SMOFcamp Post-Mortem
Aug. 29th, 2009 05:54 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
nemorathwaldIt's 6AM. The failure of the first attempt at SMOFcamp has occupied my mind of late. It could be said to have competed for attention with the larger event in which it was embedded. However, there was at least one discussion that did take place at SMOFcamp. It was a wide-ranging series of petty grievances, criticisms, and plans to avenge grudges. I tried to turn it toward constructive suggestions, to no avail. That conversation has caused me to question one of the premises of SMOFcamp: that fandom hurts from lack of grassroots participation in its own direction, and would benefit from more.
Fandom might be better off with the current cold war of passive-aggressive sniping on the internet between cliques who don't talk to each other, than it would be with fandom's own equivalent of a town-hall meeting shouting match. Accomodations for allergies. For children. For handicaps. For reparations of each other's long-dead ancestors. For keeping an art show that nobody wants to staff or attend any more. Grudges over geek social fallacies. The impotent mewling of social-anxiety-sufferers, that the strong personalities get their way on concoms, by increasing the stress level until the shrinking violets resign. Threats over sound systems that are too loud for fifteen minutes playing music you don't like in a room that you could have just left. Whining over not getting free food when you want it.
The ones who I see getting things done, are willing to form coalitions of convenience with fans who they can barely tolerate sometimes. It requires that you humble yourself before someone else and let them have their way in exchange for their blood, sweat and tears. Effectiveness requires you to shut your feelings-hole for a year at a time and suck it up. That is the level of cool-headed, pragmatic leadership we need, not these useless emotional whiners. I am no longer sure whether cool new projects and innovative solutions would be born in a welcoming, populist environment like Open Spaces. It does for other communities, and I have enjoyed Open Spaces tremendously, but there are no guarantees of success with it.
I wonder, if a hundred of the most outspoken fans all gathered at SMOFcamp and discussed the topic "the future of fandom", would we all leave with such a bad taste in our mouths that there are no more cons? For the first time, I wonder if stonewalling the community is all that's keeping the community together.
I still want to try it and see.
Fandom might be better off with the current cold war of passive-aggressive sniping on the internet between cliques who don't talk to each other, than it would be with fandom's own equivalent of a town-hall meeting shouting match. Accomodations for allergies. For children. For handicaps. For reparations of each other's long-dead ancestors. For keeping an art show that nobody wants to staff or attend any more. Grudges over geek social fallacies. The impotent mewling of social-anxiety-sufferers, that the strong personalities get their way on concoms, by increasing the stress level until the shrinking violets resign. Threats over sound systems that are too loud for fifteen minutes playing music you don't like in a room that you could have just left. Whining over not getting free food when you want it.
The ones who I see getting things done, are willing to form coalitions of convenience with fans who they can barely tolerate sometimes. It requires that you humble yourself before someone else and let them have their way in exchange for their blood, sweat and tears. Effectiveness requires you to shut your feelings-hole for a year at a time and suck it up. That is the level of cool-headed, pragmatic leadership we need, not these useless emotional whiners. I am no longer sure whether cool new projects and innovative solutions would be born in a welcoming, populist environment like Open Spaces. It does for other communities, and I have enjoyed Open Spaces tremendously, but there are no guarantees of success with it.
I wonder, if a hundred of the most outspoken fans all gathered at SMOFcamp and discussed the topic "the future of fandom", would we all leave with such a bad taste in our mouths that there are no more cons? For the first time, I wonder if stonewalling the community is all that's keeping the community together.
I still want to try it and see.
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Ignore the fringe
Date: 2009-08-29 01:32 pm (UTC)Frankly, some of these groups you're talking about you should ignore. The allergy sufferers? They can suck an egg. Most allergy sufferers have good coping skills and know how to get through life without the world bending over backwards to accommodate them. I've got them, I don't any anybody else to change to make life easier for me.
The people with kids? Nuts to them. Not everything in the world is appropriate for children. Cons are the least of the things that you need to give up with you have young children. Dive bars, the symphony, fine dining and sports cars all go out the window when you decide to have kids. What most responsible parents do is change their activities to deal with what's appropriate for kids or they can get a sitter for. The people who can't do that, you don't want to deal with.
One of the tricks to being in charge is being able to say "no." You're going to piss some people off, and you can't let that bother you. You obviously don't want to piss everybody off, but you can't avoid dashing the hopes of a few.