Are there actually essays classifying the PPC as bullies? That´s awesome, and makes me feel rather vindicated. Back when I was in the Tolkien fandom, long ago, I came across the PPC and found the whole concept disgusting. Not that they ever messed with me directly (I´ve written crap but there wasn´t a Designated Evil Life Form aka Mary Sue in it, so I guess that makes it right), but I was just fresh from many long years of school in which I had been a bullying target, and when I saw it -let´s say I wasn´t amused.
What I thought was: there´s a very simple fact about fanfics (which applies to many other things as well). Don´t like -don´t read. Whoever finds a fic horrible from the summary/disclaimer/first line and still reads it anyway and bashes it, and puts it in a forum, and mocks it, and makes a show of feeling personally insulted -well, it´s classic bully behaviour, isn´t it? Messing with people who haven´t done anything else to you than post their fics in the same site because... well, quoting James Potter "because they exist". Because they should be behaving as you want them to and writing what you want them to and thinking what you want them to, and they aren´t.
Also, to me it seemed to be a lot about feeling better. Someone picks the very worst story they can find, rips it to pieces and wham! authomatically that makes them feel like they´re a good writer and not One of Them. It´s like going to a toddler who is scrawling on a paper and saying "Look at this, that´s how a tree is supposed to look like, because yours is crap and mine is so much better!", and walking away happy with oneself.
Please, don´t be angry but, as I said, I used to have strong feelings about the matter and this just made them briefly resurface after so many years. Now, I am actually starting to undestand things much better: the PPC people were teenagers, and many of them (like, obviously, you) probably didn´t even have those hideous motives I attributed to them to begin with. They were just being teenagers. In fact, I´ve always liked you and your weird posts a lot -when I think that, had we clashed years ago as immature teenagers about the PPC business we might have been enemies forever, that´s a very sobering thought. (I was very immature at that age, and said and did things in the fandom that I am very ashamed about now. I didn´t bash other´s fics, but I clashed with more people than most of the PPC board for other reasons. It´s not likely that I´ll ever write a post on that, though... it would be too embarrasing! :P)
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timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2010-04-14 02:40 pm (UTC)What I thought was: there´s a very simple fact about fanfics (which applies to many other things as well). Don´t like -don´t read. Whoever finds a fic horrible from the summary/disclaimer/first line and still reads it anyway and bashes it, and puts it in a forum, and mocks it, and makes a show of feeling personally insulted -well, it´s classic bully behaviour, isn´t it? Messing with people who haven´t done anything else to you than post their fics in the same site because... well, quoting James Potter "because they exist". Because they should be behaving as you want them to and writing what you want them to and thinking what you want them to, and they aren´t.
Also, to me it seemed to be a lot about feeling better. Someone picks the very worst story they can find, rips it to pieces and wham! authomatically that makes them feel like they´re a good writer and not One of Them. It´s like going to a toddler who is scrawling on a paper and saying "Look at this, that´s how a tree is supposed to look like, because yours is crap and mine is so much better!", and walking away happy with oneself.
Please, don´t be angry but, as I said, I used to have strong feelings about the matter and this just made them briefly resurface after so many years. Now, I am actually starting to undestand things much better: the PPC people were teenagers, and many of them (like, obviously, you) probably didn´t even have those hideous motives I attributed to them to begin with. They were just being teenagers. In fact, I´ve always liked you and your weird posts a lot -when I think that, had we clashed years ago as immature teenagers about the PPC business we might have been enemies forever, that´s a very sobering thought. (I was very immature at that age, and said and did things in the fandom that I am very ashamed about now. I didn´t bash other´s fics, but I clashed with more people than most of the PPC board for other reasons. It´s not likely that I´ll ever write a post on that, though... it would be too embarrasing! :P)