This Week in Meta

A selection of links for a (cold!) Wednesday morning!

Cindy Massre at Page Deep posted I Read the Gayest Star Trek Novel: "To understand how Pocket Books just accidentally published a book where Spock spends a lot of time looking at Kirk’s “hazel orbs,” we need to understand the state of Star Trek’s fandom at the time. In the years after the original show was cancelled, the Star Trek fandom, desperate to connect and celebrate and collaborate over this truly unique show, had developed much of what we know as fandom today."

lynnenne at mcu_cosmic posted Let's Talk About Asgardian Colonialism: "Hello, and welcome to your weekly Sunday discussion post! This week's topic has minor spoilers for Thor: Ragnarok and Infinity War, so I'm putting it beneath a cut for anyone who hasn't seen the films."

redrikki posted Star Wars Meta: Jedi Cult?: "I like to joke about how the Jedi are actually just a messed up space cult, but let’s take a look at that claim, shall we? The International Cult Studies Association defines a cult as “an ideological organization held together by charismatic relations and demanding total commitment.” Sounds like the Jedi to me."

SakuraNoMiko (Pillowfort) posted Canon: "That said--has anyone gotten really into a fic without knowing the canon? Read fic before seeing the actual show? I'm curious if it influenced your opinion of the show when you finally saw it."

Stitch at Stitch's Media Mix posted What Fandom Racism Looks Like: Misogynoir – Introduction: "Misogynoir is alive and well in fandom spaces and few people seem willing to acknowledge it or listen to Black women talking about this specific form of racialized misogyny in fandom."

tobermoriansass posted obligatory fic comments discourse: "I’ll be honest, one very specific and slightly weird (intensely personal) reason why I hate the whole “if you read a fic you like you must leave a comment” is the way it means people have started to talk about this social activity that is really, truly a hobby space, in terms of payment and investment and labour and what is deserved and undeserved."

Flashback - 1997

Today's flashback meta comes via Fanlore, which reproduced it with permission from the Original Poster. It's coming from a time when fandom was moving from print (/offline) to electronic (/online), and the tensions between the two fan communities were running somewhat high. Sandy wrote an overview of the situation and posted it to the Virgule-l mailing list, the first Internet slash mailing list.

Some topics covered: Virgule-l history, (slash) conventions and con panels, in-crowds vs. out-crowds, classism, netfans vs. print fans.

Sandy Herrold posted Internet Fans Controversy Du Jour: "At Escapade & Zcon & MediaWestCon, 94, we were 'The Connected' and we continually tried to convince The Unconnected to buy a computer or add a modem. The Unconnected pushed back, mostly saying, 'I'm not convinced there is enough out there to make the investment worth while--prove it to me, and I'll join you.""

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