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xparrotOTW announced the preliminary stages of an archived zine collection: The Fan Culture Preservation Project. To me this sounds incredibly awesome - it's not a zine lending library (which I'd really love) but it's a chance for older zines to survive for future fans. Considering my current beloved MUNCLE has some 40 years of fic, but the vast majority of it is only available in zines, and the earliest of that has pretty much vanished without a trace...yeah, awesome!
Reading the comments on the posts, however, it seems like a few ziners (er, if that's the term?) are really distressed by the project's existence. Some of it is legal concerns - worry about authors being targeted for copyright violation, especially as a lot of zine authors published under their real names. While I think such concerns are far-fetched (especially given the nature of the collection; I worked in a university library special collections department for a few years, they're not exactly high-traffic areas), I can understand why it might worry folks, in our litigious age.
But more than that, it seems like some ziners are perturbed by the thought that scholars and non-fans might be able to read their zines. Or that people in general might be able to read them (with a fair bit of effort; they're not going to be online or anything, at least not without authorial permission, and I trust OTW to remain faithful to that.) The thought that they'd be theoretically accessible to anybody, even a non-fan, is upsetting to the point of making these people never want to make another zine.
And I admit...this baffles me. I can't understand this viewpoint at all. Then again, I have a hard time understanding people who pull all their fanfic from the web just because they're tired of a fandom. If one is worried about legal issues, that's one thing; and if you're actually being harassed for writing slash or something, I guess I can see it. And if you don't want feedback, positive or negative, if you're tired of talking or thinking about a story, fine. But that you just don't want your stories being read, by people who want to read them...I don't get it. It doesn't make sense to me.
I'm guilty of putting the reader's rights above the author's, I guess. It horrifies me that a story could be lost, merely because the author doesn't like it anymore. Cut ties with it, fine; post it anonymously, deny you ever wrote it, sure, that's your choice. But to erase it, delete it, make disappear a work of art that someone enjoyed, that someone remembered, that made someone think or feel, so that they can never re-experience it, or share it with anyone else - that upsets me. It feels like censorship, even if it's the artist's own; like a fundamental denial of what art is. Like it's a crime, a sin, to murder a story, even if you're its creator; like a story's right to exist trumps anyone's wish for it to be gone. That art is forgotten is inevitable, but that it is lost because it was deliberately buried, deliberately hidden - that's tragedy.
Which is why things like OTW excite me so, because they're fighting against that loss. And it's such a strong feeling in me that I get really, really tempted to say damn the fans who disagree, because they're wrong.
(It occurs to me that this emotional response is probably as extreme as that of those fans who do vehemently disagree; they likely think I'm just as fundamentally wrong. But it's awfully difficult for me to see it their way; even if intellectually I sort of understand a creator's right to control access to their work, emotionally my convictions are hard to shift. I just can't grok it.)
(I also admit there's a lot of selfishness in my way of thinking - there's MUNCLE fic out there that I want to read, damn it! What do I care if the authors like their stories anymore - I'll enjoy them, and that's what matters! XP)
ETA: Though I was responding to a few dissenting voices on the OTW blog,![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
francescacoppa explains in comments here that the majority of zine fans in the OTW, or who the OTW has heard from, are in favor of the archive project. Most of us do want these things preserved, and shared, and I can't say how happy I am to hear this. It does match with my previous experience with old school fans; in the various older fandoms I've been in, the established fans have usually been welcoming and very ready to share the wealth of years of fanning with crazy new fans, to my gratitude and delight.
ETA2: I was linked on![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
metafandom, it seems. Erm. With all my raving about freedom of information, I really ought to be able to remember that other people beyond my circle of friends might come read my idiocies. Anyway, welcome. I do have one request: if you are going to post anonymous replies, please sign them - you don't have to use your actual name or handle; Anonymous X-Y-Z is fine, but if there are different anonymouses posting, I'd like to be able to keep them straight.
Reading the comments on the posts, however, it seems like a few ziners (er, if that's the term?) are really distressed by the project's existence. Some of it is legal concerns - worry about authors being targeted for copyright violation, especially as a lot of zine authors published under their real names. While I think such concerns are far-fetched (especially given the nature of the collection; I worked in a university library special collections department for a few years, they're not exactly high-traffic areas), I can understand why it might worry folks, in our litigious age.
But more than that, it seems like some ziners are perturbed by the thought that scholars and non-fans might be able to read their zines. Or that people in general might be able to read them (with a fair bit of effort; they're not going to be online or anything, at least not without authorial permission, and I trust OTW to remain faithful to that.) The thought that they'd be theoretically accessible to anybody, even a non-fan, is upsetting to the point of making these people never want to make another zine.
And I admit...this baffles me. I can't understand this viewpoint at all. Then again, I have a hard time understanding people who pull all their fanfic from the web just because they're tired of a fandom. If one is worried about legal issues, that's one thing; and if you're actually being harassed for writing slash or something, I guess I can see it. And if you don't want feedback, positive or negative, if you're tired of talking or thinking about a story, fine. But that you just don't want your stories being read, by people who want to read them...I don't get it. It doesn't make sense to me.
I'm guilty of putting the reader's rights above the author's, I guess. It horrifies me that a story could be lost, merely because the author doesn't like it anymore. Cut ties with it, fine; post it anonymously, deny you ever wrote it, sure, that's your choice. But to erase it, delete it, make disappear a work of art that someone enjoyed, that someone remembered, that made someone think or feel, so that they can never re-experience it, or share it with anyone else - that upsets me. It feels like censorship, even if it's the artist's own; like a fundamental denial of what art is. Like it's a crime, a sin, to murder a story, even if you're its creator; like a story's right to exist trumps anyone's wish for it to be gone. That art is forgotten is inevitable, but that it is lost because it was deliberately buried, deliberately hidden - that's tragedy.
Which is why things like OTW excite me so, because they're fighting against that loss. And it's such a strong feeling in me that I get really, really tempted to say damn the fans who disagree, because they're wrong.
(It occurs to me that this emotional response is probably as extreme as that of those fans who do vehemently disagree; they likely think I'm just as fundamentally wrong. But it's awfully difficult for me to see it their way; even if intellectually I sort of understand a creator's right to control access to their work, emotionally my convictions are hard to shift. I just can't grok it.)
(I also admit there's a lot of selfishness in my way of thinking - there's MUNCLE fic out there that I want to read, damn it! What do I care if the authors like their stories anymore - I'll enjoy them, and that's what matters! XP)
ETA: Though I was responding to a few dissenting voices on the OTW blog,
francescacoppa explains in comments here that the majority of zine fans in the OTW, or who the OTW has heard from, are in favor of the archive project. Most of us do want these things preserved, and shared, and I can't say how happy I am to hear this. It does match with my previous experience with old school fans; in the various older fandoms I've been in, the established fans have usually been welcoming and very ready to share the wealth of years of fanning with crazy new fans, to my gratitude and delight.ETA2: I was linked on
metafandom, it seems. Erm. With all my raving about freedom of information, I really ought to be able to remember that other people beyond my circle of friends might come read my idiocies. Anyway, welcome. I do have one request: if you are going to post anonymous replies, please sign them - you don't have to use your actual name or handle; Anonymous X-Y-Z is fine, but if there are different anonymouses posting, I'd like to be able to keep them straight.
