Fandom and me

For astolat: Vincent Terranova sued for trademark infringement.

Random fandom/political thoughts: I wasn’t personally hurt by or otherwise involved in the latest SV imbroglio, so it’s really easy for me to feel objective. I think everyone lies, and everyone constructs a persona, but those aren’t the same things – sometimes constructing a persona for others to see is the most real thing, the most human thing, we do. My best guess for what happened is that a small lie got out of hand, and the fibber’s options started to look narrower and narrower. I can imagine that someone who initially didn’t intend to hurt anyone became more focused on self-protection and less concerned with staying harmless. Lots of bad things, crimes and non-crimes, happen that way.

As for me, I’ve definitely blurred details on this LJ, and certainly tried to present myself as nicer and saner than I am (please don’t tell me how badly I’ve failed). Here’s a true story: as I was walking to the subway on Friday, in the darkness of an early December night, wearing short sleeves in Washington DC because it was too warm for my sweater, I thought about how badly the US has squandered the last six years without doing anything about global environmental change, and how the next two years weren’t likely to be much better. Then I thought of Bloc Party’s Two More Years and nominated it the new Democratic anthem in my own mind. And then I realized that my beloved country is about to do the equivalent of the Fandom Flounce out of Iraq, except that “They didn’t appreciate my GENIUS” here has a body count in six figures and rising fast. That doesn’t make personal betrayals unimportant, but it does make me think again of Auden’s warning that we must love one another or die. (As he pointed out later, we must both love one another and die; but we can choose the former.)

So there’s a stream of consciousness, mediated by my tweaking for publication. Is it more real than other reactions? More helpful? I doubt it, but it’s all I’ve got.