All Things Have A Right To Grow

Yet, it keeps gaining layers.

For instance, consider the tone-deaf SNL skit. Where they make fun of the three men who removed their co-owner for having a long-term affair with one of their employees; as though that’s not a serious workplace violation, misconduct of behavior, and abuse of power that opens their company to several different lawsuits. 

It’s amazing how many people don’t seem to understand that it’s bad for a company to have someone onboard who puts the business in that kind of danger. Ned’s actions also put their company under some heavy financial strain and negative public scrutiny – which again, bad for business.

The skit treats the remaining Try Guys, like they’re overreacting and even insinuates that this affair was just a one-time kiss, thus downplaying the whole “boss having a long-term affair with an employee” thing. 

How dare these three men hold their former friend and co-owner accountable and protect their company from his actions. This skit turns them into petty, greedy drama whores, who are only upset because he didn’t tell them first about the totally innocent “kiss.”

As well as the weird tone - that because they do silly and stupid things for people’s entertainment that means that they can’t be taken seriously nor are they running a real business. Which weird take for SNL to have, like that’s an especially weird for them to have. 

Or at least that’s one of the vibes I got from it. 

Basically, the skit doesn’t make fun of the man who made so much money selling how perfect his marriage was and also apparently stupid enough (despite going to Yale) to go out in public and cheat on his wife with an employee. 

Which is odd, considering the many ways SNL could’ve gone about this scandal; even NBC’s twitter got in on the joke of “I lost focus and had a consensual workplace relationship.”

Now is the skit all that shocking? No. Especially considering some of SNL’s other skits and especially their own problems at the workplace with things of this nature.

However, it gets so much juicer and arguably even more telling, because apparently one or two of Ned’s friends from Yale are writers on the SNL staff.

Like what?

And this also brings back to light a lot of the sexual misconduct and assault SNL has enabled and it’s just…

In a twisted way, I’m curious to what the next layer will be.

I Am a Bride

$4 Jewish wlw fantasy with happy ending! On Gumroad PDF and Kindle (also $12.49 paperback). Cover art above by Caroline C and Jane Dominguez.

Here are some reasons to check out my book The Olive Conspiracy:

-Lots of queer “found family” warm fuzzies -In fact, this book has SIX queer women characters… -Plus a token dude who spends a lot of screen time as a lizard and a Dragon Dad (father of the heart, anyway) -Book starring Jewish characters who get to be happy -TWO f/f couples who stay together and alive throughout the book -A rescue kitten -A mom witch -A baby princess with two moms and two dads -Lesbian farmers! (see back cover, above) -A warrior woman and a wizard who are in love because he LIKES her MUSCLES -who amongst us does not want to be ruled over by a neurotic, altruistic, deeply intellectual femme lesbian queen who fidgets (see her hands with the scarf in the cover art) -oh right and she’s also chronically ill (multiple food intolerances) and it shows up a lot in this one, especially in the flashback to when she was a teenaged princess

On November 24th, 2018, I posted a list of major deletions of sites or of content on sites that stripped fandom of its history. A bunch of pro-shipper blogs had just been deleted, and people were nervous. I suppose I was thinking “All this has happened before…”

On December 3rd, 2018, Tumblr’s Department of Irony announced the NSFW ban. Thanks for providing this salutary lesson to The Youth and a billion reblogs to me, I guess.

Today, we have AO3 for writing. Audio, images, and video are in as much danger as ever, yet fans attack AO3 every donation drive. For those of you who forget our past…

HERE IS WHAT HISTORY HAS TAUGHT US!

1992 - Chelsea Quinn Yarbro forces a zine to be destroyed

1995 - Viacom/Paramount goes after fansites

1995 - Anne Rice gets IWTV fic deleted everywhere

1997 - Fox and Lucasfilm go after fansites

1998 - AOL goes after X-Files fansites

2000 - Warner Brothers goes after Harry Potter fansites

2000 - Anne Rice anne rices again

2001 - Tripod Massacre

2001 - Anne Rice goes after IWTV fic on FFN

2001 - The Bronze shut down as Buffy changes networks

2002 - FFN bans porn

2002 - FFN bans RPF

2003 - Gryffindor Tower implodes

2004 - FFN bans script format

2005 - FFN bans CYOA, Readerfic, 2nd person, Songfic

2005 - Sheezyart bans adult content; y!gallery founded

2005 - Viacom/Paramount goes after fansites again

2006 - Sakura Lemon Archive suddenly closes

2007 - Strikethrough, Boldthrough on Livejournal

2007 - Youtube institutes Content ID, deleting many fanvids

2008 - Slash Cotillion closes, taking much historical m/m with it

2009 - GeoCities shuts down, taking old fannish websites

2009 - Greatestjournal shuts down; RPGs deleted

2009 - Marvel gets scans_daily deleted

2009 - imeem, major vidding hub, closes suddenly

2010 - FFN forums purged for inactivity

2010 - DeviantArt purges adult fanfic

2010 - Literate Union goes after Twilight fandom on FFN

2011 - Delicious destroyed by Yahoo’s incompetence

2011 - China arrests women for writing m/m; destroys danmei.org

2012 - major FFN crackdown on porn

2012 - Megaupload deleted for piracy; also destroys vids, podfic

2013 - Max-Dan-Wiz.com purged of fan-generated content

2014 - Quizilla shuts down

2014 - China purges m/m story websites; arrests female authors

2014 - Blip.tv deletes vids

2014 - Viddler deletes vids

2015 - Journalfen’s servers become fully robust, deleting Fandom Wank

2016 - y!Gallery deleted

2016 - Elfwood goes offline

2016 - Audiofic Archive corrupted; major blow to podfic

2017 - Chinese author jailed after being ratted out over fandom drama

2017 - Parents get queer Warrior Cats fic purged from Wattpad

2018 - Tumblr deletes pro-shipper blogs

2018 - Tumblr announces NSFW ban

2018 - Wattpad deletes accounts/fics without warning

2019 - China purges weibo of m/m; more women jailed

This is only a small taste of the many times that:

Fannish moderators got bored, ran out of money, or had a falling out, deleting a site/list/forum along the way.

Sites got bought out and closed for being unprofitable.

Fandom got hit as governments targeted piracy or political dissidents.

Fans grudge reported each other.

Official forums got deleted when the canon finished.

It’s not always malicious. It’s not always about us. But we lose every time.

Some of these purges hit everyone. Many of them hit m/m content specifically or female gaze-y material in general. This is why antis are dead wrong. This is why anti-fujoshi policies end up being anti-m/m policies. This is why we need clear labeling, not content restrictions.

This is why we need AO3.

2019 - 8tracks shuts down with FIVE DAYS NOTICE BETWEEN CHRISTMAS AND NEW YEARS, WTF?!