sundries

[rm]

There are just a few more days to bid on things at debsliverlovers. Some more really cool stuff went up yesterday (an awesome novel with art drawn into it directly by Thomas Canty! An original page of comic art from Colleen Doran!) and some more awesome stuff will be going up today. So far the auction looks like it's raised 6K, but the goal is 10K to help with the costs associated with this live donor liver transplant. Go check it out.

This UK trip is still confusing.

I know it's super easy to go to Cardiff for a day. Patty and I did it last month. What's not super easy is leaving New York on July 7, landing in London on July 8, going to Cardiff on July 9, heading to Bristol that night, heading back to London on July 11, leaving for New York on July 12. See how much better this plan is if Cardiff just gets removed? SO MUCH BETTER. But I'm still torn because of the nature of my research and my desire for fabulous gluten-free welsh cakes. Also, the part where I am whiny.

On the other hand, after reading an article about how awfully hard it is to manage to use points on Delta, I'm a bit more "fuck it" and leaning towards Virgin Atlantic. Did you know, however, that you can't trade frequent flier points between Virgin Atlantic and Virgin America? Also, the most ideal times for the flights to allow me to actually do stuff in London on Monday involve me flying back into Newark. Getting home from Newark sucks, but a little bit of inconvenience is worth it, right?

Also, what do I want to see in my brief stays in London this time? Imperial War Museum. But what else? What do I want to see in my super brief sojourn in Bristol? Cardiff is the WORST possible plan, right? The question is whether not going to Cardiff is an even more terrible plan.

smirnoffmule made a warning for slash bingo card. If you start to say one of those things on the card? Stop.

Remember that thing when LJ tried to make people indicate a gender _and_ the options sucked? Now it's DeviantArt's turn. Bad plan, DeviantArt, bad plan.

Life on the subway was super annoying this morning: don't fucking litter and don't fucking sit like your balls are the size of New Jersey. It kept making me want to burst out in Buffy-esque song.

Last night after helping a friend put stuff into storage and fighting the subways Patty got home super late, so we have no Buffy or Angel update for you. Also, I am pretty damn tired, as we stayed up too late talking when she did get home, because we prize the check-in time.

The love from fictional characters meme hasn't just been funny, it's been oddly sweet.

redstapler links us to sidewalk lanes for New Yorkers vs. Tourists. Pity it's a joke.

I got a ticket to the White Collar event at the Paley Center. Yay.

Meanwhile, Patty and I must get Metropolis tickets immediately.

My parents have started to read my Bristol paper. They're on page 9. They are proud of me. My mother says she didn't know science fiction was about things. I explain that genre is merely incidental to the work - Sherlock Holmes isn't science fiction (although, fiction with science!) - as SFF has more ways of talking about death constantly. So far she finds the paper "sweet" and "fascinating" but I don't think she's gotten to the part that I expect will break her brain yet. My father relays his more muted opinions through my mother, which is good, or else he'll talk to me about god.

Comments

[curriejean.livejournal.com]

I do not see the point of bingo cards. Straw-manning the competition? Expressing frustration? Narrating what other people are saying without explaining why they're wrong? Bingo cards do not contain an argument. They don't explain anything. Why do people make them?

[tsarina.livejournal.com]

Because one day, someone is going to have an awesome party, maybe at a con and actually play bingo with some of these. It's been my dream for ages.

[smirnoffmule.livejournal.com]

... to play bingo with? That's what mine is for, anyway.

[curriejean.livejournal.com]

Why play this kind of bingo rather than regular bingo, though? I guess maybe I'm weird? I can only imagine that replacing the usual numbers with a bunch of offensive excuses would take the fun out of it.

[smirnoffmule.livejournal.com]

Because these are the sorts of things I hear called, over and over again, as I go about my fannish business. There are far more people in fandom ready to shout out random cliched bullshit at me than there are ready to shout out random numbers.

[curriejean.livejournal.com]

But, it looks from here like the purpose of a bingo card (any time the meme is used) is to turn an opposing position's defenses (however incorrect they are) into cliches. I think that's a passive-aggressive form of refutation, and it bugs me when I see bingo cards made from positions I agree with because passive-aggression isn't necessary.

You're right because you're right, not because the opposing side's statements are cliched. Cliches can be correct or incorrect, and using criticism of cliche as an argument (I am viewing the card as an attempt at argument -- it's been posted publicly) is really just a form of rhetoric. Rhetoric is unreliable. It only works on people who don't know any better, and the rest of them are likely to be offended by its use, making the bingo card self-defeating.

I think I've been bugged into actually saying something because I agree hard with your point -- that 'warning' for slash (maybe 'warning' at all, even, since it's normatively regulatory) is inflammatory. Just label for content when the displayed pairing doesn't make it evident (if that ever even happens). It's as simple as that, and people do need to get it. I think this would be done best by telling them directly.

[smirnoffmule.livejournal.com]

I am viewing the card as an attempt at argument -- it's been posted publicly

It wasn't intended to start an argument at all (though I'm happy to engage anyone who wishes to contest a square with me; and actually, I did edit in an explanation of my choices when I became aware people were linking this in order to provide a better context). And as it happens, I do tell people directly, frequently. This bingo square isn't about that first step of telling people, it's about that next step, when someone has been told, and isn't buying it, and comes back with all the highlighted arguments - which went into the squares because I've heard them often enough to consider them cliches. I didn't invent a single one. In fact, I was moved to make the square because I've been participating in and seeing this kind of conversation so often that I've long since stopped hearing any original or unrefutable counter-arguments. As well as allowing me to collect my own thoughts, I hoped it might be useful to others who are less familiar or confident with this issue - certainly I've found similar cards to be useful in helping me recognise and refute common derailing techniques.

You do seem to be proceeding from the assumption this bingo card is the pinnacle of all engagement in this conversation, either for me personally, or for the wider fandom, but it isn't; it's intended as a meta-comment on a wider discourse, not the entire discourse itself - and it's not intended to be an argument in itself, but a comment on one.

I grant also there's an element of expressed frustration and humour there, and I won't even try and deny it could be construed as passive-aggressive if someone's been presenting the kind of argument that's likely to lead them to take it personally - but, honestly, this is a deeply personal issue for me, and others, and if you're going to argue we are never ever allowed to be the ones who are snarky, even among ourselves, when we're the ones who stand to be hurt by this issue, then basically what you're making is a tone argument. If I don't happen to want to be patiently teaching people who ought to be perfectly capable of teaching themselves today, then I'm not actually obliged to.

[curriejean.livejournal.com]

I don't even have anything to say to this. I have been educated, probably pwned. Thank you. :)

you laugh or you cry

[tsarina.livejournal.com]

Perhaps to give you an idea of why: When I worked at the child abuse hotline, we invented a lot of ways to cope with hearing horrific stories, having people scream at us and be verbally abusive on the phone and the general awfulness of working a government job with so much red tape. One of those was bingo - there were certain phrases, things we heard often during the week.

It sounds awful to laugh about such miseries, but black humor was a very necessary coping mechanism for some of us. We laughed because otherwise we would cry or start drinking during lunch. It allowed for a small release of the tension you carried around all day. I think for many people, fandom wank bingo/racism bingo/homophobia bingo/etc provide a similar feeling. I couldn't say everyone feels that way, but I suspect there are many people who do.

Re: you laugh or you cry

[curriejean.livejournal.com]

Okay, I do get that. It's an expression of frustration -- completely justified frustration in both cases. But the difference is in how much more extreme the abuse hotline experience must be, not just because it's vocal and emotional but because you can't change people's minds, right? It's just too big. You don't argue an abuser into changing his mind by making a point at him. The habit is too ingrained.

But with this issue, people are warning, and not-warning, in attempts at communicative harmony. Everyone is taking offense into consideration in what they choose to do -- everyone wants to get along. It's just that some of them are catering to the wrong people. But I think their minds can be changed. Bingo cards make it look like hope has been abandoned.

Re: you laugh or you cry

[rm.livejournal.com]

But telling people who are the targets of speech that is offensive and marginalizing that runs the gamut between accidentally insensitive and bigoted that they can only express their upset certain ways is a tone argument. Maybe if I behave really, really well people will stop saying homophobic things. Maybe people should just stop saying homophobic things. I'm allowed my frustration and it doesn't delegitimize the problem.

Re: you laugh or you cry

[curriejean.livejournal.com]

Maybe if I behave really, really well people will stop saying homophobic things.

What's behaving well, though? I don't think it's about being nice, or conceding out of turn, or submitting. I'm not saying, "Let's all be good little girls and boys so the bullies will play nice too," that's naive. But I'm also not saying, "Let's play tricks on the bullies so they lose power without understanding why."

I think I'm leaning more toward poignancy. I'm saying, "Let's beat up the bullies and put them in their place." Let's make fun while telling people why they're being mocked.

I'm not saying frustration actually deligitimizes a problem (it does the opposite) -- but to someone who wants to see it that way, frustration can delegitimize the problem from their perspective. They could use it as an excuse not to listen (antagonizers define emotional expression as weakness), and if they feel justified dismissing an issue because of the frustration they created, no one else can do anything about it.

That is, unless the expression is paired with the reasons behind it. Since my initial response, it's been pointed out to me that I erred in assuming the card stands on its own -- you, for one, have made awesome, clear arguments about the issue. So you're already beating up the bullies, and my initial botheredness is no longer relevant.

Re: you laugh or you cry

[tsarina.livejournal.com]

Everyone's experience is different. I would say that the experience of the homophobia and inanity on the internet is sometimes worse, because it is so personal. At the hotline, it wasn't my life under fire.

Everyone has different breaking points and there is only so much a person can do or say before becoming frustrated. But frustration doesn't mean giving up hope.

Re: you laugh or you cry

[bodlon.livejournal.com]

But the difference is in how much more extreme the abuse hotline experience must be...

At the end of the day one can go away from working an abuse hotline. I can't walk away from being queer/experiencing homophobia. It's always present, and the bias I have to deal with is enshrined in our culture. People have a legal right to discriminate against me in most states.

If anything, I'd say that's pretty damned extreme, tiresome, and worthy of calling out with snark.

Re: you laugh or you cry

[curriejean.livejournal.com]

These are some things I missed -- I'm Canadian, and don't face the crazy that's in the States. And anyway, ranking different people's suffering is bad territory, so I'll step out of there. I guess my hope is that the distance of the Internet could help make it easier to turn emotional reactions into more accessible arguments.

It's not even reactiveness itself that's my problem, though (we all kneejerk and snark), but I worry that this bingo expression of it could grow as a meme, making it trendy, and fooling people into thinking it's more meaningful than it actually is.

Re: you laugh or you cry

[bodlon.livejournal.com]

Okay, hear me out.

You're telling people who are posting this -- those people on the whole being queer people and their allies -- that they're expressing their frustrations about an issue that directly affects them that they're doing it wrong.

You're responding to a message on the Internet -- where we express things in multitudes of ways, many of which are tongue-in-cheek, silly, or peculiar -- by trying to shut it down (and by extension people spreading it) because the medium does not appeal to you.

That's too bad. Fortunately, people talk about this a lot. I'm sure if you look around long enough you'll find an unhappy queer person talking about the issue in ways you find palatable, and which might encourage you to engage the actual issue.

As it stands, the bingo card appeals to a lot of us who are affected by the issue. It rings true and has the added bonus of being visually striking and easy to share. It's one tool among many. I'm sorry you don't like it, but arguably it's not a thing designed to please people. It's a thing designed to make people stop and think about what they're saying.

Re: you laugh or you cry

[smirnoffmule.livejournal.com]

Everyone is taking offense into consideration in what they choose to do -- everyone wants to get along. It's just that some of them are catering to the wrong people. But I think their minds can be changed.

You seem to be assuming that it's never occurred to me or anyone else that we could try this.

Re: you laugh or you cry

[curriejean.livejournal.com]

Agh, nope, not what I meant. I knew my last sentence there was too simple, but I wasn't sure how to modify it. What I mean is, don't give up. If you're already not giving up, disregard. :)