thinking about LJ and fandom and censorship and ... getting distracted by pretty men again

So far, this is the best articulation I've read of the issues at stake during the recent SixApart/FanLib controversies: "User Generated Content" & Ownership: The User as Citizen by elements.

At core are issues that go much deeper even than the internet, to basic conflicts in modern consciousness between private and corporate ownership and the meaning of public space. Keep reading...

I like it when other people write smart stuff so that I can link to it without putting in my own effort. ;)

Also, stewardess has a pretty good run-down of what probably happened with the deletions.

fanarchive is putting together a non-profit organization to run a fandom-wide archive. This makes me very happy (and I SO wish I had time to help). Setting up a proper non-profit seems the perfect way to do it, since it'll be governed by a set of principles and won't be subject to the whims of any individual or company or fan-faction.

china_shop wrote fanfic about the deletion thing. Fandom/LJ, NC-17. Just, there are no words, go read it.

My two cents: SixApart--or ANY for-profit company--is a bad match for fandom. Companies EXIST to make money. If freedom of speech threatens that (which, in this culture obsessed with preserving the "innocence" of childhood, it will), they *will* curtail freedom of speech. It'll keep happening, and we'll lose communities and friends, until eventually we get fed up and move. And yeah, fandom will fracture, because some people will see censorship as an acceptable price for the convenience of not having to move. I *don't* think that compromise is acceptable, so personally, as soon as folks start moving to somewhere better, I'm totally there.

I've set up accounts at GreatestJournal, JournalFen, and InsaneJournal, because, uh, you never can be too prepared. (I'm *really* hoping for a fan-owned, not-for-profit alternative, though.)

Actually, one of the things that struck me about fan reactions to the journal deletions was that it was at least as much about fear of losing touch with each other as it was about fear of losing our freedom of speech. People weren't just setting up journals at other services to make sure their content would be preserved in case of censorship, they were setting up journals to make sure their friends could find them (and they could find their friends). Which is one of the things that makes the culture of LJ so different from the blogosphere at large (as the bewildered/derisive reactions at Slashdot showed)--we're much more about community.

(There's more about all this on metafandom, of course, if you haven't been following it.)


Semi-related: nimnod posts that it's not shameful to express strong opinions. I like this, because I do think a lot of us (myself included) fall into the trap of dismissing/mocking those who express strong opinions, or of denigrating ourselves for doing so. (For example, it drives me insane when someone goes "It's just the internet" in response to any online controversy. Um, yeah, it's "just" billions of dollars and a cultural center for millions of people.)


In other news, I've been contemplating the mediocrity of Scott Weiland. (YouTube is fun. So many videos!) I don't think he's every done *anything* extraordinary. He doesn't really have his own sound or look or anything--he just copies one predecessor after another.

Seriously, I was thinking to myself, "What is the Scott Weiland sound?" and it's like, um, he emulates Eddie Vedder, Layne Staley, a bunch of seventies singers, Iggy Pop, David Bowie, Axl Rose... but who is he REALLY? What does HE actually sound like? I can't figure it out. I can recognize the tone of his voice, but if I were to try to emulate him, I'd really just be emulating whoever he was copying. Right?

He's kind of mediocre in an above-average way, though. Like, I've been listening to the first Velvet Revolver album, and everything is kind of 6 or 7 out of 10. Nothing that strikes me as brilliant, but it's all pretty enjoyable to listen to. He performs a pastiche of rock star tropes, he writes a few interesting lyrics, he sings them well enough... it's all fine.

It makes me happy to listen to, though. Which is funny because when I was younger, admitting you liked Weiland was like admitting you had bad taste. Even if you secretly rocked out to Stone Temple Pilots songs, you didn't tell anyone. Maybe it's that I'm too old to care now, or that I don't know anyone who'd care....

It reminds me of a quote--I think it's from Michael's graduation speech in Christopher Pike's Final Friends III (which raises its own issues about being embarrassed to like something!)--about how you end up missing *everyone* from high school. Not just your friends, but even the people you hated. Eventually the fact of your common shared experience and memories becomes more important than the rivalries of the time. I don't know if this is actually true of high school, but it seems pretty true of music. I'm just so glad to hear a familiar voice in a music scene that's become mostly foreign to me that I don't even mind that it's Scott Weiland.