An early morning thought on being not-quite-famous

[catherineldf]

Sometimes people don't like me not because they have an imaginary construct of not-quite-famous me in their heads but because I'm being an asshole. And sometimes that is the right thing to be but I'd start by attributing their reaction to my behavior first before switching over to whole alternate universes/holodeck versions of me. Clearly, just not famous enough.

Comments

[lydamorehouse]

Yeah, I read Bear too, and I was trying to figure out how to say this exact thing. :-)

[mmerriam.livejournal.com]

That makes three of us...

[nipernaadiagain.livejournal.com]

Now, I assume you are not talking generally, but snarking about an inside information about some actual situation here, but as it is said in public, so I will answer in general.

You do not have to be famous at all to be an imaginary construct. And, as result, to be unintentionally very disappointing.

Now, I have been thinking about my online friends, in whose cases I often have to do a reality check. But it could as well be two people riding the same public transport vehicle day after day and one of them building up the image from the stops the other person enters and leaves the vehicle, from the appearance of the person, from what that person reads ... And it all can be wrong.

[catherineldf.livejournal.com]

I don't know her personally but we have mutual friends and I'm sure she has many sterling and wonderful qualities. That said, it would be a really good thing if she backed away from the keyboard before posting and considered what some things sound like when heard, I dunno, outside one's own head.

[mmerriam.livejournal.com]

I've known her for a long time, both online and in real life, and yeah, she's friendly, big-hearted, and willing to help serious newbie writers, but that post. oh that post...

[catherineldf.livejournal.com]

I keep rooting for her to learn from prior experience. So far, the take away seems to be that "people are mean to me for no explicable reason but it can't be anything I'm doing or saying." Not saying that those don't happen, but frankly, in a genre like sf/f, filled as it is with the enthusiastic wholesale adoration of any large press published pro (and even some of the smaller fry), it doesn't happen that much. After a certain point, the seeds of self-analysis should begin to sprout.

[pantryslut.livejournal.com]

Sometimes people don't like me not because I'm famous and they thus have an imaginary construct of me in their heads, but just because they have created an imaginary construct of me in their heads -- I don't have to be famous for that to happen.

ETA: I see I'm not the only one making this point :) Mine being, by the by, that I found it a little, er, arrogant for the original post to assume that it was The Curse of Fame in action. Oh boo hoo etc.

I also agree entirely with the flip side of the coin as you stated it.

[catherineldf.livejournal.com]

Oh yeah. The tone is what kicks it to a whole other level. And if you follow it through to the rest of the conclusions, if people only dislike you because they project onto famous people (which you are one of, naturally), do they also only like you for the same reason? Oiy.

[muneraven.livejournal.com]

Interesting. I didn't take that post that way. But then I don't see SFF fandom so much as filled with "enthusiastic wholesale adoration" I guess. I've seen some weird people get pissy about some famous writers who don't somehow behave the way they "ought to," so I just assumed those were the souls she was referring to. I mean especially in SFF fandom there are so damn many people with the social skills of a dead gnat -- my teenager who is bipolar and autistic has WAY more social graces than many of them -- I just figured that Bear had a run in with one of those types.

LOL, maybe how I read that post was colored by my jaded view of fandom?

[thaedeus.livejournal.com]

People don't like me because of my evil twins. I am perfectly FINE. It's the other two of me that REALLY rub people the wrong way.

It is rather amazing when people manage to homogenize narcissism, arrogance, and humility in their own view of
themselves.

[catherineldf.livejournal.com]

Oh yeah, I'm not going to defend all fannish social skills by any means. But this post smacked of the "Don't hate because I'm famous/published/whatever," which given some of this particular writer's history with blog posting just irritated me. Sometimes it is because one is behaving like an asshole without a good reason.

[catherineldf.livejournal.com]

Yes, my thoughts on that too.