So fandom's latest kerfluffle involves yet another example of someone
angering the creative community with an ill-advised choice of words. The short version of the chain of events is thus:
Luke Jackson has removed the original rejection letter which started it all from his blog,
but it's inevitably been posted elsewhere.In
summary? In my opinion, Sanders is an idiot and has managed to torpedo
his own ship. And now he's standing at the bow of the sinking vessel,
stamping his feet and screaming obscenities about the whole mess, blaming the world for his own mistakes, and all the while denying that
he's about to get wet.
Googling "Sanders
rejection letter" should give you lots more information about the whole
disastrous affair if you care to read about it. I don't think I need to
discuss the issues here in depth; Sanders' actions and words are
sufficient for people to draw their own conclusions. Likely, those conclusions will be ones that Sanders doesn't want us to make.
And
that is
what this article is about. It's about public image, and the computer
age, and working with a large community of people who are
technologically literate, extremely intelligent, sharply critical
thinkers, and who deal with everything by debating it to death.
Dude,
fen will argue at great length about the bathroom habits of Disney's
Gargoyles, the color of Superman's eyes, or the exact magical phrase
needed to turn Harry Potter into a toad. If an editor of a 'zine, or
anyone in a position of power, acts badly -- it will be noticed and
then discussed with server-crashing volumes of traffic coupled, likely,
with monitor-melting levels of heat. Stupidity by The Powers That Be is
way more interesting and important than how a cartoon character goes
potty. We fans just go
ape over Powers That Be Stupidity.
This
editorial is specifically about fandom, but could also apply to many
other interest groups. I am constantly astonished by the people in
charge of things who "should know better" who just can't seem to deal
with the "public relations" part of the internet. The difference
between fandom and other groups online is that our percentage of Really
Smart People is a bit higher than the average, as a general rule. And
we're also, as a general rule, very good communicators. However, the
basic rules of "dealing with people online" apply everywhere. They're just amplified when it comes to fans.
Sanders is just one recent example of Not Dealing With Angry Fen Well.
Fanlib's Chris Williams did something remarkably similar when he commented in fan blogs with an obscenity-laced diatribe, way back last year. Both the
old management and the
new management
of Livejournal have likewise choked on their own feet. And let us not
forget Big Media's behavior towards both the fans and the writers
during the Writer's Strike, in which Big Media representatives
repeatedly told half-truths and complete lies, and fandom noticed and
rallied behind the writers and mocked Big Media in all sorts of enthusiastic ways.
I could go on
with other examples, but those are the three that come immediately to
mind. And in all three cases I've been boggled by the sheer level of
incompetence at public relations.
Specifically, some things that should be obvious, but apparently aren't, include:
- If you use ethnic slurs, general insults, or derogatory words, people
will notice, be it calling Arabs "sheet heads" as Sanders did or a Livejournal bigwig calling users with
Basic accounts "freeloaders." Likely, people will be
offended by your rude words. Possibly, the people offended will be
potential clients, customers, or contributors, or editors of other
'zines who will draw attention to your words.
- Yes, e-mails should be kept private. However, what if the recipient of
your e-mail decides to share it with the world even though it's rude to
do so? Are you comfortable with what you said being distributed to
everyone and their LOLcat? There are at least two common scenarios that
lead to mass distribution: betrayal by the recipient of your e-mail,
and an e-mail being accidentally seen by someone it wasn't intended
for. Both are more common than you'd think. Perhaps it's best not to
send that nasty comment via e-mail at all ...
- If you can't respond politely to criticism in the heat of the moment,
it's probably best to walk away until you can say something more
civilized. If necessary, have a trusted friend, coworker or your PR
department check how your response might sound to others. Do not
respond when you're angry, drunk, exhausted, sick, emotionally
distraught over unrelated issues, or otherwise not in a happy state of
mind. Claiming fans are meanies who are putting fecal matter all over
your hard work is probably not the best way to handle things. (Yes,
Fanlib, I'm looking at you. We have not forgotten.) And while the
occasional swear word is damn appropriate in some instances, fucking
swearing every fucking other fucking word fuck fuck ... isn't. It makes
you look like a god-damned motherfucking fool who's gotten too angry to effectively use the English language.
(Yes, Sanders, that was aimed at you. I strongly recommend that you
lose the dirty words. You're an editor -- surely, you can figure out a
way to dramatically punctuate your comments with something other than
the foul sort of language a fourteen year old gangsta would use to
impress his buddies.)
- Respond promptly
to criticism, but keep #3 in mind. Delaying a response (despite the
wank that will ensue as fen clamor for you to say something) is better
than giving an off-the-cuff answer that will be seen as rude,
incomplete, or contain problematic information.
- Apologies are awesome. Apologies are free. You do not necessarily admit
to fault by apologizing. A well-crafted and honest apology will work a
lot better at getting you back into fandom's good graces than being
sputteringly, angrily defensive. See # 3. Sooner or later, the excreta
will hit the rotating blades and you will need to respond. Again, apologies are great.
- Use good grammar, spelling, and punctuation. Fandom will excuse the
occasional typo (though someone will probably point it out to you) but
if your response reads like it was written by an illiterate third
grader, have a someone fix it for you. Additionally, if English is not
your first language and (hey, Livejournal, your turn to be picked on)
you're likely to think that freeloader is a perfectly
acceptable and polite thing to call a potential customer, you probably
need to get a native speaker to check your comments before you post
them.
- Make sure your facts are
accurate. Because we'll verify them. If they're wrong, you'll look
stupid at best, or deliberately misleading at worst. We do not like to
be misled.
- Don't ever put anything
online that you don't want your end users to see. Actually -- be
careful with the content of any marketing material intended for
clients, because you never know when someone might slap something on a
scanner. Be respectful. I'm reminded of Fanlib with this rule; they had one web site for clients, and another for fans
... and the web site for their clients presented the company in a very
different light than the face they were trying to show to fandom.
Fandom found the client web site, and the response was an impressive
volume of wank.
- Don't assume that the
people you're talking to are "just fans" and you can get away with
being rude to us because we're "nobodies." The line between "fan" and
"pro" is grey, nebulous, and ever-shifting. Many pros go incognito with
anonymous handles. Many pros identify as fans. Many, if not most, pros
started out as fans. Many fans are good friends with
pros, or will become pros someday. If you offend the little bitty
uninfluential fans, you're likely also offending pros -- and the pros
may be people you really want to like you for business reasons, if
you're a business person trying to market something to fandom.
- Don't try to make money from fandom without honestly giving something
back. My personal theory on why Fanfiction.net generally gets a pass
from fen for what is likely tens of thousands of dollars a month in ad
revenue, and Fanlib doesn't, is that Xing started Fanfiction.net as a
college project and ran it out of his own pocket for a very long time
before ever putting ads on it. Fanfiction.net predates the
commercialization of the 'net. He didn't mean for it to be an 1,100,000-page-a-day site.
He's earned fandom's good will. Conversely, Fanlib's wanted to make
money off of fandom from the get-go, is run by media moguls (one member
of their board of directors is the brother to CBS's CEO) and they come
across as highly and greedily commercial. Yet fandom doesn't really
benefit from Fanlib; they're not providing anything new and they're not
genuinely "giving back." And because of the way Fanlib presented
themselves, between a bad TOS and a foul-mouthed leader who cussed out
the very people who he intended to market the site to, fandom's
reaction was massively negative.
- And
most importantly, if you screw up, own up to it. And expect debate and
vitriole and cat macros in response to your screw-up and don't get
overly excited about it. A few people will take things to extreme, as
always, but if you apologize and fix what can be fixed, and don't fan
the flames, things will die down eventually. If you're clearly in the
wrong and you get defensive or angry, and won't admit you screwed up,
the fans who are yelling you at the beginning are going to summon their
friends, who will call more friends, and possibly e-mail me and all the
other bloggers out there who have big podiums to shout from. You really
don't want to be at the center of a fandom dogpile because you couldn't
summon up the stones to say I screwed up and I'll fix what I can and I promise to do better in the future.
Honestly
-- this article was mostly a bit of venting. I don't expect the William
Sanders or Chris Williams or Livejournal execs of the world to read
this and take it to heart. But it sure felt good to stand up on my
virtual podium here and say it. And maybe a few people
will clue
in that if you behave like an ass fandom will notice that you
are braying.
And
for the people who don't have enough common sense to behave
professionally when faced with a fandom mob ... well, stupidity from
The Powers That Be does keep things interesting, I'll give it that. And inevitabley,
it does give me something to write about ...