I have officially been in too many fandom wars

[neadods]

I have officially been in too many fandom wars. Because my reaction to finally reading the essay that's caused so much anger in Holmes fandom was to shriek...

... with laughter. Because it's all about someone who couldn't keep those awful Brett fangirls out of his hobby, and now the leaders of the REAL fans are letting in all the Cumberbatch fangirls AND THAT OFFENDS HIS DICKENSIAN PRINCIPLES! If you let in people like that, they'll just go and interrogate the text from the wrong perspective!

The supplanted SMOFs of Trek and Who fandom will doubtless chime in to sing the Butthurt Battle Hymn in harmony.

Me, I'm going to continue to be equally as proud of Watson's Tin Box and Sherlocks NYC and DC. And the canon on my phone is going to have to continue to live pixel-by-pixel with a metric ton of BBC fanfic.

For fuck's sake, has shouting "YOU KIDS GET OFF MY LAWN!" ever actually chased the kids off the lawn?

*eyeroll* Here, have Lucy Liu being buried in Pomeranians.

Comments

[fourzoas.livejournal.com]

Lucy Liu + Pomeranians = cure for all ills

Can I be linked to this missive? It sounds a stitch, and I can use a good laugh.

[neadods.livejournal.com]

The Elite Devotee or How The Sherlock Fandom Is An Embarrassment To The Sherlockian World by Phillip Shreffler


Mine eyes have seen the horror of the fading of the SMOF,
He cannot rule the fandom now, all he can do is scoff...

[mme-hardy.livejournal.com]

I admire your icon extremely, Miss Nea.

Hands up everybody for whom "a gentler, more civilized world" means "pick up your petticoats and run away screaming".

[penguineggs.livejournal.com]

I'm inclined to do a 1066 and All That and improve his essay by adding "except for the common people" at strategic points.

Well, except for the common people and people suffering from infectious diseases.

Well, except for the common people, people suffering from infectious diseases, non-white people, colonised peoples generally and practically the entire population of Russia.

Well, except for the common people, people suffering from infectious diseases, non-white people, colonised peoples generally, practically the entire population of Russia and people with mental or physical disabilities.

[neadods.livejournal.com]

It was a birthday gift from someone to beledibabe and I begged for it, because I knew that THAT one will be useful for all sorts of occasions.

[tekalynn.livejournal.com]

Thank you for the link! I definitely needed the giggle.

[neadods.livejournal.com]

It is hilarious, isn't it? It gets even better when you punctuate it with phrases like "Oh! The proctology department has found the stick! Repeat, proctology has found the stick!"

[tekalynn.livejournal.com]

My grandfather actually was a "Get off my lawn!" person (though in his case it was "Stop throwing the frisbee on the roof!"). All it did was make the kids madder and increase the deliberate frisbee-tossing.

[inamac.livejournal.com]

Sharing your giggles.

The kids eventually grow up and drift away - or start defending their own lawns.

[neadods.livejournal.com]

In this particular fandom, the original set of "kids" started their own group and then picketed the BSI. With that still in living memory, it's even sadder to think that someone thinks that *this* time, it'll stay segregated to The Right People.

[dameruth.livejournal.com]

All this gent is doing is ensuring that his little corner of fandom will eventually wither and die for lack of new and enthusiastic blood -- anyone outside his little circle of "approved" individuals having been roundly turned off by the snobbery.

[neadods.livejournal.com]

Yes - and this from a fandom that has already not only seen gender wars (the picketing of the BSI) but survived both the dog and the mouse incarnations. Drawing a line in the sand *now* just gets even sillier.

[penguineggs.livejournal.com]

Not only is Philip A. Shreffler a pompous twonk, he's not as knowledgeable as he thinks he is, either. I've just had a look at his essay on Moriarty (it was the only thing of his that I could find on a quick Google) and it's riddled with howlers. Moffat and Gatiss could take him on canon knowledge with one hand tied behind their respective backs.

I'm also a little boggled by his choice of 1895 and (even odder) 1934 as being dates "before the world went awry". I mean, by 1934 we'd had WWI, the Spanish flu, the Great Depression and Hitler had just been elected chancellor of Germany. Untroubled palmy days of plenty it was not.

[neadods.livejournal.com]

Ah, but '34 was when the BSI was founded, before it let in those icky girls.

[penguineggs.livejournal.com]

Aha! I have it! (I tracked down "before the world went all awry" using Google):

It's a poem by one Vincent Starrett called 221B (precisely how (not particularly good) poetry about fictional characters isn't fanfic is left as an exercise for the reader.)


Here dwell together still two men of note
Who never lived and so can never die(1):
How very near they seem, yet how remote
That age before the world went all awry(2).
But still the game's afoot for those with ears
Attuned to catch the distant view-halloo:
England is England yet, for all our fears--
Only those things the heart believes are true(3).

A yellow fog swirls past the window-pane(4)
As night descends upon this fabled street:
A lonely hansom splashes through the rain,
The ghostly gas lamps fail at twenty feet(5).
Here, though the world explode, these two survive,
And it is always eighteen ninety-five.(6)


(1) Watson's residence at 221B was, as we know, patchy following his marriage until his return after his wife's death. There may, see The Adventure of the Lion's Mane, have been a subsequent matrimonial absence post-hiatus.
(2) Commenters thinking that "the world went all awry" is a reference to 4 August 1914 have to contend with Holmes' own statement on the topic:

There's an east wind coming all the same, such a wind as never blew on England yet. It will be cold and bitter, Watson, and a good many of us may wither before its blast. But it's God's own wind none the less, and a cleaner, better, stronger land will lie in the sunshine when the storm has cleared.

As with his "Lighthouses, my boy! Beacons of the future!" comment, Holmes here is a good deal more forward-thinking than many of his fans devotees. Personally I think the author of the poem was stuck for a rhyme to "die"
(3) A lousy philosophy of life as well as another strained rhyme.
(4)I can't do better than refer to the excellent oursin for her fabulous deconstruction of why nostalgia for London fogs is nostalgia for the lethal industrial air pollution of yesteryear, but I will point to her figure of 4000 deaths in London in one year ("almost certainly an underestimate") as to why the bloody London fog was a far more effective and extensive killer than the late Prof. Moriarty.
(5)Actually, electric street lighting was being adopted in the UK from 1879 onwards. In a London particular, however, light shut out was a lot closer to two feet than twenty, whatever the means of illumination
(6) And is there honey still for tea? 1895, incidentally, was the year of the Drefus case and the Wilde case, inter alia and, like the whole fin de siecle period, was a time of considerable social upheaval and self-questioning.

[shezan.livejournal.com]

Moffat and Gatiss could take him on canon knowledge with one hand tied behind their respective backs.

Oh gawd yes they could.

[stoplookingup.livejournal.com]

Sad how this scenario plays itself out over and over again, fandom after fandom. You'd think fandom would be having a golden age now that the whole phenomenon has become more mainstream, the internet has made communities of interest so accessible, and there's so much good material to be a fan of. And maybe this IS the golden age, warts and all. But there are always those who will pee in the sandbox.

[mme-hardy.livejournal.com]

The thing is, the scenario plays out when men* discover that women form a non-ignorable part of their afición. Imagine if there were a wave of women recolonizing Norman Mailer.

* There were and are, of course, women fans of classic Who. But their voices were largely drowned out.

[neadods.livejournal.com]

But it's not about fandom. It's about tribalism, and who has the power to control the in and out groups of the tribe. THAT is never going to leave the human race.

But there are always those who will pee in the sandbox.

Cosmic truth, yo.

[shezan.livejournal.com]

Yes, but just look at this ineffable plonker! You can't possibly have him on your side; it lowers the tone of the entire continent. He's only vaguely acceptable as an enemy, and a panto one at that.

Fish, barrels, shooting

[mme-hardy.livejournal.com]

I note that when Doyle killed off Holmes both men and women wore mourning and wrote letters of protest; furthermore William Gillette as Holmes was buried in fanmail. Oh, Lares and Penates, the holy shrine defiled ere it was even built!

[redpanda13.livejournal.com]

I knew Phil Shreffler slightly way back when, and I remember reading the first version of this in the BSJ....

"The true Sherlockian devotee presents him- or herself as a gentleman or lady when representing Sherlockians publicly and, one hopes, at all other moments as well."

Visions of the rowdy table at the ASH dinner (Motto: "You can't fall off the floor") belting out "We Never Mention Aunt Clara"....

"The devotee, mindful of the earlier time that saw the genesis of Sherlock Holmes and of the Irregulars, turns out in a suit or a jacket and tie (depending upon the occasion)—or in commensurate attire if a lady; the fan outfits himself with his blue jeans and slogan tee-shirt."

So much for my self-printed t-shirt, "Mr. Holmes, they were the footprints of a gigantic rat!" Or the "patriotic VR done in bullet-pocks" one.

"The devotee is comfortable in genteel, dignified Sherlockian surroundings; the fan (dare we suggest this?) is at home at a science-fiction convention."

I seem to recall there was discussion at the time, and some folks thought that Phil was either writing tongue in cheek or had a stick up his kazoo. Not always easy to tell, with Sherlockians.

"As Basil Rathbone is quoted in this issue as having observed about early meetings of the BSI, such commotions were affairs of 'protocol' at which members were on 'their best behaviour.'"

There's a reason why the initial BSI regulations were called "Buy-Laws," as in, "Whose turn is it to buy the booze?" And I can guarantee that at any BSI gathering, the biggest crowd is around the bar. Few of those blokes make it through the evening sober, especially with the open bar at the Saturday cocktail party after the Friday dinner.

The late John Bennett Shaw, a prominent Sherlockian and owner of the largest SH library in North America, at least, famously said that "All you need for a Sherlockian meeting are two Sherlockians and a bottle. In an emergency, you can dispense with one of the Sherlockians."

"one can bang out on the keyboard any ill-considered notion...."

Some years ago, a highlight of the Adventuresses' annual dinner was a presented paper which postulated that Elvis was the offspring of Sherlock Holmes and Wallis Warfield Simpson. For a moment it almost made sense, and it was bloody hilarious.

"How many BSI does it take to change a light bulb?... We don't know, because the BSI never change anything." Unfortunately I started telling that joke the very weekend when the BSI first admitted (gasp!) a few women, so I had to stop. They've admitted women regularly since, but some members were upset about it then and perhaps still are, don't quote me because I don't know.

SOME old-school S'ians agree with Shreffler. Anybody watching Downton Abbey? It's Maggie Smith vs Shirley MacLaine. Let them go their own way, and have fun as you like. There are many S'ian groups with many points of view, so try a few and find a compatible bunch. If they have sticks up their kazoos, they'll just find sitting that much more uncomfortable.

[neadods.livejournal.com]

Visions of the rowdy table at the ASH dinner

I get the impression that ASH itself is one of Shreffler's problems, considering that he cites the founding of the BSI as a date special in the hearts of fans. Not the female ones!

there was discussion at the time, and some folks thought that Phil was either writing tongue in cheek or had a stick up his kazoo

I think that's been definitively answered now. :/

I'm sorry I missed that ASH paper. Maybe someday... I've got my eyes on ASH again.

It's for sure that Shreffler speaks for a small minority now - now that the Journal welcomed the Babes and the Ritchie/Cumberbatch fans in print, and there is quite a lot of the old guard circling in defense of the new kids now.

[shezan.livejournal.com]

There's a fandom war in the Sherlock fandom? WHERE? *g*

[neadods.livejournal.com]

It isn't a fandom war per se; it's the essay linked above and the reactions to it.

[shezan.livejournal.com]

...these are two HAPPY Pomeranians, BTW.

[neadods.livejournal.com]

They are! But then, I've never seen an unhappy one.