Don't leave a voicemail, seriously.

eta: if you're gonna do that fandom_counts thing, you should probably friend them with ALL of your journals. Like I was saying to Allie, the 13 millions doesn't me individual users. How many journals do YOU own? I think I have about ten as of today.

Homeland Security Pwns U!

You know, the madness over the no-fly list was bad enough, but WHAT THE SHIT IS THIS? There's a link to the actual bill in that BADLY, OH SO BADLY, WRITTEN article.

Generally speaking, I just laugh at conspiracy nuts, but it would appear they were more right than wrong when they jabbered on about 1984-esque scenarios Homeland Security Pwns U II--Pwned With a Vengeance!

I know everyone is all agog about lj turning into the tool of the opprez0rz, but HELLO! FLEE ABROAD WHILST YOU STILL CAN, LITTLE JOHNNY/JOAN!

Also, I'm doing everyone a favor not totally repeating the quote in my email about Nancy Pelosi being a GILF. *criz*

I will now tell a personal story about this BULLSHIT driver’s license regulation thingamabob:

I live in Tennessee (hold the applause) and I moved here from the Soviet Republic of Canukistan (tm The Prince of Darkness, Robert Novak) and I have a Canadian DL. So, I look into getting a Tn. license. NO DICE. Tennessee enforces the Homeland Security-approved DL restrictions and Canadian DL are not given reciprocity under these regulations. The reason for these “strict” DL laws? A scandal in which “illegal immigrants” were getting DL in Tennessee.

Oh, NOEZ, they were driving legally!

Which means I have to take the road test to get a new license. I have been mocked roundly for being extremely pissed off about this, but you try being in your 30’s and taking the road test all over again. Rearview and side mirrors WHAT? Stuff and nonsense.

(There’s more to this story including my extreme vexation at Geico, but let’s just leave it at the part where Tennessee won’t accept my DL because it’s Canadian…like someone from BOSTON drives better? I call shenanigans.)

Right.

So HAI THAR been away from fandom for a while and now I am 100% spam. And here to think my spam *was* going to be all about fanlib because when I logged on last night that was what I was going to blab on and on about (re: how being paid for fic would be GREAT, but how a third party taking your artistic output away and going HAHA! OURZ, BITCHES! is not).

Re: the cnet article and subsequent anger

Pretty much since this started, I suspected that what was happening is that lj was probably in a transitionary phase of their business plan where they wanted to move into more “legitimate” revenue streams (which is why they went to ads and the plus accounts to begin with). So, part of that is appealing to a wider audience, such as fundies and republicans republicans.

Yeah, we built lj. Yeah, we were early adopters and we come over with codes (mine given to me by Thamiris). Yeah, we feel very proprietary about lj.

The question, really, at this point is what will we do? more than how, exactly, have they fucked this up?. No matter what gets said now, people will still be enraged and we’ll be hearing about this until fandom morphs into whatever comes after fandom (hoping for that Tom Welling bot).

If what is meant by “"Our decision here was not based on pure legal issues. It was based on what community we want to build and what we think is appropriate within that community and what's not." means that official lj policy is that certain content is unacceptable on lj, are we as a community then going to put our claims of fandom solidarity to the test and defend the chan-lovers, incest ficcers, possibly the rpf aficionados, and other undesirables, or is this going to be yet another case of a hew and cry that leads to rainbow banners and countless screaming posts and no action?

I’m not someone who thinks that you need to be political with your hobby. Man, write you fic, make your icons, create vids of Burt and Ernie getting it on and ignore the gay marriage debate and the erosion of the Constitution—I ain’t your nanny. But it would be nice for there to be consensus on some sort of action here. Are we going to haul ass to another format? Boycott Six Apart’s advertisers? Just whine to each other? If it’s the last, sheesh, I’m going to start my summer groupieing early.

Yeah, the bahleetions SUCKED. But what does it MEAN? Does it simply mean the Man in the form of a goat-mascotted blogging site stole your porn and kicked some fans into the sand, or does it mean that we will realize that as a group with quite a bit of disposable income and savvy organizers we could, if directed, stand up for ourselves?

We’re fandom, man, we love to get our righteous indignation on, and I am the LAST person to say “hold plz, enough complaining!”, but in this one instance, I would like people to make something positive out of this. We don’t have to be passive aggressive, victimy, and stereotypically female in all the bad bad ways that we are typified as both as GEEKS and as, well, chicks.

Will this all pass when they finally issue a press release? Will you feel placated if they say “oops, our bad”? Do you feel that your hobby is something shameful enough that you shouldn’t demand to be treated as well as “legitimate” content providers?

I'm on the fence on most of this, mainly because I haven't been writing fic for the better part of the last year, so I am sora looped out, but we do own fandom and all--we get to decide how it's run.

I mean, honestly, a goat mascot, what did we expect?


eta: Kelly made icons.