dolorosa_12 | Dust and echoes

In the past couple of days, two stories have been making the rounds, discussed as emblematic of the intense toxicity and problems with Twitter, specifically Twitter as used as a marketing tool and social space for the SFF and YA publishing communities (of which there is of course considerable overlap).

The first is an interview with Isabel Fall, an author whose debut short story (under that nom de plume) and very identity were the subject of a hideous Twitter pile on early last year. Content note for discussions of transphobia, dysphoria, misgendering and harassment.

The second is an essay by YA commentator and critic Nicole Brinkley. Its title is 'Did Twitter Break YA?' which I assume speaks for itself.

As you might imagine, as someone who find Twitter pretty close to unbearable, and who wrote an essay last year about the problems inherent in an entire profession blurring the lines between marketing tool and social circle, these two posts resonated a lot.

That being said, putting the blame solely at Twitter's door, rending metaphorical garments about the evils of 'the algorithm' and 'parasocial relationships' and calling it a day doesn't really get to the heart of the problem. Twitter is a tool, and, like all tools used by human beings, those human beings bring the best and the worst of themselves (as individuals and as groups/communities) to the platform. The problems I've witnessed with YA and SFF Twitter certainly reached fever pitch on that platform, but I witnessed versions of the same blowups on Tumblr, and on Livejournal and personal blogs before that. I'm seeing a lot of authors jump ship to Instagram (which is of course entirely their right), but unless there is some serious soul-searching, they risk bringing the same problems with them to the new platform.

The problem with what the SFF community did to Isabel Fall was not Twitter: it was bullying, weaponising/gatekeeping of identity and authenticity (ironic given the subject of Fall's short story), and a discomfort with representation of marginalised identities/experiences that did not toe the party line. Twitter was the medium. There are people who participated in the pile on who have only offered qualified apologies, filled with special pleading, or who have not apologised at all. They hounded a trans woman back into the closet! They tried to police the identities of those who said they enjoyed Fall's story! That's not Twitter's fault — that's people choosing to be awful, to gatekeep and harass.

The problem with 'toxic YA Twitter' is not Twitter (nor is it really the open secret that most YA is bought by adult readers and is therefore written with that readership in mind): it is the fact that publishing has created this fevered atmosphere of scarcity in which it's a prudent marketing strategy to weaponise and gatekeep identity, representation and authenticity and direct Twitter mobs towards the competition. (And this ties into the wider problem of doing away with specialist marketing departments and expecting authors to handle their own marketing using social media.) Twitter, again, is the medium.

I don't have any easy solutions, because many of these problems have sprung from very worthwhile, sincere intentions — a desire to push against structural inequalities in publishing, a desire to create more stories for readers who deserve to see their lives mirrored in fiction more frequently, and to see those stories succeed. But the solution to these problems is not to rigidly define 'good representation' — that leads to people's experiences being erased, identities being policed, and Twitter mobs being directed at those whose representation is deemed to be insufficiently pure.

I do not seek a world absent of critique, negative reviews, or a wide range of reactions to every single story. But I do seek a world in which the first weapon in the arsenal of critique is not identity policing. I seek a world in which the behaviour of people in the SFF and YA communities is given greater weight in determining their character than the community's reaction to the content of their fiction. And I seek a world in which the intentions and moral character of SFF and YA readers who enjoy messy stories, dark stories, morally grey or villainous characters, and the kinds of relationships they'd never enjoy in real life are not constantly called into question.

Threaded | Flat

From:

iberiandoctor

Ronnie, thank you for linking to this. What happened to Fall was horrific, and it happened because, as you say, because self-righteous people felt able to be awful, to gatekeep and harass. Twitter was just the means to the end, and if it didn't exist, other similarly truncated, anonymous platforms would be deployed instead, all weaponized by the same awful, gatekeeping, violently harassing mob.

I think one of the most horrifying things is that the mob feels it's truly well intentioned and that its actions are justified. As the writer of the Fall interview said: I believe they truly feel that trans stories should only be written by trans people and that Fall should have had to out herself before publishing. I believe they believe — still — that they did the right thing. They still destroyed a woman’s life. I want to believe that we'll get past the strident voices of identity and thought policing, the kneejerk bullying and harassment that recklessly destroys lives, but the road ahead sure looks bumpy :(

From:

likeadeuce

This is all well said -- I'm in a bit of the "it's the behavior AND it's the platform" space (not that Twitter is uniquely toxic, but that each platform enables particular ways to be toxic). I definitely think you're on to something about scarcity structural issues in the publishing industry being at the heart of it. In a healthy industry where publishers were actually able to support a substantial number of writers and didn't essentially require authors to do their own heavy lifting through social media then we just wouldn't be in the position where this stuff had such stakes.

From:

kore

There are people who participated in the pile on who have only offered qualified apologies, filled with special pleading, or who have not apologised at all. They hounded a trans woman back into the closet! They tried to police the identities of those who said they enjoyed Fall's story! That's not Twitter's fault — that's people choosing to be awful, to gatekeep and harass.

Yeah, I liked that essay a lot, and I understand the writer's desire to center Fall's voice and not make it just another internet pile-on, but there's a kind of backlash growing that is upsetting. Plus bullshit like this is not helping. Asking people to own up to what they did instead of writing justifications or even trying to REWRITE HISTORY when the actual tweets are still there....is not mobbing.

From:

kore

The YA twitter essay was good too but I was kind of nonplussed at the idea that "adults reading kids' books started with Twilight" -- that was so she could hook it up with Twitter, but I think that really began on a large scale with Harry Potter, and some books later labeled "YA" (Little Women, Jane Eyre, other classics) have always been popular, and in the UK and other countries there wasn't that strict division between YA and "adult" books the US made for marketing purposes. I think before the early 2000s it would've been seen as a bit weird for an adult to read a YA book, unless it was by an author who wrote adult novels, like Le Guin. ANECDATA but I knew more adults who read Harry Potter and Hunger Games than Twilight, altho of course a lot of older women readers picked up the non-magical non-high school fanfic that got published.

From:

aimedatthestars

ooh, I've read the Fall piece but not the others. adding them to my reading list. thanks.

From:

merit

This behaviours have always existed but Twitter has the ability to amplify more so than LJ (when people would often lock down posts as well). I'm reminded of what Tasha Suri tweeted about also - if we demand only #ownvoices, we're going to miss out on a lot of stories by authors, especially POC authors, where it isn't safe to be out. Demanding people out their identities or trauma is deeply unsettling.

The line about author contracts requiring an active social media presence certainly starts to explain why YA authors are more 'online' than other genres. And I still find it interesting that YA is mostly purchased by adults, I'm moderately curious why though I suspect the answer wouldn't be as interesting.

I have seen more authors / high-profile readers/reviewers on Instagram and I suppose at first glance it certainly allows a level of control, but both Twitter and Instagram can be very individualist focused.

From:

myrdschaem

The Isabel Fall article was gutting. I know I made a post about the story here, which I think was good in the sense of making one feel emotion, and only heard about the backlash later, so I added a note at the end that I hadn't considered that possibility. It straight up is horrible how it affected her.

On the Twitter thing, I am 50/50 about it. Medium is the Message after all and while I don't doubt that YA or SFF on LJ had vicious incidences, the new way of Social Media does change something structurally. This includes all of Twitter, Tumblr, Instagram and so on. A friend of mine is a big proponent of the structure the current fannish centers take aggravating issues. There is no real way to keep posts small, like marking them personal for only a small group of people or stopping them from being retweetable. There is also a lot to be said about the horrible search features, a-chronological timelines and pushing of the most outrageous content.

That's not to say Twitter is the only thing to blame, the fandom wank archives prove that. But maybe it would play out slower, give people more time to think instead of react and offer more opportunities to stop the avalanche of it all.

But yeah, moving to instagram will not change this in any way.

From:

thawrecka

I just cannot get over my horror (or sad lack of surprise) at what happened to Fall. The way the twitter mobs acted was absolutely disgusting.

From:

lirazel

weaponising/gatekeeping of identity and authenticity (ironic given the subject of Fall's short story), and a discomfort with representation of marginalised identities/experiences that did not toe the party line.

Yes. I do think that Twitter, by its nature, exacerbates the size of these things. What could have been an ugly but fairly small spat back in the LJ days becomes much bigger, more visible, more public. But the gatekeeping tendency would be a problem even then, because that's coming from the people, not the platform.

it is the fact that publishing has created this fevered atmosphere of scarcity in which it's a prudent marketing strategy to weaponise and gatekeep identity, representation and authenticity and direct Twitter mobs towards the competition.

Yeah. I don't fully understand the why of it all, but I think that's an accurate assessment.

But I do seek a world in which the first weapon in the arsenal of critique is not identity policing. I seek a world in which the behaviour of people in the SFF and YA communities is given greater weight in determining their character than the community's reaction to the content of their fiction. And I seek a world in which the intentions and moral character of SFF and YA readers who enjoy messy stories, dark stories, morally grey or villainous characters, and the kinds of relationships they'd never enjoy in real life are not constantly called into question.

Amen.