One of my favourite things to do is to research participation
in the fandoms I am interested in. Recently I came across an old blog post
written by Lyndahere on her blog Between the Rock and a Hard Place. True to form Lyndahere,
used a major opportunity in the career of Great Big Sea, the launch of the
television series of Republic of Doyle, to criticise and attack the fandom. Great
Big Sea were involved in the development of Republic of Doyle from the
beginning and wrote the theme song Oh Yeah. (Since I have been involved in the
fandom Lyndahere has used just about every Great Big Sea major event to attack
the fandom, but also other fandoms including the Russell Crowe fandom).
Lyndahere no matter what year, is always right and a person
that has been severely misunderstood and done wrong by the fans who express a
dislike about her conduct. The comments section of her blog post quickly turned
from a discussion about the initial episode of Republic of Doyle to an attack on the Online Kitchen Party and the fans who post there. While there
were a lot of long waffly mini essay responses to other fans who weighed in
the discussion, Lyndahere made comments about the administration control of the
forum, alleged bullying by a gang of bullies who attacked her comments and
other fan’s comments, the alleged lack of freedom of speech in the forum, her
interpretation of what fans wanted to talk about in 2010 and the 'wet blankets' that stopped them, her feelings on the
forum and the criticism of the forum as a marketing tool by Great Big Sea.
There was a discussion on the history of other attempts to start up alternative
forum groups and their quick demise and the suggestion of the creation of
alternative forum for fans. Lyndahere describes in one post how she and others
were constantly referred to the Online Kitchen Party rules and
regulations about appropriate conduct.
“There used to be a shitstorm going on most of the time, and for all
the insistence that it was “sex talk” that got the OKP neutered (or, for that
matter, that it was me who got the OKP neutered) what it really was were those
incessant shitstorms. If this one had continued, if those involved had kept
commenting after being told to stop someone would be gone for good. And they
all know that too.” (Lyndahere Between the Rock and a Hardplace January 5 2010)
Five years on it is interesting how many mature-aged women,
married with families and children (who watch her videos and congratulate her
on making them) find it acceptable for a mature-aged woman to criminally stalk,
pester and badger a man. Most of all they wouldn’t like a woman making sexual
advances and comments about their men in front on them or others online. Yet
this type of behaviour seems acceptable to Lyndahere on the Online
Kitchen Party years ago and today on her social media accounts. To me, it is clear
the members of Great Big Sea have never been too fond of this type of discussion and behaviour, well
at least in public and in particular on social media. Lyndahere while
criticising the administration for allowing bullying on the forum of
herself and others, has been guilty of allowing intense bullying of other fans,
as an administrator of her site on YouTube Between the Rock in the comments section.
While I don’t participate in the Online
Kitchen Party on Facebook, I do pop in occasionally to look to see what is
happening, the stories and the type of material fans are sharing.
Interestingly, the Online Kitchen Party is still here (with a
different administrator) many of the fans who made comments on her blog post
are gone, but some are still here participating in the fandom in various degrees.
In 2010 social media was just really in development. More and more people of
all ages and from all walks of life have developed a better understanding of
acceptable online behaviour. Twitter, Facebook and other social media forums for
Great Big Sea have attracted a more mature audience and with a sophisticated
use of social media (although slightly brief at times). The fans are now in
contact with other fans of their choice through whatever social media platforms
they prefer. The members of Great Big Sea all have their own accounts and
interact with fans in a variety of ways.
Today fans are more interested and involved in discussing
the music and concerts, share photographs and videos, rather than an
inappropriate discussion about individual Great Big Sea members, their
perceived personalities and sexual attractiveness. Noticeably absent from
this discussion of the fandom and the use of a forum is all the positive things that have evolved such as long term friendships and fan labour. However, the conflicts (as all fandoms have) between the fans are
still there in various degrees. But it seems easier on social media to block or
unfollow anyone who doesn’t agree with the account holder than to disagree in fandom discussions.
What I found totally ironic in the blog post was one of the
main criticisms by Lyndahere of the Online Kitchen Party was it’s
use of the forum as a promotional tool (as against her bootlegging, piracy and
derivative works). Back in 2010 the Online Kitchen party was in
competition to her and her blog Between the Rock and a Hard Place. Today, Lyndahere has embraced the forum and uses it as a tool to promote her own
promotional tools, her endless bootlegged videos, photographs and pirated
material as she and others have recognised it’s alleged importance as a promotional
tool. Although Lyndahere rarely now comments on public forums like the Online Kitchen Party she saves those comments for her Twitter account
and Alan Doyle.
Edited from the comments section of the blog post by
Lyndahere. Remember these comments are on the eve of the first season premier of Republic of Doyle in 2010.
This episode contained pirated episodes. The posts are reduced due to copyright.
"It's Coming Over Me" - The Republic Of
Doyle....and The Repubic Of Doyle 05 January 2010
“...Joanne - the OKP
admin pre-Official Community - once told me she got dozens of complaints about
me every week, sometimes that many in a day (the great irony here is the later
discovery that quite a few of those many complaints came from just one person in
all of her multiple online personalities...even more ironic if you know what
role that disturbed person eventually wound up playing on the OKP) - the point
was to create enough of a backlash to bring about a desired silence, to make
silence the easiest solution to the continuing backlash. A time-honoured
technique. And one that works only when you have the majority of the community
behind you, because otherwise the shitstorm you need to stir up in order to
make it worthwhile to get rid of the other person will not take place.
Which brings it right
back to what the majority of the community desires and what kind of an overall
image/tone best suits the kind of promotional tool a band's message board is
supposed to be. The OKP isn't about free speech and it isn't about fairness and
it isn't about what's real, not primarily at least, nor should it have to be.
Not its purpose. If a few of those peripheral items make their way in every now
and then with no trouble ensuing, all the better. But they are not the main
reason for the board's continued existence.
The biggest conflict
comes from the desire of that majority of fans to sincerely believe that their
sanitised version of the band members - their partial truth - is actually the
"real" version, the full truth. Nice, sweet b'ys, maybe a little
naughty every once in a while but in such a charmingly harmless way. Appearance
becomes reality, a triumph of promotional purpose.
Until someone comes
along and rocks Lukey's boat, that is. That's when the shit hits the fan,
predictably so. True believers tend not to take kindly to any comments that run
counter to their perception of Real, and that very will-to-believe prevents
them, and the continuing conflict, from ever ceasing because it keeps them from
seeing why it is they get so frigging upset about it…
Posted by: Lynda | 07 January 2010 at 05:55 PM
….I think setting up a
separate, private site where people can feel free to say the kinds of things
that always lead to trouble when said on the OKP is an excellent idea. That
would be good for the folks on the new site and good for those on the OKP too.
Win-win all around. No worries about your using the boat motif for your new
site - go for it, by all means. Considering all the joking that's gone on with
that song, it does seem fitting.
I'm pretty erratic
when it comes to Facebook, forgetting its existence for days at a time,
especially when travelling, so I don't know how much of a useful member of any
group I could be, but I'm not against the concept. Let me know if you do get
something like this on the go.
…I have been at the
centre of the shitstorm and I have been the good-hearted den mother to the
younglings...neither role ever seemed to work out very well. Perhaps you will
do better than I did, but I will warn you at the outset about those who want
discord, those who want to fight - for whatever reason I have never figured
out. There seem to be some of that type in every group, on every side,
especially online. If a shitstorm is desired, a shitstorm will most certainly
ensue.
I read the latest
response to what you wrote, and for all of its (ironically immature)
snarkiness, one point she made was very true: GBS Fandom is not one big happy
family, never has been and never will be, despite that "We Are The
World" feeling so many get while singing along in a crowd at shows. All
kinds of different people are drawn to the men and their music for a whole host
of varying reasons; it makes perfect sense that there would be a huge range of
the ways in which that thoroughly disparate group of individuals would choose
to view, enjoy, and discuss the band.
The notion of free
speech is a lofty one, one I hold dear, but I still say that when it comes to
most groups of people - and this is even more true on the internet, where many
of those who are total weenies in real life feel all bold and brash and free to
be bullies because of their presumed cyberanonymity - the loudest bitchers and
most persistent complainers are going to get their way. Always. The meek may
indeed inherit the earth, but it will only be after all the pushy assholes are
dead and gone. And it will only happen offline.
…I have seen
shitstorms start with much less and go on much longer. There was a weird
dynamic to that one you might not have even gotten, in that the majority of
those most incensed were posters who have been away from the OKP for a long
time, who used to have their own board before it became defunct, and who had
only very recently begun to post on the OKP again. The intensity of their
response was indeed beyond the scope waranted by your comment, because it was a
reaction to past events too - old angers and bitternesses and hurts and fears
rearing their heads. As Bob would say, Context. (And I have to admit to being a
bit surprised some of the complainers even knew what "smile like a
doughnut" meant, speaking of context. Maybe they Googled it. )
As best as I can tell,
most of the current posters either stayed out of it, ignored it, or tried to
move along past it, which is much more the dominant OKP ethic these days. The
direct challenge and sputtering outrage - the shitstorm - is very much
old-style OKP. There used to be a shitstorm going on most of the time, and for
all the insistence that it was "sex talk" that got the OKP neutered
(or, for that matter, that is was me who got the OKP neutered) what it really
was were those incessant shitstorms. If this one had continued, if those
involved had kept commenting after being told to stop...someone would be gone
for good. And they all know that too. It is an implicit threat that works
wonderfully well as a deterrent. You just can't argue with success.
By the way, do you
know where the expression "wet blanket" comes from? From putting out
fires. Ironic, that. I hope you went back over to YouTube to see parts 4 and 5.
I re-uploaded them and they're working fine now. No clue what the trouble was -
sometimes YouTube is just that way...
Posted by: Lynda | 08 January 2010 at 11:05 PM
...People popping up out
of the woodwork from wherever to trash someone is an interesting phenomenom
online. I just had occasion to go back through a pile of old files, things I'd
kept for the past 5 years or so but hadn't looked at since saving them. One big
ugly file was all the shit that got posted when the OKP was first neutered
(when it was cut back to the single thread to welcome new people - I get so tired
of people who say it was shut down...it was never shut all the way down). Those
first few days after the neutering happened, there were some pretty horrible
things said, and I saved them all, mostly because I know how I work - as time
passes I tend to think things said and done were not really as cruel as they
actually were, and this time I really wanted to learn something from the
experience and not fall into the mistake of trusting these people ever again.
So I saved all the
nastiness and hate but never read it again until a week or so ago. What I
noticed the most in the midst of all the slavering was that the most vicious of
the slaverers are nearly all long gone from the OKP, have been for ages, at
least so far as posting goes. Not only that, but also that the meanest of them
were those who also had not been posting on the OKP at the time - the reason
they gave then for not having posted recently was how terrible the OKP had
become....but even after the neutering and the sanitisation, many if not most
of them ever came back to post.
I'm not sure either
what it is that makes a person think they've got a right to control something
in which they do not actively participate. It's kind of like those who don't
vote but bitch about their government. Put up or shut the fuck up...if you want
bitching rights, take part. Otherwise, stand over on the sidelines and bitch
quietly among yourselves. I rather enjoy the sideline view these days.
I can do you better
than blow-by-blow - well, better than the kind of blow-by-blow you to which you
are referring. If you've seen the most recent entry here, you already know I
put the ROD episode up on YouTube. Sorry about the hassle of multi-parts, but YouTube
has this dumb rule about files not being more than 10 minutes in length. Hope
you enjoy it.
…I think I'd have to
take issue with your "We're all here for the band" argument too.
Maybe if you phrased it "We're all here because of the band" instead.
"Here for the band" runs counter to "Here for or ourselves",
which is a lot closer to the truth in many cases. Again, as it should be. Fans
are customers, after all. Nobody expects the customer to be anything but
self-concerned....
Posted by: Lynda | 09
January 2010 at 05:44 PM
...The very first time I
came across the OKP what I found in the midst of a number of completely
harmless threads were two not-so-harmless threads that surprised me. One was a
long series of posts ragging brutally on the band for playing basically the
same set list every night, most of those posts apparently from multiple-show
attendees. The other was an even-longer thread in which one group of about 5 or
6 female posters were gang-bullying some other female poster, piling derisive
post upon derisive post onto that sole poster's ineffectual attempts at
self-defense, all while glorying in their own supposedly incisive wit and
arrogantly presumed cleverness; I don't recall what remark had set off the Mean
Girls Go Wild reaction, only that it seemed seriously undeserving of such
relentlessly (and pettily) cruel rejoinders.
That was my very first
impression of the OKP, formed some time in the latter half of 2001. It would
turn out to be an accurate impression. I would later learn that there was
another group of fans who had fairly recently left to form an alternate board
because they had been harshly criticised for being too bawdy (though most of
what they wrote was only along the lines of junior-high-school giggly-girl type
stuff - of the "Nice picture of Alan's package!" variety). The more I
travelled and met people, the more stories I heard along similar lines.
Since that time, the
disaffected, the disappointed, and the dismayed have set up numerous
alternative boards; I know of about a dozen or so, and I am sure there are
plenty more about which I've never heard. Most of those boards have been private,
with the Fishtank being one of the bigger and most successful of exceptions.
Social media sites might make the need to create new message boards as
alternative refuges less necessary these days, though the actual need for such
refuges does seem to continue on and on.
I'm not persuaded that
the OKP was ever a happy-go-lucky place, no more than I am persuaded that GBS
has a sizeable percentage of happy-go-lucky fans. I think each group of
fan-friends just thinks that's how it was during the period of time when theirs
was the dominant voice on the OKP, that time during which they were the ones
who felt like their group "owned the board," so to speak. Some other
group(s) was most likely grumbling in their little parlours for each other group's
duration, when not waging outright war against them.
Maybe without strict
regulation this pattern is an inevitable outcome, and not only just with this
group of fans. If so, then strict regulation is the lesser of two evils, in
terms of effectiveness as a marketing tool and also in terms of limiting
collateral damage”...
