Brief Notes on 'That Meta'

[such_heights]

There's been a lot of conversation over the past few days in various parts of fandom over this 16k meta (AO3 registered users only) by Franzeska. It's a long, racist piece of nonsense with the summary Bullying and the Co-opting of Social Justice Activism in Fandom: A discussion of bias in fannish meta, m/m vs. other pairings, shipping of POC, vidding characters of color, what it means to ship, and problems in Stormpilot fandom. I don't recommend reading it, but it has sparked some good conversations.

As an aside, reading through the comments on my phone proved to be hazardous as I landed on the kudos button by mistake, which has been quite embarrassing over the last two days. Totally an accident, I do not like that post and I would un-kudos it if I could. /o\

Actually Recommended Reading:
+ rukminipande has a storified series of tweets: Fans Of Colour Are Not To Blame For Fandom's Erasures: A response to That Meta.
+ This tumblr discussion topped and tailed by good commentary from snarlfurillo

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In better news, in spite of his Conservative opponent's bigoted and underhand smear campaign tactics, Sadiq Khan looks set to be London's next mayor. He's a human rights lawyer, the most prominent Muslim politician we've had in the UK to date, and the son of working class Pakistani immigrants. He's a social democrat with policies on affordable housing, air pollution and transport fare freezes. I am hopeful that he can do good things for my city.

Comments

[coffeesuperhero]

Wowzers.

Here in finals season, I've been busily grading actual essays, and that "essay" would have gotten an F from this professor for total failure to interpret datasets (or, indeed, find legitimate sources!), to say nothing of its unfortunate racism and misogyny. Just. Wow.