Realism

[rivkat]

I’m interested in the “people who can verify I’m real” meme I’ve seen going around, connected to the Gay Girl in Damascus hoax. I’m trying to sort out my thoughts about it, because in many fannish cases I’m not sure why it’s relevant. I mean, if you’re performing “this is what an X looks like” online, then your “real”/offline identity or performance is likely to be relevant, and more so if you’re asking people to act or change beliefs based on your online performance. If you’re inserting yourself into a political movement and getting real activists involved in trying to help you, then yes, it’s relevant. If you’re asking for money, then yes, it’s relevant. If you’re asking people to meet you offline, then yes, it’s relevant. But a lot of people I read mostly post fannish stuff with occasional personal or even political content—and then I’m not sure how much offline identity means, especially when what you’re performing online is a privileged or locally privileged identity, like cis white American woman. Suppose I don’t have a partner or kids (to whom I occasionally refer)—does that change what my book reviews or stories mean? I kind of hope they speak for themselves (and I am certain that they reveal a lot more about who I am and/or who I think I am than I intend).

Flipping it around, would it matter to me if fans I think of as women were actually men? Would it matter to me if fans I think of as having kids/being pregnant didn’t or weren’t? In a lot of cases, probably not, if all they’re doing is performing a life. Then again, if I found out someone who performed being Jewish wasn’t—kind of like the sister in The Prince of Tides--that would skeeve me out.  There's something here about "always punch up," but I'm not sure how to get at it.

Anyway, solipsistically I assert that I am as real as these words.

Comments

[elements]

I think the meatspace veracity of someone's performed identity is necessary only when that person is trying to speak for that identity in some way. That could be on a very big level (I am the only out blogging lesbian in Syria) to smaller (Trust my advice about breastfeeding because I'm on my third kid and know how it's done) to one on one (Yes I am a guy and in love with you and we should totally meet up, er, someday). And the degree of impact on the world at large influences how much that authenticity matters. Yes, it's devastating and awful for the people involved in a performed-gender relationship gone awry, but it's between those two people. It's a whole different ballgame when you're trying to stand up for an experience, be it "this is what a gay male relationship is actually like from a person in one" or "this is my experience living in a war zone."

The main way this stuff seems to affect fandom most often is gender. I have significant sympathy for people with gender identities dissonant with their bodies using the internet to explore being taken at face value for who they feel they are inside, and really wish that philosophy were more pervasive in fandom. I've personally know of three cases of a woman performing being male online in fandom off the top of my head. One was a huge wank back when I was young in fandom, and the person was honestly trans or very genderqueer but people basically ran this person out of fandom over the whole "but he's *really* a woman!" thing without much recognition of that. The only person who I felt that truly betrayed was the person they'd been in an online relationship with, and even then it was only because they'd talked as if it was going to become a meatspace relationship. And in another case I think the person just got in over their head in terms of everything snowballing. Especially when gender is so fluid and performative, insisting that someone's body and meatspace lived identity match their online performed gender doesn't make much sense to me. But I would feel very differently if, say, Minotaur had turned out to be a ciswoman.

The only other real fandom problem I can think of is sockpuppets.

[elements]

Actually, now that I let myself think about all the wank I've seen (which I try to forget), there are a lot of other issues. I'm thinking about all the crap Harry Potter fandom went through in the early years of its being big. Things like fundraising drives, where you need to be sure that the person drumming up money is legit, were huge.

I've always had a bit of an extra level of trust, I guess, with people I've spent time with in person. But not just when I saw a body with their nametag at a con. When you've crashed on someone's couch and can't help but be aware of their real last name on the doorbell, it's a lot easier to feel OK sharing similar levels of detail back. I wouldn't list just anyone as someone I would vouch for as being not just real as in existing, but real as in being who they present themselves as. For example even though I've met you once, if it hadn't been in an RL context I wouldn't consider you someone I could vouch for. But even if I hadn't met you, I do know more and trust the judgment of other people who would vouch for you. But people who've lived in the same city with me for years, or who I've known through various transatlantic visits for nearly a decade, I could. And it would be up to the people taking my word for them as to whether they thought my word, and my standards for getting to it, were enough for them.

[rivkat]

I think we can trust people we've met too much, and a lot of things aren't necessarily verifiable by in-person meetings (e.g., what will this person do with the money?). I understand the desire for verifiability, but I'm not sure how well it intersects with some of the things we in fandom regularly care about.

[rivkat]

Good points--I think one indicator that often goes along with a harmful performance is the presence of sockpuppets, which showed up with the current "lesbian" blogger scandal too. I've read stories about women who thought they were in relationships with men who "interacted" with people in the men's families, friends, etc.--all sockpuppets.