xparrot | to crit or not to crit?

I keep telling myself I'm not going to get any more involved in the concrit/review debate, that old saw that's currently making the rounds in SGA fandom. Especially because I straddle the fence on most of the issue, and get uncomfortable with the rhetoric and ideals that both sides throw around. (

synecdochic eloquently expresses my general beliefs here.) But in discussion on

friendshipper's post, a couple points came up that illuminated part of the situation for me, and why people get all crazy about it.

If I may present a hypothetical (gods no, not another one!, the collective voices of the internet cry; but bear with me):

So I've yet to read the (in)famous YA vampire novel Twilight, but I have read a few eager recommendations online. I've also read a few delightfully scathing reviews and follow-up discussions on various lj posts, gleefully dissecting every flaw of prose and characterization, and they were immensely entertaining as well as interesting from the writer's What Not To Do perspective. These conversations were reader-to-reader, existing separate from the author; if the author had appeared to decry them, it likely would've been seen as wanky, trying to exert an authority that she doesn't have. And no one would question the poster's motives - she didn't like the book, wanted to share her opinions about it, maybe dissuade others from wasting their money on it.

But what if one of those scathing reviews had been written by Anne Rice? Her review might be just as incisive and intelligent - but its motives would be far more questionable. Is she offering her honest opinion just to join the discourse? Or is she trying to undermine sales of her competitor? Is she simply jealous that someone else writes vampires better than she does? Whatever her true motives, she is not an unbiased reader, and no one would accept her as one. This doesn't mean that her opinion isn't valid, or that she shouldn't state it; but she'd probably want to be careful about how she states it if she doesn't want to come across as a bully or worse. Also, if Twilight's author wanted to discuss Rice's opinion with her, it wouldn't be as surprising - that discourse wouldn't be reader-to-author but author-to-author, on equal footing.

In fandom, we're all Anne Rice - we're all amateurs, all on equal ground. There are BNFs, but there are no professionals; there is no distinction between reader and author, between consumer and creator. There are some readers who never write fic or produce fanworks; there are some fan creators who don't consume others' creations (though those are far rarer.) But the only real line in fandom is between participant and lurker. And the moment you start writing reviews on your lj, even if you don't post fic or make vids, you've stopped lurking and joined the fandom, and you're on equal footing with all the other creators. Which means your motives will be questioned - are you rec'ing your personal friends? Are you trying to drum up support for your preferred pairing, or are you trying to insult an author who dissed your favorite char?

I am not advocating that we halt all discussion or debate in fandom just because it can potentially be personal; I'm not calling for a fandom-wide ban on reviews, critical or otherwise. And I believe that everyone has a right to their opinion, and a right to share it in public - that's what the Internet is for.

But if you are reviewing fan creations in a fandom you're participating in (and your review is participation) you can't claim that your opinion is impartial, that you are acting without malice or ulterior motives, that you are only trying to promote discussion - and expect to be believed without question. That may honestly be what you are intending, but your position is such that people may not believe you. And you can't assume that everyone will immediately understand what you are trying to do; you can't assume that they won't take offense, even if you are intending to give none.

I'm not telling people not to review or discuss fanfics. But it is not the same as reviewing a movie or a published novel, because you, as a fellow fan, have a different, more equal, relationship with the other fan creator, regardless of whether you have any personal acquaintance. And if you aren't careful about what you say or how you say it, if you ignore or overlook that relationship, don't be surprised if people get upset, or otherwise misinterpret what you say.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

This was an interesting post. I tend to think of the community not in terms of equality, but in terms of distance (e.g., I'm about as likely to know Writer A as I am Stephen King, so why can't my review of Writer A's fic be as honest as my review of Stephen King's book?) and perhaps that's why I can't understand the culture of niceness inherent in most of fandom.

Thanks for framing your argument so clearly. It's great food for thought.

Yes, I think the perceived distance is a big problem - you see yourself as being quite separate from the author, but even in a fandom as huge as say, SGA, there is far less separating you from any fan-author than from Stephen King. Even if you don't 'know' Writer A, someone on your flist likely does - in any fandom it's never 6 degrees of separation, usually only one or two. It may not be a close personal relationship - but it's enough that you don't have the same presumption of impartiality that you would if you were reviewing one of King's books. And the more people read your reviews, the more popular you are, the higher your chances are of intersecting personally with Writer A, and introducing that much more suspicion of bias into whatever you post...

...Though this is becoming more true of pro authors, too, as the blogosphere brings everyone together; how many pros are on lj thee days, in fandom these days? We're all so new to this that the rules aren't set. And I don't know what those rules should be - and I don't think that most reviewers review fic out of any sort of personal grudge. But I have a hunch that to people who don't like more-than-only-positive fic reviews, who don't understand their point, the easiest explanation for them to grasp is that such negativity is inspired by personal feelings - and you have to be aware that if you post reviews, you have a chance of being so judged.

I'd never thought about impartiality as a function of distance in fandom. Could you talk about that a bit more? I'm not necessarily disagreeing with you, but I don't understand how being two degrees away from Fic Author A and six degrees away from King makes a reviewer less likely to be impartial if the reviewer doesn't know either person. Or are you saying that Fic Author A is more likely to make negative presumptions about the reviewer's intent than King because of that lack of distance?

Quote:

But I have a hunch that to people who don't like more-than-only-positive fic reviews, who don't understand their point, the easiest explanation for them to grasp is that such negativity is inspired by personal feelings - and you have to be aware that if you post reviews, you have a chance of being so judged.

And this brings up an interesting point, as well. I've only read a bit of the meta so my view may be off kilter, but it seems like most of it has been directed at the community in general or the reviewers, not the authors. If the problem is negative presumption on the part of the author, then it seems more would come of encouraging authors to rethink their reactions than from warning/admonishing reviewers to play more nicely in public).

Again, not trying to argue. You just see the issue differently from most folks on my flist and I'm trying to understand your point of view. I've always been intrigued by the formation and maintenance of fandom norms and the variation from fandom to fandom.

Or are you saying that Fic Author A is more likely to make negative presumptions about the reviewer's intent than King because of that lack of distance?

Kind of, but it's actually more complicated than that - what I'm really referring to here (in a sort of oblique way) is how other readers, other fans, interpret the reviewer's intent. In the recent SGA kerfuffle, as far as I could determine, it wasn't the authors who were offended, but the 3rd party readers/fans/friends of the authors. They (the offended readers) were interpreting the negative reviews, not as an impartial reviewer commenting on fanfic, but as an author 'attacking' her fellow authors.

I understand this viewpoint, because frankly, when I first saw the reviews in question, they looked like an attack to me as well. It wasn't until I examined her history of reviewing that I realized she wasn't targeting anyone, and this was simply her habit of reviewing - but the fact that her first batch of reviews negatively rated every story in the Match except the one by an author that I knew had past acquaintance with the reviewer (they've co-written) - yeah, I had a knee-jerk negative reaction. The people who became so upset were those who didn't look beyond that first reaction. The trouble with the reviews, as I see it, wasn't their existence, so much as they were posted with a tactless unawareness of how easily they could be misinterpreted.

(Ah, and don't worry about arguing with me, I genuinely enjoy genuinely friendly debate, and in this case my opinions are in flux; I think both sides of the argument have strong points, and don't know how to reconcile them, so a lot of my blathering here is me struggling to figure out these issues myself.)

I think both sides of the argument have strong points, and don't know how to reconcile them, so a lot of my blathering here is me struggling to figure out these issues myself.

Same on my end. And thanks for the comments -- this gave me a new way to look at things.

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