geek2geek

My friend Candy is one of the Bitch Overladies of Smart Bitches Who Love Trashy Books (yes, smart and witty people who love romance novels. They exist, I swear). They’re pretty merciless when they come upon something they really don’t like. Just read some of their pieces snarking on book covers. And, of course, the genre’s fascination with man-titties. Oh god the man-titty. But when they find something they really like, they pour praise upon it.

Point is, these are fans of Romance criticizing Romance. There’s something extra special about picking apart something you love from the inside out, as only a jilted lover can. I feel a kinship.

Recently they stumbled upon evidence of plagiarism in a very popular (but generally regarded as crap) author. The story made the rare, and very rapid, jump from blog to print press and is now in the process of blowing up into a Major Scandal. You can read the whole Cassie Edwards Extravaganza if you like. It’s interesting to watch an industry cope with Intellectual Property and Ethical Considerations live, particularly the issue of where “didn’t break the law” diverges from “did nothing wrong”.

All this has landed them quite a pile of new readers. Readers who don’t know what’s going on, and have no background. They just see this bright pink page slagging off some author. This has gotten them quite a bit of negative comments in spite of their remaining fairly restrained and objective… at least by their standards. But their glee at a bad author getting caught out oozes through.

Candy frames the problem in “Your Taste Sucks, But I Still Love You“.

…people often read a whole world of motivation and intent into my words, despite the fact that by and large, I lay it all out there for people to see and read. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I’m not especially good at keeping my opinions hidden.

So here’s one thing I want to make clear, once and for all:

I don’t want people to stop reading the things they love, even when I think they’re absolutely terrible. Why would I? They love it. That’s excellent. I may shit all over the book you love, but that doesn’t mean I want to deprive you of the right to read it and enjoy it. In fact, I want you to engage me about why you enjoyed it, and disagree with me about the points I’m making. I loves me some vigorous, informed argument. I may think you have terrible taste (depending on how bad the book is), but I promise you that I won’t think you’re stupid based solely on the fact that you enjoy something I don’t, or that you’re wrong for liking what you like. I’m a reader of romance novels, ferchrissakes; this means far too many people who don’t know me assume I’m stupid based solely on a genre I read. I’m not about to inflict that particular brand of assholishness on other people. (There are so many other superior varieties to choose from.)

Unless you can see them laughing while they do it, one person’s “vigorous, informed argument” is another person’s hateful bashing. Since I know Candy personally, I can “see” her talking and laughing as she writes and that it’s all in good fun. But if you don’t know her, or haven’t read enough of her writings to build up a picture, you might think it’s all petty piss and bile.

Like someone walking into a meeting of people you don’t know and they’re the middle of joking around and making light fun of each other. Except on the Internet you can’t see that they’re smiling or hear that they’re laughing. No emotion, just the nasty text.

Candy, being a good writer, saw and filled in that emotional gap that the combination of text and a lack of context leaves.

Heh, man-titty.