Extraface Marks

there’s already a post going around about this, but i want to remind people that he needs our help. his father is in danger and his family has had to go to great lengths to be able to cover the costs of his medical care, which already total up to over $10,000. 

there is a gofundme page made by somebody on his behalf since he isn’t a US citizen and couldn’t make one himself (all the funds are being sent directly to his paypal). if you’d rather donate to james directly his paypal is  [email protected]

Yesterday a (relatively) well-known film critic declared that “fandom” is “broken” in a piece for the website he edits. It was a big messy conflation of problems both real and imagined, and plenty of us have read it and spent yesterday yelling about it. In the interest of not giving it more clicks, I won’t link to it here. A++ journalist (and my fandom newsletter partner) @hellotailor does a great job laying out what was said in the piece and why it was garbage, if you’d like to know where I’m starting from: http://www.dailydot.com/geek/fandom-harassment-captain-america-ghostbusters-devin-faraci/ 

I wasn’t planning on writing anything substantial about this. I tweeted a lot yesterday and started linking to other peoples’ stuff. But the more I think about it, the more I have this burning desire to say something. And after reading @earlgreytea68’s novella-length response, I thought I’d say a couple of things? 

Maybe, too, it was watching all those creators, big and small, share the piece with a combination of glee and self-satisfaction (the piece presented them as victims—the only victims, in fact—in the fan/creator exchange). Maybe it was thinking beyond “fandom,” to the bigger interplay between artist and consumer of art, and what, exactly, we’re all entitled to. Because, after all, the crux of the piece was about fan entitlement. The author manages to miss a lot of marks, but that one might be the biggest.

That’s Advertising 101, bro.