An exercise

niqaeli and I both had the experience of trying to figure out how to tell non-fannish co-workers why were were upset (about livejournal/fandom) without coming off sounding like the crazy pedophiles that need to be stopped.

Fandom, we sound like the crazy people.

This is not to say that we are crazy or wrong. This it to say that our arguments need to be reworded in a way that non-fannish people will see the validity of, because right now, to the non-fannish, what's going on here makes us look like the bad guys.

As an exercise, try figuring out what you would say to your completely non-fannish boss/mother-in-law/the grocery story checker who asks how your day's been. Try figuring out how to explain the problem on LJ and your argument about it in a way that sounds sane to the non-fannish.

And when you figure out how to do that, tell ME, because I haven't.

When you figure out how to do that, use that language with 6A/LJ, because they are not fannish.

When you figure out how to do that, use that language with the politicians and the voters to get the laws changed to be permissive of us, because they are not fannish either.

I am posting this publically because I feel like this is important. I am leaving comments on because I am hoping someone will come up with a perfectly reasonable-sounding way of talking about it. But do not expect me to respond to most of the comments to this entry, as this whole business is just making me tired.