TJLC and The Real World

 (A conversation about fandom between mid0nz, bookshop, 

pj-gingernuts and greyhairedgeekgirl)

mid0nz:

Fandom is not an escapist respite from the real world. Fandom is a microcosm of the real world. 

There are so many parallels between what’s happened in the Sherlock fandom in the last three years with what’s happened on the global political stage. The same discourses we’ve seen wielded so effectively by Trump, Farage and their ilk are afoot in much of the tin hat fandom. Dogma. Conspiracy. Zealotry. Insularity. Religiosity. Xenophobia. Cultishness. Anti-intellectualism.

First under their attack were the formally-trained intellectuals (acafans) then the writers/artists who thought differently, shipped differently. Then the straw men: “casuals.”

They used dog whistles, gaslighting, trolling, doxxing.

A ray of hope 

If we can shed some light, if we can understand what the hell happened with this conspiracy- how it got legs, why and how it grew, how it is that good people got caught up and STAYED caught up in it even after hearing the history (#notall)- we might gain some insight for how effectively to resist the discourse and the oppressive methodologies of the current regime.

bookshop:

This is exactly the point I made in my article on how shipping has increasingly turned into ideology. My article focuses on the thought processes that go into these ideologies, not the methods — the methods mentioned above are increasingly common tactics for every facet of internet discourse at this point — and how shippers have fundamental thought patterns that feed into the idea of their ship as a crusade which hold true regardless of what the pairing is, regardless of whether the ship fictional (e.g. johnlock) or RPF (e.g. larry).

TJLC is a hugely prominent example of this, but I have seen this pattern play out again and again in fandom after fandom: Fans pick an OTP, then a) create a discourse around that ship being a “true” or “canonical” ship, and then b) use that discourse as a reason to demonize an “other,” whether that “other” is an oppositional ship, or a subset of fans who are shippers but who aren’t invested in the ‘truther’ discourse. (It’s rarely an “other” that exists outside of fandom.)

And once these core ingredients are in place — the rationale for the belief that the ship is “true,” and the existence of an othered minority to attack — the toxicity begins and develops en masse, sanctioned by the unshakeable belief in the truth/canonical nature/rightness of the core belief.

In other words, it plays out exactly like crusaderism has played out for centuries.

mid0nz:

Ok so if this is an age old phenomenon in scores of fandoms WHY? Why does it happen? Why is the pattern similar or more or less the same? What is is about fandom, or shipping in particular that makes it ripe for this kind of situation? How do these crusades tend to end? Is there one or another kind of personality that’s likely to lead the charge? What do they gain? What are their weaknesses? What do their followers gain? Why do they attack the others? HOW do they attack the others? What of their strategies are effective and why? Why is there such an unshakable fetish for “truth”? What kinds of relationships do the crusaders have with the putative author (or showrunner)? What kinds of ships tend to be at the center? Is it conversation that spreads the “truth” of a ship? Meta? Fic? What are the hallmarks of a “convincing” argument for the “truth?” What are the similarities among the ships at the center of these storms? How is it that those who don’t believe in the truth of a ship BECOME the minority, or the perceived minority? HOW, IN SHORT, DO THESE CRUSADES FUNCTION? 

pj-gingernuts:

I can attest to the “identity” part of TJLC. While I was following TJLC I felt I was somehow better than those who didn’t know about it. Difference is I was able to entertain other readings and could let go of TJLC completely once I saw the rest of S4. I was also able to just focus on basic construction of the show instead of The Conspiracy. But then, I’m 42, from a different generation than most of TJLC people. I also don’t “engage” in the fandom much but read it like a magazine.

My theory about TJLC’s implosion has a lot to do with it being kids in their teens and early twenties who are searching. I wonder if exploring the connection of this fandom stuff, identity and social/emotional development for millennials and the like would yield some good insight. Delayed adolescence. That kind of thing.

And this is not to say that all TJLC followers are/were people who have not developed emotionally or are all young. But the ones who are sending hate, who are so tightly latched onto their ideology with the ship and the creators “owing” them something - that is identity development related. I can’t remember what it’s called in psychology but there is a name for people who come out of adolescence with an unexplored identity and I think latching onto TJLC may be a result of some of that need for identity.

greyhairedgeekgirl: 

I’m a lit major with an interest in comparative religion as well as comparative lit. I remember seeing the initial interest in “meta” and thinking “wow, there’s some really interesting critical analysis happening over there, isn’t it great how fandom sparks all kinds of thought and writing?”

And then I saw it turn into a cult. I could see the Prophets emerging, some dueling for primacy, others becoming Apostles. I could see the critical play with words and ideas and images becoming hardened, encoded, treated as fact. Treated as Revelation. There was a Revealed Message in a Shared Text, and there were those who claimed to be able to to interpret that message in the Right Way. There were Those who Believed and Would be Vindicated, and Those who Scoffed and Would Suffer.

It’s one of the things that has convinced me of the basic human trending towards religious behavior and thought, actually. As we become “post religious” in modern democracies, as attendance at the traditional houses of any worship decline precipitously, I’d expect to see more of this. More of this replacement of religion with cult-like behaviors around media, around sports, around political candidates. I think that the need for structures and formative narratives and group behaviors runs very, very deep in the human brain, to the point where these types of “movements” emerge.

The Johnlock ship is a political problem

 (By mid0nz)

Question: Hi, I understand if you don't want to elaborate on this since you've now several times stated that there's something personal that happened that changed how you feel about the show. But could you explain what political reasons you have for the ship being a problem? I feel like maybe I don't get a connotation here, not being a native speaker. Thanks!

Answer:

KISMET. 

I believe it was my soul’s fate to happen upon Sherlock post S1 and to become so obsessed with it that I did what I’d never done before which was join a fandom. I came to the show having studied film theory in grad school- film sound, the technology of filmmaking, film semiotics, the inner workings of film scores, the materialism of film production. I had studied narrative theory for years and years. I taught film and television narratives as a university literature instructor of undergraduates for over 15 years. I came to Sherlock prepared to recognize the show’s semantic nuances quite clearly and to delight in them until what was meant to happen for me happened. While I waited unawares I wrote meta.

I wrote Johnlock meta for fun. I found the ship (once I figured out what a ship IS) exciting, titillating. I wrote some mediocre fic. I meta’d like the pro I was. I got hung up on the cinematography, a topic I’d dabbled in but didn’t understand in any honest, practical depth until later. And I began to try to explain how shot selection and camera movement and light and color helped make meaning which I’ve always maintained is the work of the viewer ultimately. I used shipping as my case study. I waffled back and forth, argued with myself and others for the sake of fun and exercising my brain and trying out thoughts. (Wank happened but I’m not interested in talking about tjlc right now.)

So I’d written a lot of meta post S2 about my fave episodes and it turns out that they were lit by the same Director of Photography who also happened to have operated “A” camera on the eps. (Not all DoPs operate and if they do, they don’t always operate “A” camera.) I was meant to meet him. Kismet. Destiny. That was the point. I didn’t know it at the time– I just did what I was compelled to do which was to fangirl. And anyway I had no way to contact him until S3 production began and he began tweeting. I eventually asked him if he meant the real lost Vermeer of TGG to be visible in the cinematography. It was THERE but was it conscious? Yes, it turned out it was. I feel that I have been interested for years in the question of authorial “intentionality” and the transmission of a predetermined, transmitted/telegraphed meaning in narratives for the express reason that I was supposed to recognize this one person’s intelligence– the intelligence of that one person behind the camera. That was my destiny. Sherlock was just the conduit in the end for us to meet and for our acquaintanceship to grow into a cherished friendship.

We had many conversations over the years– both joking and philosophical– about Johnlock. I knew from the start that it was never consciously imprinted into the text in any way by him or the directors he worked with. The phenom kind of mystified and mildly amused him at first. Johnlock eventually grew and grew as a pop culture phenom after S3 so we did have some nuanced discussions about it from time to time- conversations about things like this, for example:



Johnlock was a topic that came up prominently in our final entanglement.

We were friends and have become estranged. But this was right, and we do not want to conceal and obscure it from ourselves as if we had reason to feel ashamed. We are two ships each of which has its goal and course; our paths may cross and we may celebrate a feast together, as we did - and then the good ships rested so quietly in one harbor and one sunshine that it may have looked as if they had reached their goal and as if they had one goal. But then the mighty force of our tasks drove us apart again into different seas and sunny zones, and perhaps we shall never see each other again; perhaps we shall meet again but fail to recognize each other: our exposure to different seas and suns has changed us. ― Roland Barthes

  

Looking back now it was inevitable I suppose. The context of our last musings on Johnlock and its consequences made it crystal clear to me that the ship is this dangerous kind of cosmic lightning rod. If there are concepts that have mythic-level powers then that ship is one of them. John and Sherlock are these other worldly archetypes with the ability to utterly entrance people, to blind them to sense and to make them fall into a deep obsession with the world of 221b. It’s been that way since “A Study in Scarlet” found its first audience. Imbue Sherlock and John’s story with sex and/or romance and what do you get? I have mainly experienced incredible turmoil and massive psychic destruction.

What do you see going around you now in the fandom after The Final Problem?



Our problem. The final problem. Have you figured it out yet?

 

Sherlock beguiles us. Johnlock entices us from our moorings.

THE FINAL PROBLEM IS FUCKING JOHNLOCK.

The bastard form of mass culture is humiliated repetition… always new books, new programs, new films, news items, but always the same meaning. -Roland Barthes

What is the meaning of Johnlock? How in rereading it might we disarm its power over us?

OH YEAH, THE POLITICAL PART! 

Here is one example of Johnlock at play in the wild. How many months were spent by how many people (most of them female let’s be honest) who were convinced that is would have been a Very Good Idea for Mofftiss (an imaginary entity) to HIDE the sexual attraction/romance between two men for YEARS until a grand reveal- a reveal that was, however, only anticipated, only visible to those in the know, with the secret keys to decode The Love That Dare Not Speak Its Name?

 

Why the draw? It’s not just powerful adults brainwashing the queer youth as tumblr would have you believe. No. Johnlock is a vortex, a shorthand for every kind of power implied by the inner workings of its narrative. Sex, drugs, infidelity, secrecy, shame, hubris, ego, hedonism, desire, bodily fluids. Johnlock is inherently political.

Johnlock is the pattern formed when magnetic shavings collide on a table. It’s the phallus, the phalluses, in the steel dust.

How many problematic things come to fruition in The Final Problem? Sexism. The erasure of race (a non issue). The worship of the male genius, the pathologizing of the female, the fetish for the trappings of wealth, class difference as comedy, the unbearable romanticization of the Byronic…junkie, smackhead, who everyone serves. (How does Wiggins get by I wonder?)

I loved the episode– not because it wrapped everything up in a bow of domestic bliss and semantic certainty, but because it did quite the opposite. It blew apart– literally blew apart– the domestic petri dish that gave birth to Johnlock. And in the 221b explosion went the trappings of some twisted homonormative imperative marriage plot demanded by the show’s most obsessed, most rabid fans in the name of queer representation “a happy ending.” Those fans who degraded and damaged hundreds of real people in the name of fidelity to the coupling of TV show characters and the author-gods they made and worshiped like…dads.

Somehow The Final Problem broke the fucking spell. It derailed the fantasy and dismantled, in many permanent ways, the Johnlock “community.”

Moffat and Gatiss laid waste to Mofftiss.

We laid waste to us.