This post has no actual value because I'm using a pseudonym!

[laceblade]

And for the record, I do have a social life. Reading LJ posts really doesn't take very much time. I like being informed, and I like deconstructing this stuff in my free time.

---

Relevant Posts that give a background to the one I'm about to write!
coffeeandink: RaceFail: Once More, with Misdirection
vom_marlowe: Fucking Will Shetterly Insults Me and My Family
deepad: To burn a bridge is sometimes as necessary as to build one
shewhohashope: Cultural Appropriation and SF/F: Once More, With Apathy
coffeeandink: Dear People....

---

I am really confused by posts like Kathryn Cramer's, which cries foul at people who use aliases online.*

I'm sorry, but some people have very good reasons for choosing to be anonymous on the Internet. Not everybody is self-employed, or even employed by leftist, free-thinking people who agree with all of their opinions anyway.

Does nobody remember the PDF files from WhiteHouse.gov that were floating around just about a month ago? To be considered for employment in the Obama Administration, a person had to detail any blog posts or blog comments, or comments of any sort, made online in their entire life.

People who work in the same field as me are actually forbidden by their employers from having blogs at all, because anything - and they do mean anything - can misinterpreted and reflect poorly on their employer. People who have blogs are not hired. So if you choose to have a blog anyway, you'd damned well better use a pseudonym.

People like me are not using aliases to hide behind a made-up name, to never own up to the things we say, to never take responsibility for hurting others, for making a point, for speaking out. In fact, many of us make use of aliases so that we might have a voice at all. I'll own up to things I write online. I'm not going anywhere! I don't start conversations and then run away, taunting with "HAHA BUT YOU DON'T KNOW MY REAL NAME!"

In fact, I think using a pseudonym keeps the conversation focused on what's being said, and not on who people are.

I thought jonquil solved this shit with her post calling attention to all the bad-ass people who have used pseudonyms like, say, Publius.


vom_marlowe points out why it's quite dickish to make assumptions about people's class after finding out single bits of information about them. I don't really don't know what Will Shetterly's deal is. Like, you find out one detail about a person, and then you know their entire life story!

Even if he was right....what if people are middle class, or *gasp*, upper class? Does it take away their right to call you a fucker for being a dick on the Internet? No! It does not.

And I'm getting really sick of all of his friend's comments of "OMG, but he really is nice in person! I can't believe he's this mean online."

For the record, dear friends of mine, if any one of you were to start being a total asshole to all of my friends online, but you were still nice to me in person, I would not be friends with you any more! The way you treat other people also reflects on you as a person. The Internet is real. People who type words are not machines or paper dolls; I find it ironic that in this RaceFail 9000, the people using their real names are often the ones who don't seem to understand that. IF YOU ARE A DICK ONLINE, YOU ARE STILL BEING A DICK.

To bring up high school as an example most people understand: even when Abercrombie-wearing "popular" kids were nice to me, if they were mean to me or people they viewed as ugly or fat in my grade, I was not nice to them in return! That shit is mean. Nothing excuses it. I didn't stop thinking that they were assholes when they were nice to me, or when, at that moment, they weren't picking on other kids.


Lastly...can someone tell me who Theresa Neilsen Hayden is? Same with her husband? I'd never heard of these people before RaceFail 9000, and they must be big in fandom or something, but all I know is that they acted with fail.

---

Upcoming/Uplifting:
-Tonight's beer_marmalade discussion, at which we discussed topics and thoughts from RaceFail 9000. It was a good conversation! Even with a mostly white crowd! GOOD THINGS CAN COME OUT OF MIRES OF CRAP.





*Link removed because Kathryn Cramer keeps changing the redirection of the URL, sending people to scammer sites that might have malware. Mark a bitch point in her column!

Comments

[bibliofile.livejournal.com]

Who are the Nielsen Haydens? Fanzine fans who have helped run cons, including worldcons (e.g., Iguanacon), and ended up working in the industry.

Patrick (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patrick_Nielsen_Hayden) is now the big editor-person at Tor, which means he pretty much has more clout than anyone in SF publishing ATM. (Or that's my take on it; WD may have a better explanation.)

Teresa (http://www.absoluteastronomy.com/topics/Teresa_Nielsen_Hayden) has worked in other genres but still within the publishing industry. For a while, she was editing romance novels. Now she moderates discussions over at BoingBoing. Her book on copy editing, Making Book, is the only work-related book that ever produced a fanzine-like reaction (I wanted to write a letter of comment, which is "the usual" response to a fanzine).

I have had little direct contact with Patrick; I once went to dinner in a group that included Teresa (at Corflu, one of the oldfartfanzinefan cons). I've seen them both on panels at conventions such as Minicon, Fourth Street Fantasy, and Corflu. They both seemed fairly sane to me (with blind spots, just like the rest of us) until recently. They both know a lot about the history of fandom and the history of publishing (SF and mainstream).

They were also involved in the "TAFF Wars," another occasion when All Fandom Was Plunged Into War (cf. Chapter 12 for a reference (http://taff.org.uk/reports/rhott_c.html)). This conflict occurred in fanzines (like LiveJournal, only slower and through the mails) when the TAFF administrator's lover won the next year's race. (Those two are still married to each other and cohabiting happily, thank you.)

Um, there's probably more, but that's what I've got right now.

[mystickeeper.livejournal.com]

Thank you very much!

I've heard of the blog Making Light, but have never actually read it. BWAHAHA.