Whisper Networks, And Preludes Through AWWC And Other Forums
Customer Service is definitely an important thing, but there are some communities online that take this in a way to literal direction. The other extreme is creators that somehow think it’s OK to abuse people in newsletters, by lecturing readers of that newsletter about how much they have hurt them by emailing them feedback, like not doxxing a readers home address. In most cases, when communities talk about authors harming readers, it is usually this hyperbolic situation they reference. The reality is most authors are better at customer service than we give them credit for. There is also way more to it:
Apparently negative reviews are not allowed by members of CG to other members. How much of this is actually true, or just gossip by members of mainstream comics, who is to say? But the point is there isn’t even wide spread agreement on where an publisher begins and a private individual author ends. I’ve met people that genuinely say authors are not private individuals once they put pen to paper. To make it worse, the classical Customer Service versus Author Benefits people aren’t 100% clear cut as they may seem.
For example, Chuck Wendig for a very long time, I have considered the left-wing equivalent to Orson Scott Card. That who I thought were also hard core left-wing people at the time fought back against me having this notion, almost proved my point. As hard as this is to believe, Orson Card also has his own hardcore defenders on the political right. But in both cases there is a clear loss of professionalism. But of course cancel culture went after Orson Scott Card first, and gave Wendig a platform for way to long.
Comics also had their own Chuck Wendig, in the form of Mark Waid. Usually he is used as the stereotypical example of why you should not be political in your comics, when the reality is the term politics has gotten so slippery these days, precisely because the modern left has blurred the distinction between things that are not political, and things that are: eating Chinese Food is racist apparently. Liking ethnic styles of music is also apparently.
On the other extreme you have people that think being drunk on a livestream in professionalism, while bitching at Marvel people for being unprofessional by mistreating readers. What they’re not saying is which readers and which authors. As comics isn’t any different from prose pulp: there had been clear differences between left-wing and right-wing portions of that society, until, as it seem, at the current time: Orson Scott Card and Chuck Wendig as per the example.
We need to focus less on micromanaging people’s politics ( whether that be in conversations or in politics ), and focus on what is important: yes it is true the readers should come first. But that doesn’t mean it is OK for ANYONE to dox people’s home addresses.
This blog wraps around to my experience with Absolute Writers Water Cooler, an arguably much much worse community than Comicsgate, yet who mainstream comics does not seem to go after. They seem superficially to also have the same political viewpoints as well: although when you do more digging into their history, in fact this forum has had viewpoints that make the Alt-Right look saintly by comparison. There is enough detailed history for you to do your own research. But a common tagline had in fact been: authors should never read reviews.
What was not spoken was the multiple levels of hypocracy Goodreads reviews would actually read their own reviews. In fact I feel like in many ways the fiasco with goodreads and book reviewers there would actually provide a preview of the cancel culture that was to come in the larger online community on Twitter. Kindle forum, despite the name, often acted in a similar manner to AWWC as well. Just don’t use writing forms, more often than not there is disinformation present here. It’s not worth it.
At this time, you would think that Literary Agents in YA would be more professional, they would help defend authors reputations, and only judge the book and not the authors. But more often than that I would have them block me, merely because I tweeted them something witty or quick. Needlessly to so, I strongly encourage anyone not querying this literary agent. If she treats others like she did me, then this is kind of what she does.
Cut to now, where Bleeding Fool wrote an article about the whisper networks, and how they have work to prevent people from getting into the larger comics industry. Do you not think this is where “Authors Should Never Read Reviews” inevitably leads? When you take those words to literally? And how about this allegation that CG people can’t give each other bad reviews? How would you know that, if you were not allowed to read reviews given to you.
We have a chance to discontinue the hypocracy that had existed in creative communities before, but what seems to be happening, is I can’t really tell about the radical left part of creative communities and the radical right anymore. Both of them are extremely puritanic. It’s almost like the difference is between Tankies and Nazis.
In some ways I feel like the UFO community is all I have left, and even that has some serious bad actors.