#creator accountability

[laelish]

SW Fandom Accountability

This is mostly in response to alarms raised within the DinLuke community, but it applies across the board.

Keeping My Work Accountable

Tagging

If I miss tagging something that you have blocked, please let me know. It will get fixed immediately and I will appreciate you having pointed it out to me. You did me a favor.

Harmful Stereotypes

If you send me an ask and let me know that I've perpetuated a harmful stereotype against a marginalized community, you are helping me grow as a writer and a person. You will get a response. It will get fixed.

Anonymous Asks

I do not have Anonymous asks enabled. I understand that not everyone is going to want their ask answered publicly if they're talking about sensitive or controversial material. If you request a private response you will get a private response.

Tagging Triggering Content

I am sharing a list of common trigger warning tags on Tumblr.

If you are a content creator and you are posting triggering content without tagging it appropriately, I will block you. If you are sharing or actively supporting work that has triggers that are not appropriately tagged, I will block you.

This has become a big problem within the DinLuke fandom. There has been content posted with graphic depictions of sexual assault, rape, and abusive relationships, then left entirely untagged or tagged with euphemisms.

That hurts people. It's irresponsible. It's cruel.

It needs to stop.

Silencing Lived Experience

The canon material that we are drawing from has problems with racism, sexism, and homophobia. Those problems have bled over into the fandom and largely been ignored. It has made the Star Wars fandom a hostile place for many marginalized people.

We are lucky enough to have people with lived experience in marginalized communities letting us know where the canon and fandom creators have been irresponsible and perpetuated harmful stereotypes. Anyone who is sounding the alarm on prejudice is doing the community they're part of a favor. It is no less a favor if they are angry. There is a lot to be angry about.

I will be blocking anyone who silences the lived experiences of marginalized people. The most common example I've noticed is responding to marginalized people who say “this is a harmful stereotype” with “live and let live” or “creators don't owe you anything.”

We should be honoring people who call attention to these problems and taking their feedback to heart, but instead people who have spoken out on this have been on the receiving end of harassment and silencing tactics. Some of them have been driven out of the SW fandom entirely.

This is detrimental to the fandom. We are losing some of our best voices. We are empowering prejudice within our community.

This needs to stop.

[magencubed]

Whenever there’s a public backlash against comic books, especially when it comes to issues such as Islamophobia, racism or sexism (something I’ve blogged a fair deal about myself), it appears that the default response to critics is to simply Lighten up. Don’t worry about it. Get over it. They’re just comics. It’s easy to say that, and give detractors a pat on the head and send them on their way. The fact is that’s a cop-out, maybe the biggest cop-out both the industry and its defenders have ever put forth. To say that comics are just comics undermines everything that makes them relevant and meaningful, and ultimately short-sells both the product and its consumers. And here’s why.