I pretty much agree with the above comments, in that if you're going to post any art to a public forum, you should expect to receive both positive and negative commentary. I think a lot of this hearkens back to Peganthyrus' complaints about people using the web as their "refridgerator door", as in, "Lookit what I drew, ma!", and having it stuck on the fridge just because you drew it. This led to the VCL Sieve, and thanks to it, you can skip over the daily dose of 90% crud that appears on VCL.
However, I think another cause of concern in this whole debate are the motives of the people doing the satire. There's such a thing as positive and negative criticism, and satire vs. insult. Unfortunately the lines between them are blurred. Some artists are given positive criticism and take it as negative criticism; some people write satire but it is taken as an insult. Personally I think a lot of the crappy VCL art deserves harsh criticism; sure it's a big ego blow to beginning artists, but I think they need to take their work more seriously and reconsider why they're posting it: to learn from their mistakes, or to get an ego boost?
To make things more complex, I personally think that *some* (not all) writers of harsh satire are, in effect, emotional bullies using comedy as a shield for delighting in insults. ("You're an idiot! Ha ha, I didn't mean it, what, can't you take a joke?") I think of lot of the people upset with the whole "Worst of VCL" thing are questioning the motivations of the satirist. The counter-argument is usually along the lines of "Well, some people deserve to be made fun of", but one eventually has to ask the question of whether enough is enough? This is one of the reasons why I stopped reading Jim Groat's WCoTP strip, because although the charicatures were great and reading it gave me the occasional chuckle, a lot of the "jokes" were depreciating in nature, and while fun at first, the repetition got me questioning the motivations of the satirist.
If a satirist is wallowing in the joy of being a jerk, yet is making relevant commentary, the satire may leave the reader with mixed emotions of both glee and anger. Telling the satirist to cut it out may be taken as an attack of character (sometimes justified, sometimes not), rather than an attack on the satire itself. There are lots of examples that have already been argued about before: The Portal of Evil, "Skunk" by Mu Press, Shawn Keller's "Horrifying look at the furries", etc. And as the attacks continue, the saner fans begin to get disgruntled. ("Okay, yes, thank you for reminding us for the 100th time that we've got some real dinks in this fandom.")
Another facet of the problem is that furry fandom has a problem with criticising and self-policing itself, at least on a social level. On the Toronto furry mailing list, we actually had a member post to the effect of, "Heck, I don't care about this furry stuff, but you're the only group that accepts me!" It's a strange set of affairs that the newsgroups alt.fan.furry and alt.lifestyle.furry are both pretty open about what you can post to either newsgroup, but if you post to both newsgroups together, watch out! On one of the fur.artwork newsgroups, last year, complaining about people's art had gotten so vicious, that for a while everyone agreed to try to say nothing but nice things. The VCL forums have had similar discussion cycles. The only place where furry fans seem to unite in general is when copyrights are being threatened (for example, the Sibe situation).
I believe, strangely enough, that there is a good reason to complain about things in the fandom, and that it should be done. The Burned Furs went way overboard, but a simple call for people to clean up their act isn't such a bad idea. One of the FEW times the fandom tried to boot out one of its members was the whole Nekobe incident. There's lots of bad press that's been flung around about others, like Ostrich and Galen, after their media spotlights, and they're still in the fandom. Ask yourself: how "bad" does a furry have to be before you start asking them to show some public civility? When is critique bad? When is it good? What, at heart, are we trying to say when we complain, and what are our true motivations for doing so? Since we're probably not ever going to all get along together, what factions are there, can they be balanced, and can they agree on any common principles? How can we complain?
I pretty much agree with the above comments, in that if you're going to post any art to a public forum, you should expect to receive both positive and negative commentary. I think a lot of this hearkens back to Peganthyrus' complaints about people using the web as their "refridgerator door", as in, "Lookit what I drew, ma!", and having it stuck on the fridge just because you drew it. This led to the VCL Sieve, and thanks to it, you can skip over the daily dose of 90% crud that appears on VCL.
However, I think another cause of concern in this whole debate are the motives of the people doing the satire. There's such a thing as positive and negative criticism, and satire vs. insult. Unfortunately the lines between them are blurred. Some artists are given positive criticism and take it as negative criticism; some people write satire but it is taken as an insult. Personally I think a lot of the crappy VCL art deserves harsh criticism; sure it's a big ego blow to beginning artists, but I think they need to take their work more seriously and reconsider why they're posting it: to learn from their mistakes, or to get an ego boost?
To make things more complex, I personally think that *some* (not all) writers of harsh satire are, in effect, emotional bullies using comedy as a shield for delighting in insults. ("You're an idiot! Ha ha, I didn't mean it, what, can't you take a joke?") I think of lot of the people upset with the whole "Worst of VCL" thing are questioning the motivations of the satirist. The counter-argument is usually along the lines of "Well, some people deserve to be made fun of", but one eventually has to ask the question of whether enough is enough? This is one of the reasons why I stopped reading Jim Groat's WCoTP strip, because although the charicatures were great and reading it gave me the occasional chuckle, a lot of the "jokes" were depreciating in nature, and while fun at first, the repetition got me questioning the motivations of the satirist.
If a satirist is wallowing in the joy of being a jerk, yet is making relevant commentary, the satire may leave the reader with mixed emotions of both glee and anger. Telling the satirist to cut it out may be taken as an attack of character (sometimes justified, sometimes not), rather than an attack on the satire itself. There are lots of examples that have already been argued about before: The Portal of Evil, "Skunk" by Mu Press, Shawn Keller's "Horrifying look at the furries", etc. And as the attacks continue, the saner fans begin to get disgruntled. ("Okay, yes, thank you for reminding us for the 100th time that we've got some real dinks in this fandom.")
Another facet of the problem is that furry fandom has a problem with criticising and self-policing itself, at least on a social level. On the Toronto furry mailing list, we actually had a member post to the effect of, "Heck, I don't care about this furry stuff, but you're the only group that accepts me!" It's a strange set of affairs that the newsgroups alt.fan.furry and alt.lifestyle.furry are both pretty open about what you can post to either newsgroup, but if you post to both newsgroups together, watch out! On one of the fur.artwork newsgroups, last year, complaining about people's art had gotten so vicious, that for a while everyone agreed to try to say nothing but nice things. The VCL forums have had similar discussion cycles. The only place where furry fans seem to unite in general is when copyrights are being threatened (for example, the Sibe situation).
I believe, strangely enough, that there is a good reason to complain about things in the fandom, and that it should be done. The Burned Furs went way overboard, but a simple call for people to clean up their act isn't such a bad idea. One of the FEW times the fandom tried to boot out one of its members was the whole Nekobe incident. There's lots of bad press that's been flung around about others, like Ostrich and Galen, after their media spotlights, and they're still in the fandom. Ask yourself: how "bad" does a furry have to be before you start asking them to show some public civility? When is critique bad? When is it good? What, at heart, are we trying to say when we complain, and what are our true motivations for doing so? Since we're probably not ever going to all get along together, what factions are there, can they be balanced, and can they agree on any common principles? How can we complain?
There's not going to be any kind of easy answers; all I'm asking is for people to think. For another essay on this subject, check out http://www.ranea.org/falf/articles/Mange01.html .