We have become convinced, after years of reading horrifying interviews and studies that purport to know something about our communities – fannish communities, queer communities, kink communities – that the only way for these communities to be fairly represented is for them to represent themselves. We trust the folks at fanlore.org and we trust the folks at the OTW and we trust acafans like Alexis Lothian, who participate in the community as fans.
Just a reminder: Those fans who don't fit in with Live Journal (and clones) communities and organizations are marginalized as the "feral fans". In other words, I was rather horrified at how the ACAfen implied that their communities were the end all, be all of SF fandom. (And this is from a person who bought some slash fanzines in the mid 1980's so I knew it existed long before Ron Moore disrupted my little corner of fandom.)
As to the researchers: They're new Ph.Ds (which I once heard stood for Piled Higher and Deeper). All this cognitive neuroscience is popular right now. Universities like having well-known faculty. It brings in funds from donors. I understand getting ones name established also helps in the tenure and academic game.
What's the easiest thing to sell? Sex. More particularly, how to obtain a sexual partner. The one author lists NLP as a research area. NLP stands for Neuro-Linguistic Programming. If one was around during Usenet days, this may sound familiar, if not, here's the summary:
no subject
We have become convinced, after years of reading horrifying interviews and studies that purport to know something about our communities – fannish communities, queer communities, kink communities – that the only way for these communities to be fairly represented is for them to represent themselves. We trust the folks at fanlore.org and we trust the folks at the OTW and we trust acafans like Alexis Lothian, who participate in the community as fans.
Just a reminder: Those fans who don't fit in with Live Journal (and clones) communities and organizations are marginalized as the "feral fans". In other words, I was rather horrified at how the ACAfen implied that their communities were the end all, be all of SF fandom. (And this is from a person who bought some slash fanzines in the mid 1980's so I knew it existed long before Ron Moore disrupted my little corner of fandom.)
As to the researchers: They're new Ph.Ds (which I once heard stood for Piled Higher and Deeper). All this cognitive neuroscience is popular right now. Universities like having well-known faculty. It brings in funds from donors. I understand getting ones name established also helps in the tenure and academic game.
What's the easiest thing to sell? Sex. More particularly, how to obtain a sexual partner. The one author lists NLP as a research area. NLP stands for Neuro-Linguistic Programming. If one was around during Usenet days, this may sound familiar, if not, here's the summary:
OH, NOES!!! IT'S THE RETURN OF 'SPEED SEDUCTION'!