Creators are not our friends: a manifesto

[yvannairie]

I wanted to crosspost my additions from here to DW, since I realised that I hadn't actually done that before. It's a little unstructured, but hopefully easy enough to follow knowing that the context is some generic drama around a creator complaining about NSFW fanworks, and some fans deciding to act as their unpaid enforcers, causing a minor storm in a tea kettle a few months back.

First addition:

The easiest way to wrap your head around this is to consider that "fandom" is a discrete subculture that a subset of the entire fan base of a work.

Fandom is not a creator fanclub or a creator support network or a creator advertisement platform. Creators interacting with the fandom directly is a very new development brought about by the general erosion of communal boundaries. (This part also includes fans taking the fruits of fandom to the creator's table. Stop tweeting fanart at creators, they can find it themselves if they really want to.)

Literally the only thing that stops a creator from being a problem for the fandom is the maturity and understanding of the subculture. For every creator that is delighted by their fandom, there is always going to be one who hates you on principle for not reading their work exactly as they *wanted* you to read it, not interacting with it in the way *they* intended, whether it's as banal as liking the wrong characters or as complicated as writing the wrong kind of fanfic, and whether or not this becomes a fight depends *entirely* on whether they see it as their right to tell us about it and start that fight.

The more involved in fandom that creators get, the more pressure there is to bring fandom in line with the intended or the *desired* fan base. There more there is pressure to bring it in line with what is profitable, with what is *marketable.* Creators interacting with fandom have a direct profit incentive to do so, whether they're aware of it or not. (You'll note that this part is also relevant to what kind of fanworks creators *encourage.*)

Fandom is not for creators. Fandom has never been for creators. The relationship between creators and fandom is not hierarchical, and it's not mutual. Carve these words in your heart.

Second addition:

Also like furthermore there's *soooo* little for fandom to actually gain from any sort of "approval" for what we do here from creators. You can feel however you want about death of the author as a concept, but ultimately as far as being *the audience*, the creator and the fandom are on even ground, and the creator's opinions on what fandom does is no more authoritative than any other person.

So creators who *insist* on authority over fandom and the creations of fandom is simply treating fandom as an extension of the things they have legal control over, and unless there's a literal contract in my hands, I'm not about to become someone's unpaid employee like that.

(And it's worth stating explicitly that creators *encouraging* certain kinds of fanworks is, again, part of the management of their brand -- whenever fandom conforms to what the creators want, they are being inducted to act as a part of that brand, *in a way that is still controlled by the creator.* It's glorified advertisement.)

So, like, ask yourselves -- what would "creator approval" even *accomplish?* What outside of personal gratification would we get out of it? And when both the potential damage to the community spirit *and* the potential legal consequences of bringing the fruits of fandoms to creators are so great, is feeling good for yourself *really* worth it? Or wouldn't it be better if we simply focused that energy to connecting with other fans, our peers, the people you're *actually* in community with, rather than trying to elevate yourself by association?