Entry tags:

2006: 07, cmc, fandom

Paranoia in Online Fandom: CMC, Girls' Aggression, and Overanalyzing the Texts

Polonius:  What do you read, my lord?
Hamlet:    Words, words, words.
Polonius:  What is the matter, my lord?
Hamlet:    Between who?
Polonius:  I mean, the matter that you read, my lord.
Hamlet:    Slanders, sir...

Lately I seem to be thinking a great deal about the particular type of paranoiac thinking that often seems to characterize fandom interactions, and which most particularly seems always to rear its head whenever people become involved in on-line kerfuffles or disputes.

For example, I've noticed in the past that whenever I find myself in an on-line circle in which there's a lot of hostility going on, I can sometimes get into this compulsive habit of reading and re-reading posts and emails, subjecting passages of text to a kind of hyperactive scrutiny, as if searching them for some hidden or coded meaning. I used to think that I was the only one neurotic and paranoid enough to find myself doing this from time to time, but after talking to so many other people who recognize this behavior in themselves, I've come to believe that it's actually quite a common reaction to internet kerfuffles.

I've also noticed that there's a distinct tendency for people embroiled in a dispute to act as if they believe that there are these vast and sinister on-line "conspiracies" going on, even when actually there aren't. We see this tendency even more in fandom, I think, where you sometimes hear people talking about "minions" and "Inner Circles" and "cadres" and things like that, or likening people's on-line social behavior to remarkably Godwin-ish things (Nazism, slavery, war-time resistance, war-time treachery, etc.), with no apparent sense of irony at all.

My assumption about this paranoia and the behavior that it engenders always used to be that it was simply a side-effect of the nature of CMC itself. The other week, however, while I was at the beach, I read a book someone had recommended to me on the subject of girls' particular modes of aggression--Odd Girl Out: The Hidden Culture of Aggression in Girls, by Rachel Simmons--and it was really shocking to me just how well many of the things that this book described were things that I strongly associate with online fandom dynamics. That in turn has made me wonder to what extent much of the "paranoiac" behavior that I've been seeing in on-line fandom might be an artifact not only of CMC, but also of the predominantly female demographics of the fandom circles in which I've travelled.

I also find myself wondering lately to what extent fandom itself, even aside from its gender demographics, might serve to reinforce certain types of paranoiac behavior due to nothing more than its own particular hermeneutics. It seems to me that fandom both valorizes and demands certain ways of interacting with source texts which may be inherently psychologically problematic once they are also extended to apply to the "text" of fandom and its participants, or to the "text" of the real world.

So if anyone really wants to hear it, here are some quite rambling thoughts on



Paranoia and CMC

Rosencrantz:   What are you playing at?
Guildenstern:  Words, words. They're all we have to go on.

One of the things that always comes up whenever people talk about computer-mediated communication is that it is what Media Richness Theory refers to as a "lean" medium, one in which many of the channels that ordinarily facilitate interpersonal communication are filtered out or absent. Face-to-face communication is considered a "rich" medium, because it offers a number of different channels along which meaning can be conveyed: verbal articulation, vocal intonation, body language, facial expression, etc. In CMC, on the other hand, only the channel of verbal articulation is available to carry meaning from one person to another.

Lean media present a number of well-known and often-discussed obstacles to communication, but I think that this aspect of CMC is likely to become even more greatly exaggerated whenever people quarrel, because when we're feeling adrenaline-charged - as we tend to be when we get into fights or feel ourselves to be under threat - then it's a fairly natural response for us to try to narrow down our focus, to hone in quite acutely on whatever the expected sources of danger might be. In an argument or fight, the expected sources of danger are the other people involved: they're what your attention is going to be focused on (which is part of why initiating aggression is so often labelled as an "attention-getting" behavior).

In face-to-face interaction, this heightened focus might manifest itself as a greater attentiveness to another person's facial expressions, body language, tone of voice, and so forth, as well as to the actual words they use. On the internet, however, the only thing that serves to represent that other person is text. The words have no competition, so to speak. In on-line disputes, the words become the sole focus available to the hyper-attentive combatant.

I think that the somewhat paranoiac over-analysis of internet texts which people often engage in while embroiled in on-line kerfuffles may be to some extent simply an inevitable response to this fact. I also think that when we are involved in disputes, and therefore feeling particularly desperate for knowledge, the limited meanings we can reasonably deduce from our texts are sometimes just not seen as enough, and that this can lead us into an even further manifestation of paranoiac behavior.

Guildenstern:
We only know what we're told, and that's little enough. And for all we know it isn't even true.

When the sole focus of the hyper-attentive combatant, the text, does not seem to suffice, when it does not seem to be carrying enough intrinsic meaning to satisfy the reader's desire for knowledge, then the reader may sometimes choose to compensate by...well, to put it bluntly, by making things up: imagined conspiracies, for example, or invented motives --anything to plug the inevitable gaps which always exist in text, gaps which while they ordinarily might not even register as significant, in the heat of battle can suddenly come to seem far too dangerous to allow to remain as lacunae. Uncertainty is very threatening - so threatening, in fact, that sometimes people prefer to contend even with imagined threats than to suffer the uncertainty of not knowing whether there's really any existing threat at all. That's the underlying paradox of the paranoiac delusion.

In fact, I see this phenomenon as very closely related to the operative dynamic of fandom itself. In fandom, people are similarly engaged in making things up in order to fill the gaps of some given text. Also in fandom, just as in internet disputes, the text in question is granted an unusually high degree of attention and focus by the reader -- often far more focus than the text in question can really properly sustain, which is a large part of what makes the insertion of fan-created meaning so appealing in the first place.

The difference, however, is that the hyper-attention of fandom is usually something that we enter into on purpose and as a means of pleasure, rather than subconsciously and as a defensive response to some (real or imagined) personal threat. It is therefore an enjoyable type of "delusion," unlike true paranoia, which is nearly always both frightening and stressful.





Paranoia and Feminine Modes of Aggression

OPHELIA: O you must wear your rue with a difference.

I also think that the predominantly female demographic of many on-line fandom circles might also play a role in this fandom tendency to paranoia due to the particular modes of aggression which girls and women are socialized to favor, modes which themselves tend to encourage a type of paranoid thinking.

One of the chief premises of Odd Girl Out is that because girls are so strongly socialized against showing aggression at all, they learn to display their aggression in ways designed to allow a very high degree of "plausible deniability," as well as to fly under the radar of both authority figures and uninvolved parties. In this way, Simmons argues, girls can both have their cake and eat it too: they can be as hostile and aggressive as they want to be, while still maintaining a facade of an appropriately "feminine" well-meaning innocence.

So instead of overt acts of aggression, like loud teasing and physical violence, instead you often see girls using things like anonymous letters, whispering and gossip campaigns, insinuation and innuendo, dirty looks (the "Stink-Eye"), subtle acts of exclusion, and physical attacks which can be very easily passed off as accidental, like foot-tripping, or knocking someone down by pretending to 'accidentally' bump into her in a crowded school corridor or cafeteria. All of these acts of aggression are ones which school authorities and uninvolved parties are unlikely even to notice (although their intended target most certainly will!), and which can also be readily and easily explained away as innocent misunderstandings by the perpetrator, should she ever be confronted directly about her behavior. ("What? I was just looking at her!" "I didn't say anything!" "Well, I didn't mean that!" "For heaven's sake, it's only a joke!" "I'm sorry, of course I would have invited you, but I thought that your mom didn't allow you to go roller skating and so I didn't want to make you feel bad!" And so forth.) When girls do engage in forthright aggression, they usually choose to do so by "ganging up," carefully mobilizing allied forces before they initiate hostilities. This may also be seen as a response to socialization against aggression: after all, if one only ever expresses hostility as a part of a large group, then no single individual ever needs to bear all that much responsibility for the aggressive behavior; those who engage in group hostility can also often rationalize their behavior as a kind of communal or populist endeavor, rather than as plain old-fashioned bullying.

One of the things that this book described really well, I thought, was how particularly emotionally damaging these kinds of deniable acts of aggression can be to their targets, for the very reason that they seem almost perfectly designed to instill paranoia in otherwise sane individuals.

There's definitely a "Gaslighting" effect to aggression which is so often denied: it serves to make the target doubt her own perception of reality. If it seems as if someone is trying to hurt you, but when confronted the person in question denies that this was at all the intent, then how do you respond? Whom do you trust? After all, you could have misinterpreted, or overreacted; and since it's quite often a purported "friend" aggressing against you in this fashion, you really wouldn't want to level a false accusation. Yet it's hard for the target of, say, an extended whispering campaign to avoid the conclusion that people really are out to get her because...well, because actually? They are.

"Even paranoids have enemies." --Golda Meir (attributed)

Of course, one can argue that it's not really paranoia if they really are out to get you -- but in the absence of any hard evidence that ones perceptions are correct, I think that the distinction between paranoid delusion and accurate perception can actually become quite hazy. To believe something in the absence of any proof, even in the face of evidence to the contrary, is still a mark of disordered thinking, whether the "delusion" turns out to be correct or not. Because it's often so hard to articulate what the "proof" of these feminine modes of aggression really is, while a denial is far more concrete and straight-forward, deniable modes of aggression act to make their targets doubt their own sanity.

Nor is this even necessarily an accidental side-effect of many of these acts of aggression. On the contrary, some of these acts are quite explicitly intended to foster paranoia in their targets. The reason that an anonymous letter, for example (or a comment on an "anonymeme," for that matter), is so devastating is precisely the suspicion it awakens in its target that perhaps the author might be someone known to her, maybe even someone who is pretending to be her friend even while secretly wishing her harm. That's not an incidental effect of the poison pen at all; it is precisely its intended purpose. Many stereotypically feminine forms of aggression are designed to operate in just this manner: they cause harm to their victims by instilling in them an unbearable sense of social unease, of social suspicion and mistrust. Of paranoia.

Because of this, and also because these modes of aggression are often so very subtle, their use actively encourages people to hyper-analyze their social environments, to try to "read things into" all of their social interactions. There's not nearly as much room for misunderstanding in a fistfight as there is in a dirty look, or in the slight turning away of bodies when a girl who has been targeted for exclusion enters a room. These are shows of aggression which already need to be 'translated' in order to be properly understood; if you can't perform this act of translation, then you will have no idea what is really going on. Girls learn to spend a lot of their time and mental energy trying to analyze and to second-guess the behavior of the people around them precisely because within their social milieus, this is often a relevant social skill. In the world of the girls' clique, somebody who takes things at face value, who does not engage in that kind of constant analysis, isn't really "normal" at all; she's a social moron.

I think paranoia can be instructive in the right doses. Paranoia is a skill. -John Shirley

So I think that this, too, is likely a huge contributing factor to the development of paranoia within those fandom circles in which the social mechanics of "girl clique dynamics" hold sway. Certainly my experience with people's behavior within the Harry Potter fandom bears remarkable similarity to the way that Simmons describes the dynamics she observed in adolescent girls' social milieus: the cliques, the back-biting, the obsession with 'popularity,' the power-grubbing and its attendant sycophancy, the faction-forming, the preference for expressing aggression in groups rather than individually, the anonymous attacks, even the "eating our own"...it's all there. So it is perhaps unsurprising that the paranoia which Simmons describes as the natural result of these feminine modes of aggression should come to colonize the thinking of those who engage with fandom subcultures in which these sorts of aggressive behaviors run rampant.





Paranoia and the Hermeneutics of Fandom

“Fandom celebrates not exceptional texts but rather exceptional readings (though its interpretive practices make it impossible to maintain a clear or precise distinction between the two).” -Henry Jenkins

Another thing I've been thinking about lately, when it comes to paranoia within fandom circles, is the extent to which many of the behaviors which seem so dysfunctional when they are applied to other fans, or to fandom in general, are actually very much the same as the expected ways in which we relate to the source text and its characters when we engage in fannish activity.

I already mentioned up above the way that filling the gaps in the text by means of imagination and invention--something which is often taken to a rather neurotic extreme when it is done to other fans' letters or posts--is actually a fundamental part of what fandom is all about. That's what we do in fandom. We "read too much into" the text. We "over-analyse" it. We invent, we create, we insert, we recontextualize. We speculate. These are the modes of engaging with text that fandom both values and valorizes.

All of these playful ways of interacting with a text can be quite enjoyable when they're applied to a work of fiction. When applied to the real world, however, that same approach can all too easily become dysfunctional, damaging. It is, after all, one which bears a remarkable family relationship to the particular cognitive patterns of paranoid schizophrenia.

Indeed, I think that there's often a decidedly paranoiac tinge even to the kind of things that fans often most enjoy reading into their texts. Speculation about seemingly-innocuous characters actually being Ever So Evil seem popular across fandoms; fanwank about elaborate conspiratorial plots going on behind the scenes also frequently pop up in many different fandoms. Even good old slash, I think, can to some extent be viewed as a slightly paranoid way of reading a text: fans put on their "slash goggles" to enable them to see previously hidden "subtext." This entire idea--that What You See Is Not All That's Really There, that there is in fact an entire universe of hidden meaning embedded or coded in the source text--is quite similar to the way that the real world often starts to appear to people who are on the verge of a schizoid psychotic break (or who are the protagonists of a Philip K. Dick novel -- the difference between schizophrenic delusion and gnostic revelation can also be a rather shaky one, at times).

Again, I'm not saying that fan engagement is itself psychotic or unhealthy, by any means. It isn't, any more than any form of imaginative engagement is psychotic. But I think that there's a significant difference between entering into this kind of cognitive functioning deliberately, for pleasure (or to achieve revelatory insight, for that matter), and entering into it unconsciously and without intent, as an instinctive and defensive reaction to some perceived threat.

I also think that there's a significant difference between applying this sort of thinking to a fictional text and applying it to the real world, and this is where I believe that the hyper-performative nature of on-line fandom identity can play a significant role in leading to fandom dysfunction. In the wake of the MsScribe incident, I saw a lot of commentary along the lines of "We're all sockpuppets here!"...except that the problem is that we aren't really completely, are we? A cyborg isn't the same thing as a robot: our on-line identities are not utterly artificial, but are hybrids of the fictional and the real. "Elkins" may not be precisely the same construct as the actual person who is typing these words, yet what you are reading are nonetheless that real person's opinions, not merely the opinions of her persona.

Yet just as fandom's interpretive practices sometimes make it impossible to "maintain a clear or precise distinction" between text and reading, so I think that the fandom subculture's performative practices can often make it difficult for us to maintain clear or precise distinctions between our fictional and our real selves. A few days ago, I remarked in a comment elsewhere that:

Many of the disputes involving "fandom gossip" often seem to me to be quite similar to the sort of interpretative disputes we have over characters in fandom, even down to the detail of people quoting X's published words at each other to "prove" that X is Ever So Evil, or Totally A Wanker, or Really Well-Intentioned and Good At Heart, or whatever. The big difference, of course, is that unlike fictional characters, on-line personae are (usually) so closely related to the real people behind them that - all abstract discourses about the performative nature of on-line communication aside - they really effectively are those real people, and can therefore genuinely have their feelings hurt.

Of course, I think that most people do recognize, on some level at least, that even on-line personalities are attached to real people, people who can genuinely have their feelings hurt. Yet it still seems to be very difficult for us to refrain from talking about other fans in precisely the same ways that we talk about the fictional characters of our source texts. Some people even identify fandom itself--the meta-construct, the subculture, or sometimes even just its gossip ("Fandom Wank Is Now My Fandom!")--as their "fandom." But if fandom itself is your 'fandom,' in that you're applying the particular hermeneutics of fandom to it and its participants, as if it were a fictional source text and its 'characters' fictional people, then I think that itself can lead to a certain degree of dysfunction, not least of which because the hermeneutics of fandom are in so many ways barely distinguishable from the cognitive patterns of schizoid paranoia itself.

So to some extent, I believe that interactions within on-line fandom might be unusually prone to paranoiac cognitive patterns simply because those cognitive patterns are what we have been taught: over-analyzing the text is what fandom encourages us to do. Or, perhaps, it goes the other way: perhaps people prone to overanalyzing are those most likely to have been drawn to fandom in the first place, as it is a place where that form of thinking is a valued skill. Either way, though, it comes down to much the same problem in the end:



We're all paranoids here.


ETA:
Okay, while I think that the thread which devolved into a back-and-forth about one particular recent fandom kerfuffle was, indeed, an excellent illustration of many of the things I was talking about in this post, I also don't think that it was doing anything particularly beneficial for either the two people directly involved or for the overall discussion. I've therefore now screened that thread. There are plenty of other places you can go, if you want to continue to try to hash things out on that topic.

If people could refrain from getting into back-and-forths on the specifics of any recent fandom kerfuffles from now on in the comments here, I'd greatly appreciate that. It's not that I don't think that those conversations can never be beneficial; it's just that I really don't think this is the place for it. Thanks.

(Post a new comment)

	Ahhh yes, the ol' fictional/factual divide. tabouli 2006-07-17 04:49 am UTC (link)
	Will have to track down that book about girl-style bullying: very interesting. (Reply to this)(Thread)

An Oldie, but always a Goodie. :) - skelkins, 2006-07-17 05:38 am UTC

Re: An Oldie, but always a Goodie. :) - zsenak, 2006-07-18 07:08 pm UTC

Re: Ahhh yes, the ol' fictional/factual divide. - skelkins, 2006-07-18 05:56 am UTC

The archivist Elk! - tabouli, 2006-07-20 09:37 am UTC

	cesontmesmots 2006-07-17 05:47 am UTC (link)
	I was forwarded to your essay by a friend and can't even begin to describe to you how well-timed it is. After having just participated in some online drama in which online personas clashed and actual, real feelings were hurt, it's good to see that events like that aren't limited to my social group. I'm putting this in my Memories, if you don't mind. (Reply to this)(Thread)

(no subject) - skelkins, 2006-07-18 05:57 am UTC

	Fascinating stuff. greensword 2006-07-17 05:56 am UTC (link)
	I once listened to an NPR interview with the author of Queen Bees and Wannabes which is about the same thing. Actually, the fascinating part of the interview was that they also did interviews with the girls the book was about and their parents. Anyway, just giving you a heads up if you want to do further reading. (Reply to this)(Thread)

Re: Fascinating stuff. - skelkins, 2006-07-18 05:59 am UTC

Re: Fascinating stuff. - slinkhard, 2006-07-18 06:17 pm UTC

Re: Fascinating stuff. - skelkins, 2006-07-18 11:13 pm UTC

Re: Fascinating stuff. - slinkhard, 2006-07-19 12:28 pm UTC

Re: Fascinating stuff. - skelkins, 2006-07-19 05:12 pm UTC

Re: Fascinating stuff. - zsenak, 2006-07-18 07:10 pm UTC

Re: Fascinating stuff. - skelkins, 2006-07-18 11:16 pm UTC

Re: Fascinating stuff. - zsenak, 2006-07-19 03:21 am UTC

	badgerbag 2006-07-17 07:19 am UTC (link)
	Brilliant... perturbing... By the way, the other day at the roller rink, my friends and I were wondering what are you trying to say about me here?! I can't believe you would be so mean! (Reply to this)(Thread)

(no subject) - skelkins, 2006-07-18 06:02 am UTC

ellecain 2006-07-17 09:52 am UTC (link)

Funnily enough, I associate this sort of hyper-attentive analysis with the early parts of dating rituals. On a date, people tend to focus intense scrutiny on the tiniest little things, and over react to certain mannerisms, in a can-I-really-count-on-him-if-he-does-that sort of way. Or sometimes, when trying to gauge the other person's feelings towards you *before* you ask him/her out on a date, wondering what their answer might be. A form, of course, of the teenage girl do-you-think-he-likes-me anxiety. There's a lot of stifling scrutiny, and its stressful for both parties. And I think I might have seen that Queen Bees and Wannabes show that greensword mentioned. I remember Oprah did a show on that! (Reply to this)(Thread)

(no subject) - skelkins, 2006-07-18 06:06 am UTC

(no subject) - revena, 2006-07-18 11:32 pm UTC

(no subject) - skelkins, 2006-07-19 01:46 am UTC

(no subject) - revena, 2006-07-19 03:57 am UTC

(no subject) - skelkins, 2006-07-19 06:15 pm UTC

(no subject) - revena, 2006-07-19 06:34 pm UTC

(no subject) - heron61, 2006-07-20 07:37 am UTC

(no subject) - skelkins, 2006-07-20 07:28 pm UTC

(no subject) - kyuuketsukirui, 2006-07-20 04:31 am UTC

(no subject) - skelkins, 2006-07-20 07:10 pm UTC

(no subject) - ellecain, 2006-07-21 05:42 am UTC

(no subject) - boxofdelights, 2006-07-25 05:22 am UTC

	sageofgodalming 2006-07-17 11:58 am UTC (link)
	Nice one. In the specific case of the Harry Potter fandom, the text itself encourages paranoid interpretations. And in her interviews, so does the author, thus helping to blur the distinction between "Voldemort's secret agent is out to get Harry" and "Rowling is out to get us". (Reply to this)(Thread)

(no subject) - skelkins, 2006-07-18 06:15 am UTC

(no subject) - sageofgodalming, 2006-07-19 09:58 pm UTC

(no subject) - skelkins, 2006-07-19 11:26 pm UTC

lyssabard 2006-07-17 01:25 pm UTC (link)

Refered here by heron61, and I have to say, this is one of the most insiteful pieces on fandom/online communication that I have read in a long time. I'll be snagging the book you cited. :) I think that there is also the factor of the interfaces in which the fandoms occur--specifically LJ--that contributes to the paranoia and misreadings of which you speak. LJ has the added bagged of "friends" lists, screened commentary, and specifically formed social groupings that feed into how we read our relationships as well as how we read the texts before us (fanfic or otherwise). I'm a fan of Kate Hayles's work, and she notes in "Book Machines" that a book functions in many ways to tell one "how" to read it--left to right, sequentially, top to bottom, etc., and the same can be said for the online interfaces that shape the performative spaces within fandom. We are told by LJ that these are our "friends"--therefore, shouldn't we trust them? Surely they are not out to get us, when we are all in the same community? Again, well written. You should consider submitting this to a fandom studies journal or conference. (Reply to this)(Thread)

(no subject) - skelkins, 2006-07-18 06:38 am UTC

happy_potterer 2006-07-17 01:36 pm UTC (link)

Fabulous post. I'm taken with this: I think paranoia can be instructive in the right doses. Paranoia is a skill. -John Shirley and Girls learn to spend a lot of their time and mental energy trying to analyze and to second-guess the behavior of the people around them precisely because within their social milieus, this is often a relevant social skill. And this is a very useful social skill, even when applied to saner worlds than that of girls' cliques. Could this be why girls and women are generally more aware of subtle social signals and hidden meanings than boys and men, to make a gross generalization? The very significant downside to this particular skill is not only that it is often learned out of fear of social ostracism, but is often undone by that pervasive fear. Having grown up with a mother who, like many women, tends to conceal and deny aggression, and for that matter disagreement, I have had to learn when not to read in further meanings. When one has learned (or felt the impact of failing to learn) the skills of dealing with girl culture, it becomes difficult to perceive when a glance is just a glance, when a whispered comment is just something the other girls don't want the teacher to hear. Paranoia, while sometimes a useful lens, is not really an accurate way to read situations, because it assumes persecution where sometimes there is none. (Even paranoids have friends.) Seeing hostility where there is only goodwill can be as destructive to relationships as seeing only goodwill where there is genuine hostility. So there goes my nascent theory that on the strength of their childhood culture, women would make better diplomats than men . . . (Reply to this)(Thread)

(no subject) - happy_potterer, 2006-07-17 01:39 pm UTC

(no subject) - skelkins, 2006-07-18 09:32 am UTC

(no subject) - happy_potterer, 2006-07-18 02:29 pm UTC

(no subject) - skelkins, 2006-07-18 11:44 pm UTC

(no subject) - kyuuketsukirui, 2006-07-20 05:30 am UTC

(no subject) - skelkins, 2006-07-20 07:16 pm UTC

go_back_chief 2006-07-17 02:10 pm UTC (link)

then it's a fairly natural response for us to try to narrow down our focus, to hone in quite acutely on whatever the expected sources of danger might be. Exactly, and if it's "a threat" that comes from one, or several, anonymous sources, you have the same disadvante as a blind person fighting, and like hir, you do your bestt to sharpen all your other senses, to try to determine what those sources may be. I think that the somewhat paranoiac over-analysis of internet texts which people often engage in while embroiled in on-line kerfuffles may be to some extent simply an inevitable response to this fact. I also think that when we are involved in disputes, and therefore feeling particularly desperate for knowledge, the limited meanings we can reasonably deduce from our texts are sometimes just not seen as enough, and that this can lead us into an even further manifestation of paranoiac behavior. Tell me about it. :( Uncertainty is very threatening - so threatening, in fact, that sometimes people prefer to contend even with imagined threats than to suffer the uncertainty of not knowing whether there's really any existing threat at all. YES. To be uncertain of whether a threat exists or not, fits the blind man defending himself analogy again, it makes it easier for him to "make up a vision" to fight, then just not knowing what is out there, and flaying his arms around, madly. Also, if you think there's a threat, that "someone's out to get you", you want to be prepared dammit, and have a clear vision of where it comes from, as well as being able to somewhat predict when it will strike, and with what means, so that you can defend yourself in an appropriate manner. It's both frustrating and angst-inducing not to know any of these things, nevermind not knowing whether a threat even exists at all. Though after these last few days, I've come to the conclusion that I prefer "not knowing whether a threat exist at all" to "knowing that it exists, just not what it is, where it comes from, how grave it is". Because I've felt quite a few times before that there might be a threat, and it's made me paranoid and uncomfortable, and kept me from updating, or posting anything, but the difference is that those times, I've been able to overcome it, chuck it up to "probably just being paranoia", and ignored my uneasy feelings, and get into the game again. But now I'm certain, and I can't choose to ignore it anymore. I don't know how to react to that. My gut-instincts tells me to fight teeth and nail, to not give in, because it just pisses me off so much. At the same time it's exhausting, and it makes you wonder what battles are really worth fighting. The funny thing is, I always used to wonder why people who got involved in out-drawn, complicated internet-fights, and/or felt harrassed online, didn't just ignore it -as a strategy, if nothing else. But now I know how incredibly hard it is to do just that. Then again, feeling that I'm being "followed" and "closely watched" by unfriendly eyes and "harrassed", is probably one of my hot buttons. I just can't imagine any other reason for engaging in that sort of behaviour, other than that the person/s doing it, want to intimidate me into silence or submission. While that really used to work when I was younger (or probably because it used to work), it just seriously enrages me now, because it feels like those persons are trying to take away the controll of my life, that I had to work so hard to get. So, as a consequence, I also tend to overreact to any kind of "stalker-sign", a man who calls me up just a little bit too often for my comfortability, is likely to find out I've changed my number. (Reply to this)(Thread)

(no subject) - skelkins, 2006-07-18 10:27 am UTC

(no subject) - go_back_chief, 2006-07-18 03:17 pm UTC

(no subject) - galadhir, 2006-07-21 11:33 am UTC

(no subject) - go_back_chief, 2006-07-21 12:01 pm UTC

(no subject) - galadhir, 2006-07-22 03:07 pm UTC

(no subject) - go_back_chief, 2006-07-22 08:35 pm UTC

sykii 2006-07-17 02:43 pm UTC (link)

I ended up here through heron61's link. The points you make about girl bullying ring painfully true. I found myself reading with my teeth and fists involuntarily clenched, remembering junior high school. I have no first hand experience with fandom per se (though most of my close friends do), but when I read your post, it occurred to me that a tendency to treat people like fictional characters is one of the main problems with too many people who love stories. Thank you for writing this. It's thought-provoking. (Reply to this)(Thread)

(no subject) - skelkins, 2006-07-18 10:39 am UTC

sistermagpie 2006-07-17 08:48 pm UTC (link)

Great post! I loved that book too--and the other added thing in fandom is that since most of the women have left junior high they can recognize that behavior and also deny it since they're not in junior high any more--saying anything is like the mean girls in high school means you're projecint things you should have gotten over years ago and no longer be bothered by onto an adult situation, not describing what's going on. (Reply to this)(Thread)

(no subject) - narcissam, 2006-07-18 02:22 am UTC

(no subject) - sistermagpie, 2006-07-18 02:43 am UTC

(no subject) - skelkins, 2006-07-18 11:53 am UTC

narcissam 2006-07-18 02:11 am UTC (link)

I was going to recommend you that book! Then, I thought, Elkins has probably already read it, and anyway, I shouldn't send her depressing emails! I bought it with my Christmas bookstore certificate and it has a place of honour on the bookshelf nearest to my bed. It was all too familiar to me. Though the worst stuff I've seen didn't happen to me. I was far too much of an outcast for that. My best friend, on the other hand, went through a saga (at another school than mine) that makes me realize that there were perks to being the loner. In my own experience, I can remember Grade Three very nicely when the other girls spat at me, then told the teacher they didn't mean for saliva to fly when they were talking. Very plausible, really. But of course it doesn't stop in school, but school is one of those environments that makes it so much worse. Unlike fandom, for instance, it's an enforced closed-off and close space. But now that I know you've read and liked it, I really have to re-read and bring up my niggling objections to some of her ideas. The linking of passive-agression and the maternal archetype I think I had some thoughts on. That the insult 'bitch' is not in my experience always about the woman being not motherly or 'womanly', but sometimes about a woman or girl being *too* protective of her family or friends, in fact, down right territorial. But when I googled it, interested in responses, I found some very right-wing review of the book that made me angry and wanting to engage in acts of physical agression against the reviewer. So I gave up there. I haven't said anything about how this relates to fandom, I know, and it's not because I don't have thoughts there, but this is getting long as it is. (Reply to this)(Thread)

(no subject) - skelkins, 2006-07-18 12:26 pm UTC

	cavalaxis 2006-07-18 10:06 pm UTC (link)
	This essay is absolutely revelatory for me. It explains clearly to me what happened in huge chunks of my school years, and explains why I only skim the surface of fandom. I love it, but it seems vaguely unhealthy to me. (Yay, addictive personality!) Very well spoken. (Reply to this)(Thread)

(no subject) - skelkins, 2006-07-19 04:54 am UTC

(no subject) - ashenmote, 2006-07-19 09:35 am UTC

(no subject) - skelkins, 2006-07-19 06:24 pm UTC

(no subject) - ashenmote, 2006-07-19 07:43 pm UTC

Word. pretentioustfu 2006-07-18 10:36 pm UTC (link)

Though I *would* like to add that slash, even the dreaded RPS, isn't a form of true paranoia as much as it is a form of interpretation. Paranoia would be, for example, if I said Gackt and Hyde were together because of a conspiracy by the Japanese government. Paranoia isn't going "hmm, Gackt says he is attracted to Hyde repeatedly, that Hyde is his BFF, they work together on a movie, Hyde mentions it was one of the best times of his life, then divorces Megumi in 2005, and in 2006 Gackt tells the media to back off of him and Hyde-there *could* be something there." As an analogy, paranoia is assuming there will be a fire since there's matches around. Interpretation is smelling smoke and wondering where the smoke is originating (and possibly extrapolating on what caused the smoke and how big a fire it is, if it is a fire) ^_^ *headdesk* repeated addition request, sorry for that. (Reply to this)(Thread)

Re: Word. - skelkins, 2006-07-19 12:48 am UTC

Re: Word. - pretentioustfu, 2006-07-19 01:41 am UTC

b00jum 2006-07-19 12:38 am UTC (link)

I'm here via a link by heron61. Great article, I hope it gets published somewhere. I do have two comments. First is that I think that the some degree of paranoia comes from an inherent fascination with paranoia itself. Think of the classic slide into insanity where the attraction to self or perceptual destruction is actively sought. Perhaps paranoia in this case is fulfilling an unmet need? Second, there is another aspect to CMC that I find relevant. It has to do with my own particular frustration with CMC, especially email. I've had numerous experiences asking a question of a co-worked and received a partial or ambiguous answer. A friend finally enlightened me that it comes from our expectations of email - that a computer system should give us quicker response. In a sense, much of the way we interact with email is similar to using a chat program. We don't feel we have time for a lengthy dissertation so we send off a quick message. That would certainly account for much of the contextual gaps we experience in online disputes. (Reply to this)(Thread)

(no subject) - skelkins, 2006-07-19 06:51 pm UTC

(no subject) - helkamaria, 2006-07-19 07:46 pm UTC

(no subject) - skelkins, 2006-07-19 11:40 pm UTC

(no subject) - b00jum, 2006-07-19 08:11 pm UTC

(no subject) - skelkins, 2006-07-20 07:38 pm UTC

back_in_black 2006-07-19 01:27 am UTC (link)

In the world of the girls' clique, somebody who takes things at face value, who does not engage in that kind of constant analysis, isn't really "normal" at all; she's a social moron. This would be why 99% of my friends are male. I take things at face value and just say what's on my mind because it's easier and I don't like to play games. I'm not a social moron as much as I just dont' care, and when I realize someone is reading stuff into what I say that isn't there, I start avoiding them. Sadly, it happens amostly with other women, who I guess can't believe that I actually say what I'm thinking so they think I am implying something. I find the whole thing very depressing. More people should try to be genuine, I think. (Reply to this)(Thread)

(no subject) - back_in_black, 2006-07-19 01:31 am UTC

(no subject) - skelkins, 2006-07-20 01:25 am UTC

(no subject) - back_in_black, 2006-07-20 02:15 am UTC

	herongale 2006-07-19 02:52 am UTC (link)
	Saw this essay through journalfen, and just wanted to drop a note to tell you that everything here seems very true, and I appreciate the scholarship and clarity of your explanation. Great job! (Reply to this)(Thread)

(no subject) - skelkins, 2006-07-20 01:25 am UTC

umbo 2006-07-19 06:58 pm UTC (link)

How did I miss this when you first posted it? It must have gotten buried by all the SGA and SG1 posts. Anyway, brilliant as always, I say, as someone who, yes, fangirled you long before I knew anything about the homosocial nature of fandom. I can't help but think as well of the members of fandom who are *not* good at reading the subtle social signs women and girls are usually good at figuring out--those who have real difficulty with picking up social signals in RL--although they may be (in my experience, anyway) especially paranoid in their reading of CMC. (Reply to this)(Thread)

(no subject) - b00jum, 2006-07-19 08:16 pm UTC

(no subject) - skelkins, 2006-07-20 03:05 am UTC

azdak 2006-07-19 07:33 pm UTC (link)

Here via metafandom. This is a fascinating essay that really makes me want to read the book. I was got about halfway through, while thinking "this is terrific" and came to the reference to Elkins, at which point I realised that you must be the person who wrote "Draco Malfoy is ever so lame", which I've been linked to a couple of times and think is also a great essay, despite not my being in HP fandom as such. Anyway, I just wanted to say thank you for providing so much food for thought (one tiny quibble - I take it Golda Maier is a type for Golda Meir, or am I just pig ignorant?) (Reply to this)(Thread)

(no subject) - skelkins, 2006-07-20 03:07 am UTC

	mecurtin 2006-07-20 04:29 am UTC (link)
	It's a good starter theory, but it really needs a comparison study to male-dominated CMC such as political blogs. My impression is that male-dominated CMC has a much higher proportion of violent or sexually-aggressive speech. But I don't know if the tendency toward overt aggression means that male-dominated CMC is less paranoid, at all. (Reply to this)(Thread)

(no subject) - lordsmerf, 2006-07-20 05:18 pm UTC

(no subject) - xenogram, 2006-08-01 11:15 am UTC

	galadhir 2006-07-20 01:35 pm UTC (link)
	Wonderful! I found this through Fabu's recommendation, and recognize so much of what you're saying in my experience of LJ. Does the book have a solution to offer? At school my solution was always to run away and have nothing to do with anyone any more, but I would rather not have to do that with fandom :) (Reply to this)(Thread)

(no subject) - hms_dauntless, 2006-07-20 02:06 pm UTC

(no subject) - skelkins, 2006-07-21 02:35 am UTC

(no subject) - galadhir, 2006-07-21 11:49 am UTC

(no subject) - skelkins, 2006-07-25 10:00 pm UTC

(no subject) - galadhir, 2006-07-27 09:57 am UTC

	hms_dauntless 2006-07-20 02:01 pm UTC (link)
	Here via a link by fabu. Fascinating post. Great food for thought. (Reply to this)(Thread)

(no subject) - skelkins, 2006-07-21 02:45 am UTC

lordsmerf 2006-07-20 05:22 pm UTC (link)

Hey you! Two quick things. First, I was embbarrassed to realize that I had not, as I thought I had, added you to my flist. Which means I'm a bit behind the curve on this one. Second, I just want you to know how much I resent the imposition you make on me by continually recommending books that I just must read. The back-log is building up fast, and the library keeps sending me nasty notes to return their stuff. Thomas (yeah, that one) (Reply to this)(Thread)