Real BNF = someone who has genuine, demonstrated ability as a writer/artist/organizer and who has been around a long time (ten years is "long" ... two years is "not long"). Suzi Lovett is a real BNF, Susan Matthews is a BNF, EPS/lil_shepherd/all-her-pennames is a real BNF, Kathy Resch is a real BNF, Alayne Gelfand is a real BNF, etc. ((I will add that I've met a couple of REAL BNFs who are also jerks but have excluded them in this instance.))
Faux BNF = This requires two identifications: They are (1) Someone who writes endless awful, unedited (truly), un-beta'd (really) creative typing. They often write in response to challenges/prompts or solely to take part in post-and-praise circle jerks. They do not attempt to make anything of their work because they know their little coterie of sycophants will fall in to praise them. Together, they set upon those who fall outside the circle. This is the second necessary element: (2) Someone with a big ego who writes solely to have "followers" praise them. This secondary element is often augmented with sock puppet/troll personas which are very easy to spawn (and thus hide behind) on LJ.
Here is an excellent site about sociopathy/online bullying aka "active mobbing", which is what psychiatrist call the Faux BNF/sycophant bullying phenomenon.
I'm excerpting the following few paragraphs from the above UK link in the hopes those who participate will recognize themselves (although I know they won't).
Active mobbing is where bullies recruit others to do their dirty work by spreading specious rumours and lies about the bully target using whispering campaigns. School girls are particularly adept at this. Bully cliques and gangs are commonly formed. "Smear campaigning" has been known to be carried out by newspapers.
Bullying myths are perpetuated in our culture, for example, that it is at least partly the bullying target's fault or complaining about the more subtle forms of bullying is just paranoia.
Bully cultures have rules that are generally unwritten and may change from time to time. Someone who is compliant with the bully's rules at one time may at another time unwittingly transgress any changed bully's rules and is liable to being scapegoated.
In gangland-speak, speaking out or criticising the gang leader is referred to as "crossing". It could lead to very serious consequences. For example, the Kray twins got their gang members to perform acts of extreme violence on people who "crossed" or dared to criticise them. In other contexts, someone who dares to speak out or act against the leader can be accused of "insubordination".
A gang member may indulge in "fawning" or "synchophantic" behaviour to win the approval of the gang leader. This is also known as "sucking up" to the leader. A gang member who is seen as being in the same mould as the gang leader is a "protegee". Prominent gang members who do the gang leader's dirty work are sometimes referred to as an "attack dogs" or "hatchet men".
The gang leader may engineer "infighting" amongst his gang by spreading malicious rumours and turning the gang members in on themselves - "divide and rule".
(end of quote)Bullying myths are perpetuated in our culture, for example, that it is at least partly the bullying target's fault or complaining about the more subtle forms of bullying is just paranoia.
Bully cultures have rules that are generally unwritten and may change from time to time. Someone who is compliant with the bully's rules at one time may at another time unwittingly transgress any changed bully's rules and is liable to being scapegoated.
In gangland-speak, speaking out or criticising the gang leader is referred to as "crossing". It could lead to very serious consequences. For example, the Kray twins got their gang members to perform acts of extreme violence on people who "crossed" or dared to criticise them. In other contexts, someone who dares to speak out or act against the leader can be accused of "insubordination".
A gang member may indulge in "fawning" or "synchophantic" behaviour to win the approval of the gang leader. This is also known as "sucking up" to the leader. A gang member who is seen as being in the same mould as the gang leader is a "protegee". Prominent gang members who do the gang leader's dirty work are sometimes referred to as an "attack dogs" or "hatchet men".
The gang leader may engineer "infighting" amongst his gang by spreading malicious rumours and turning the gang members in on themselves - "divide and rule".
My friends Lyn and Annie have suffered as a result of it. Various other friends of mine have also. And I have ongoing problems (although now mainly low grade) with a few faux-BNFs I have mentioned (and others I haven't). I mainly ignore them, but it is an annoyance I shouldn't have to deal with.
The problem is the sociopath at the center of these hubs will not care about their behavior. They rarely have a conscience of the kind we speak of. They only care about perpetuating their rumors against those who would take attention away from them.
I'll be posting more about this problem from my perspective in the next few days, but I'd like to throw open the topic to any of you who've had similar problems. I'm going to remove the anon posting ban for the immediate period so that you may post anonymously if you prefer. Fandom bullying has become a real problem lately.
ADDED: I need to point out that I'm not for a moment criticizing casual, just-having-fun fan fiction writers. As I've said before, weekend tennis players don't have their games critiqued so neither should casual fan fiction writers. I ONLY include these post-prompt, etc, writers IF they also meet the arrogant/bullying/circle jerk definition also. I've written from prompts before. Whatever you do to have fun is your business. It's only the people who use such circles to harass others that I have a problem with.
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Comments
It's not just fandom, of course - and it's certainly not just a "teenage" thing. My grad student association at my university is prone to massive amounts of it, and these are people in their 20s, 30s, and even 40s. (And some in their 40s are the worst.) I suspect it's got something to do with the way being a grad student means being powerless yet under enormous expectations. Not that there aren't a lot of tenured faculty who role-model advanced bullying skills, lol.
Online, the two most vicious single places I see it are FW (of course) and an academic snark comm that mocks and trolls people on nearly all the other academic comms (academics_anon, gradstudents, etc.). Like FW, it claims to have rules, which like FW, it then breaks.
In my main fandom, HP, there was a BNF bullying one of the snape comms (including doing it from FW) a few weeks back. This is a BNF who's trying to turn pro writer and took down all her old HP fics, changed her online name, etc. I think she's beginning to miss feeling important as a result of that. So she compensates by putting down other Snape fans in new comms, and boasting about it in FW, where the flickering remnants of her former fame apparently allow her to bask in the feeble glow.
Where -- or maybe I should say, why -- do you see it a big problem?
Thanks for the link, BTW. I started reading up on "relational bullying" after seeing how appalling it was at my Uni. It was only then that I realized the online form is the same thing. I hadn't found this site, though. It's very helpful to see the different insights from the UK.
I mention it in a fannish context because fandom has become so overrun with it and because the victims tend to be especially sensitive (being artists/writers). Sociopaths are expert in targeting. The victims seldom fight back. I do.
I do see it as a big problem. I also write for a living -- plenty of the worst writers I've ever known write for a living. I see fan fic as just a "serious" form of writing as any other. So anyone who struts around their "pro" bona fides as if this is a credential for superiority is only going to be laughed at by real pros. The average writer makes 6K a year -- you're better to be jealous of janitors lol. The most successful writer I know lives in an old desert house only a little larger than my old desert house. I only state what I do for a living because it's what I do for a living (I talk a lot about my internet hosting business, too).
I don't write for praise or reviews, which seems to be beyond so many of the petty "BNF" types who desperately want attention/praise/strokes/BNF status. When I'm on a list or a community, I'm so many times quickly targeted by these people. Because I'm a writer who has been around long enough to have a nice readership (for which I'm grateful), the BNF wannabes start trying to get my attention. When they can't praise me into their circles (I'm sorry, I only praise stories I enjoy -- if I don't like their stories, I don't praise them to get praise), then they start doing the other stuff as mentioned in the piece on the web.
Some of the crap I see include firing up fake IDs for insulting you and/or overly praising their stuff (how these people think others can't read their crap and see it for what it is, I'm not sure), nasty email campaigns trying to turn other people -- often friends -- against you, fake IDs to make email/posts meant in public places (sometimes of a disingenuous kind) trying to target you/snipe at you, etc. Because sociopaths crave attention, they desperately try to get your attention. On one occasion, when I ignored another of her nasty threads, one of my bullies dragged me onto an online forum known for sociopaths for a public thumping.
I've left three fandoms now entirely because of bullying -- Jack/Chloe fandom, Fin/Munch fandom, and faux-Beatles (one of them unfortunately also exists in other fandoms I'm in but so far her annoyance factor in them has been minimal). If they so desperately need to be the fandom BNF, I give it to them. All I want to do is write and read good fan fic. I want to communicate with other worthwhile fans. The ego wars are all theirs to embrace if they want to.
It is very sad because clearly these people don't understand their own situation. They think everyone spawns fake IDs, they think everyone praises to get praise, when they see someone like me who doesn't, it must really confuse them. Mind you, I also don't write critiques -- I've never seen a perfect story and I don't know what one is. I only know the stories I like and those I don't like. If I like them, I say so. If I don't, I stay silent. Usually I avoid all conflict, but I draw the line with these people because I HATE bullies and I refuse to be bullied. I would just as soon leave the fandom and take down all my fan fic (which I have done with a couple of these fandoms) than deal with them.
I enter a list/community with just my own work. I don't boast about my bona fides (I've had one of these yoyos actually enter a list by announcing she was a BNF in another fandom ... as I've said, if you have to say it yourself, you're not one). When I leave, I'm gone. They'll be left behind, accusing me of paranoia (as you can see from the page I posted, that's a common method of silencing victims), projection (ditto), jealousy (ditto), when all I want to be is left alone to write and read. It's that simple and unfortunately, for sociopaths who crave attention and fawning, just as complicated.
I hope the puppy has stopped relieving himself on everything.