Nora Charles

If you're like me, you find the above question baffling and its implications disquieting. I love talking about art. I prefer to go to the movies with friends, to share meals in restaurants with friends, to go to exhibits and concerts with friends, and to talk about literature with friends.

Talking about art allows me to relive my favorite parts of the experience, it brings me closer to other people and gives me insight in them to learn what they noticed and appreciated about the art, and it challenges my understanding and teaches me about how art can be created and performed.

I like talking about the elements I liked, the elements I didn't like, and the elements I didn't understand. I like it when my friends tell me about elements I didn't notice. I like talking about art so much that I even read reviews of art I've not experienced and don't plan to experience, just for the human insight and the pleasure of vicarious experience.

I also like the talking in itself, exchanging ideas, struggling to put abstract concepts into words and constructing arguments, and stretching my brain to understand what others are saying.

Unfortunately there is status in talking about certain art forms. I can enjoy beautiful fashion or masterfully strategized and executed sports matches, but I don't have much to say about that, don't typically seek out fashion or sports or discussion about them, and don't really understand most of what's going on. No, what I love is story telling, and sadly literary appreciation is a status symbol.

Many people feel transported back to school, where they were judged and assigned a status by teachers and class mates based on their ability to appreciate literature in the privileged way. Or they feel the shameful sting of not being a member of the creative class/cultural elite if they can't talk about story telling in the privileged dialect - because make no mistake, when social status is assigned it is on the basis of displaying mastery of the dialect, not on the actual content of what people are saying.

And this fear of being weighed and found too light stops many people from participating in discussions about literature.

Then there is the problem of consensus. Many people feel socially safe and able to hold themselves in some esteem if they're snugly in the center of popular opinions and norms. Being disagreed with by either a person they respect or by a certain number of members of their group will cause them to doubt themselves and their place in that group. Can we still be friends if you like The Beatles and I like The Stones?

It's not an unfounded fear, since so many relationships are based on shared experiences and attitudes. And mostly it works out, when people are allowed to seek out their own friends, for example on the internet. I'm not forced to sit next to you in class, so I don't have to fight so hard to find any sort of common ground with you. What a relief!

But then what happens when we're fans of the same thing, but the way we engage with that thing differs radically? Is a shared appreciation of the thing enough common ground, or do we need to share fannish activities to get along?

And this fear of a lack of consensus and resultant loss of group membership also keeps many people from discussing art, or if they do discuss art, it keeps them from deeper critical examinations that reach a level where we can no longer all agree.

And finally there is a special fear which comes with fannish art: The fear of being Mean. Mean people are socially excluded. Maybe a fan artist would be absolutely thrilled and flattered to have their work discussed with the same fannish attention to detail we bestow on our favorite canons, or maybe they would feel that a critique of their art was a critique of them as a person. We just don't know.

Making others cry is something most of us want to avoid. Those of us who do want to make others cry like to see the reaction of their victims, so they mostly engage in direct bullying.

Professional artists are often hurt and upset by critique of their work, of course, but they at least chose their profession knowing that their work would be reviewed. Fan artists may want the popularity boost that reviews give them, or they may be shy and sensitive creatures who write for their own pleasure and generously share their art in case it pleases others, but would be horrified and withdraw their art if they ever learned of any reader not enjoying every single aspect of it. We just don't know.

Here's my proposal: Let's take the conversations about fan art out of private chat and friends locked posts, out in the open! Let's not contact the fan artists in any way to tell them that a conversation about their art is taking place. Artists who want to know can self-google or check delicious if they so choose.

Fan art is awesome! Fan art is high quality. Fan art binds fans together, and lets us get to know each other as unique individuals with each our own perspective on canon and on life. Fan art is worth talking about for the same reasons all art is worth talking about, and on top of that it's worth talking about because it is ours.

There are many reasons not to want to talk about fan art, and I respect that. I don't want to guilt anyone into taking part if they don't want to, but I do wish that those who don't want to will let those of us who do sink or swim on our own, rather than immediately start the process of social exclusion so the other members of the group can see that they know how to follow and enforce group norms.

For me, discussing art with others is such an integral part of appreciating the art that I would feel cut off from enjoying the art itself if I had to censor myself in how I responded to it.

And hey, whaddaya know, coincidentally today is the debut of a new comm for appreciating fanfic: the_comfy_chair

the_comfy_chair is for talking seriously and honestly about fic we are interested in because it's just that good, or because there are some fascinating technical aspects in how it's written, or because it's an awesome example of this or that trope, or because for whatever reason we just really want to talk about it.

It is not a comm for snarking on fic. It is not a comm for seeking out or ridiculing badfic or whatever maligned genre of fic. It is certainly not in any way a comm for talking about writers or other fans.

the_comfy_chair is a comm where your enthusiasm for fic and fandom can be taken as read, so you are free to discuss all the elements of a fic, both the ones you liked, the ones you didn't like, the ones you didn't understand, and the ones you didn't notice.

It is a comm where discussion is encouraged and enjoyed for its own sake.

Taking part in the discussion in the comm requires no formal training. Users may use technical words or jargon when they find those words useful, but you absolutely do not need to know words like that. You do not need practice in constructing clever arguments. You do not need to be part of any inner circle or secret cabal.

All you need is an appreciation for fanfic and a willingness to discuss it.

To start out, the comm is limited to Stargate fic (SG-1, SGA and SGU), but fandoms will be added according to member interest.