oceana

You know that a wank is huge when it spills onto your flist even though you have nothing to do with that fandom.

I like to think of my journal as rather wank free. I don't think there ever was a wank in here. And I can't remember other people wanking at each other in the comments either. I never had to stop a thread or ban anyone from my lj.
Well, there was that one occasion where that a total stranger attacked me with racist comments and I had to disable anonymous commenting for a while, but that had nothing to do with fandom.

I also like to think that I'm not afraid to voice opinions, strong opions on some things. I enjoy discussions, and there have certainly been enough that were interesting, at least for me. And well, I hope for some of you too. After all, there must be a reason why people read me, and it isn't for the non-existing fic or the equally non-existing icons.


I have a theory on this:

Theory number one:
I try to be open-minded, I listen to people and I generally try to behave civilized. Be polite before I attack someone. Phrase my differing opinion in a non-offending way, other than just saying "You suck and you should die if you believe that Ducky is not doing Palmer."
This behaviour seems to either influence the readers of my lj in a way that makes them behave themselves, or confuse them so much that they don't comment in the first place.
(I'd say it is because I have the coolest friendslist ever, which is totally the truth, but it is also kind of arrogant to assume that I am the only person with nice friends. *g*)

Theory number two:
I lack the BNF quality. I am not worth being wanked at.
Well, this is certainly true. But it's the chicken/egg question. Do I lack the BNF quality because I don't wank, or don't I wank because I'm no BNF?
I know, we talked about BNFs before, and we've all come to the conclusion that yes, they do eat little children for breakfast, except the nice ones don't, and the nice ones are the ones we know personally, and maybe a few others. The term BNF is so unprecise and subjective that I use it with a sarcastic undertone which would be a lot more effective it I could make voice posts.

I know that one thing people accuse BNFs of is that whenever they say something controversial, their friends will rush to their help just because they are BNFs.
And you know what?

This is true.
And it has nothing to do with them being BNFs or just tiny small blips on the edge of fandom.
It's a concept called friendship, and certain people in fandom really need to take lessons in it.

Because today, I - the keeper of the wankfree journal - found myself tempted to get involved in what seems to be a phenomenously huge wank in a fandom I am not involved in, because friends of mine were attacked.
Not because they were friends, or BNFs (which I wouldn't even know since I'm not involved in that fandom), but because they were attacked in a way that seemed unfair to me.
They were attacked in the "Fuck you and die" way rather than the polite "I disagree, here's why" way.
And that is something I just can't stand.

I didn't get involved (and I don't think this post qualifies as involvement either, at least it isn't supposed to) for one simple reason. I didn't know what they were wanking about.
Sure, even if the attackers are right, I could still fight with them about the way they attacked, but explaining that you are fighting for politeness on the internet is like teaching a tree how to ride a bicycle. And since I am not able to comment on the content of the wank, I didn't get involved at all.
It'll all be over tomorrow anyway, that's how fandom works.



And this is the secret of the wankfree journal: be polite, be open-minded, be informed.
Or:
behave like a civilized human being.

Of course, if you do that, you'll never become a BNF.
But I think I'm having enough fun over here without being famous.

(and I will not admit that a tiny part of me triumphed when it saw that more people have my lj friended than the LJ of a particularly bitchy BNF. Because *summons Faith* "it's wrong*)

P.S.: Mark Harmon is very very sexy. I'm unreasonably jealous of Meg Ryan and not just because of the hair.
Why yes, I did watch Presidio. *g*