digging at a newly healed war wound, or scratching them. It hurts. You are hurting them. Whether you know it or not.
It may seem silly to you...heck it does to me...but that doesn't mean it doesn't hurt. And the person who is being hurt often can't tell you why, they are embarrassed that it hurts. I know I am.
I remember being embarrassed that it hurt when someone tried to blemish how I needed to see a fictional character. I remember getting so upset, I wanted to hurt them back, blemish their favorite character in a similar way (and I'm sorry to say, that I gave into that impulse. You really don't want to push me into that sort of corner folks, this cat has claws.)
What we don't know is what is going on inside someone else's head. Maybe the character reminds them of themselves? OR their mother? OR their ex? Sure you can judge them and say you are projecting. But don't you do the same thing? Don't we all? Can we be sure we don't? And what is wrong with that anyhow? IT's fictional. It's tv. It's fun. And it is a way to cope with a difficult universe, and difficult days, and way to let go. As long as no one gets hurt, what's the harm in it?
I don't know what I was getting at here. I got to go to bed. Dang. I stayed up too late again writing in this thing.
Great quote today in a business meeting - can't remember who said it, but..."The thing about verbal communication - is everyone hears what you say differently. It never fails to amaze me how people can leave a meeting and have completely different memories of what was said, and/or agreed to. Which is why written communication is so important." Unfortunately people interpret that differently as well. Edward Albee was right - no one sees the same play. Heck, I'm not even sure we see the same colors - I've lost count of the number of folks who look into my eyes and tell me they are a wonderful bright shade of blue. I am not color blind. They are green with flecks of yellow. They merely appear blue when I wear blue. Gray-green eyes have a tendency to pick up whatever color you are wearing or change in certain lights. That said? They always look green to me.
And I spend my worklife - basically arguing with people regarding their interpretations of things.
That and negotiating. I am really good at arguing. I have a degree in arguing. Heck even got a professional license to argue. (okay maybe negotiation or discussing.) That's the thing about the word "argue" - people are afraid to use it. They are constantly substituting euphemisms for it - such as "discussion" or "disagreement" or "negotiate" or "litigate" or "debate" - please, say what it is. If you are insisting that your character is lovable and I'm insisting they aren't - we are "arguing"! Discussion is just a polite form of it. Negotiate is also fairly polite. Litigate - is aggressive. Debate - politely aggressive. Doesn't mean I don't get sick of arguing after a bit and just want to slap someone upside the head. Online arguments make me crazy. Mostly because the person is usually misunderstanding my intent completely - so I spend 85% of the argument saying, "no, no, no - that is NOT what I meant at all, you doofus! I meant this!" To which they respond, "no, no, no - that is EXACTLY what you meant, you evil person you!" All very politely of-course.
Until I reach the boiling point and end up getting very snarky and writing something that I regret - and ends with me deleting the whole kit and kaboodle. Slinking away feeling like a rat, and considering ending my online existence forth-with. (By ending I mean deleting the journal or never posting again. Not killing myself. I'm not crazy.) Of course, I never do. Because hello? That would be nuts. It's nutty enough just deleting the thing. I fear what people must think. But obviously not enough, not to do it whenever I damn well please.
In other words...fan fights are in some respects worse than political debates. Weird I know. But I've gotten into worse battles online with a fan, a person I otherwise respect and admire greatly, over a character, relationship or tv show. It's silly. I mean why do I care that they think Spike is an unredeemable rapist and if he ever ended up with Buffy that would send an anti-feminist message to the masses, because hello, he tried to rape her? Outside of that one little flaw in their overall outlook, they are really cool person and we pretty much agree on just about everything else. Being adults - we've learned not to discuss Spike. I'm the same way with people at work, actually, except we agree not to discuss politics and religion. Saves my blood-pressure. Actually I had an Uncle once, long dead, who said that politics and religion aren't meant for polite company or never discuss in polite company. Not bad advice. Let's face it - it's a bit like trying to convince someone that my eyes are green, when they see blue eyes. One of us is color-blind and it's not me! ;-)
On Tv Show front...Glee - continues to rock. Possibly the only high school show that has a diverse cast in shape, size, color, race, ethnicity, and gender. May also be the only one that
understands that there are actually women out there who do not look like the girl in the Calvin Klein Jeans ad or walking the catwalks on Project Runway that can be cast in a tv show.
In this respect if none other - Glee actually does a better job of depicting high school than Buffy did. To be honest? I thought the first three seasons of Buffy were fairly juvenile and boilerplate. Not much there. I enjoyed Buffy back then, but more or less the same way I enjoy
Vampire Diaries now, although Buffy was definitely better written. No, in my opinion, Buffy did not become an interesting or notable piece of work until Season 4. If it had ended after three seasons? It would have been forgotten. Just another teen high school series. Glee to its credit, actually does depict the hells of high-school and in a fairly realistic and fun manner. Glee is aided in this by understating the romantic entanglements. That was Buffy's main flaw - it spent far too much time on the whole Romeo and Juliet bit (which was cliche before Buffy aired - as anyone who has watched teen shows and movies and read romance novels can testify to, the most overdone of Shakespeare's plays is that one) and on the romances, and far too little on the rest.
The latter seasons - after the Romeo and Juliet crap went by-by, actually explored a wider range of metaphors and issues. Once they dumped the mainstream romantic gothic stuff - things got interesting. Granted people like that stuff - or it wouldn't be mainstream and Twilight wouldn't have a following, but yours truly got sick of it fifteen years ago. Or rather burned out. I read Anne Rice, Ann McCaffrey, the Regency's, the Harlequinn's, the Bodice Rippers, the Romeo and Juliet wannabees (there's a great one about a ghost and a non-ghost), and watched them as well.
After a while it gets stale. And you just want something new and shiny. I think if Buffy hadn't gone the new and shiny route in S4, I'd probably have dropped it and never become a fan. And thinking back - I'm not sure it was the romances that pulled me in and made me crazy for the show, so much as moments like the one where she is standing on top of a debilitated tower, looking out on the ruins of her world, and asks her sister - is this hell? Am I in hell? That happened two weeks after 9/11. And in my mind was the only show that spoke to the emotional turmoil I felt at that time.
I think what we feel about our cultural obsessions, speaking for myself obviously, is so rooted in what we are feeling about things unrelated to them. Our own rejections, dreams, hopes, desires. And I think that's why fights with people online over these obsessions can get so heated. You don't know what someone else is seeing or why they are seeing it. IT's like what Don Draper states in Mad Men - "We see what we want to see." To ram at that pov, to attempt to change it to fit your own - can feel to the other person who wants to see it that way, like you are digging at a newly healed war wound, or scratching them. It hurts. You are hurting them. Whether you know it or not.
It may seem silly to you...heck it does to me...but that doesn't mean it doesn't hurt. And the person who is being hurt often can't tell you why, they are embarrassed that it hurts. I know I am.
I remember being embarrassed that it hurt when someone tried to blemish how I needed to see a fictional character. I remember getting so upset, I wanted to hurt them back, blemish their favorite character in a similar way (and I'm sorry to say, that I gave into that impulse. You really don't want to push me into that sort of corner folks, this cat has claws.)
What we don't know is what is going on inside someone else's head. Maybe the character reminds them of themselves? OR their mother? OR their ex? Sure you can judge them and say you are projecting. But don't you do the same thing? Don't we all? Can we be sure we don't? And what is wrong with that anyhow? IT's fictional. It's tv. It's fun. And it is a way to cope with a difficult universe, and difficult days, and way to let go. As long as no one gets hurt, what's the harm in it?
I don't know what I was getting at here. I got to go to bed. Dang. I stayed up too late again writing in this thing.