Last week’s ask column irked many. One reader emailed me to tell me I was off base in my comments, another cancelled her financial support of AAR, and several others got close to testy in the comments.
I thought it would be interesting to pull up some older conversations at AAR and see how or if our topics and/or comments here have changed. I picked four.
The first is Are Feminism & Romance Novels Mutually Exclusive? and was published in November of 1997. (We can’t see the comments on this one–they were lost in a long ago site update, I think.) In it, Laurie Gold asks Kay Mussell, a scholar at American University this:
“I am someone who is a lifelong feminist. I studied it in college, wrote papers on it, and when I worked outside the home, was a strident liver of feminist ideals.
“While I work at home now and read romance, I still consider myself a feminist. What I have a problem with is dealing with the fact that reading romance is considered not to be feminist. I have very mixed feelings about this. Number one, I read romance for the fantasy, and I doubt whether or not it is required that fantasies have to equate to social and political ideals. Number two, nearly all the romances I’ve read have female protagonists who, if not to start, are strong and intelligent women at the end. They may use other wiles in addition to their brains to achieve their ends, but these are not wall-flowers or dummies or doormats.
“Are romance novels and feminism mutually exclusive?”
The second is from October of 2000 and is titled The Author, “Formal” & “Informal” Criticism. This one you can see the comments. The article itself is written by Adele Ashworth. Ashworth addresses this question and readers and reviewers then respond.
“What is the relationship between critics and artists/authors, or the reality of being a public figure, or the right of readers to object or comment on a work which has been sold to them?”
The third is an article by Patricia Gaffney called How Does an Author Feel About Reader Criticism? We can’t see the comments on this one. It’s from 1996.
The last is the first of a series of posts, from 2008, entitled The Happily Ever After Ending which asks that perennial question:
Must a romance have an HEA ending?
The comments on this one are lengthy.
Enjoy!
There is no link to the “Happily Ever After”
Thank you for catching that. It’s fixed.
From skimming those articles and the comments (as well as my own recollections of numerous other threads over the years) it seems that this site used to host a lot of academic-style analysis of the romance genre and all kinds of differing opinions could be expressed without it getting personal.
If the feel of the conversations has changed, I guess that’s because society has changed. Social media echo chambers, tribal politics, cultural insularity, etc. have made it easy to hang out with only like-minded people and maybe we’re (collectively speaking) losing the ability to delve into complex subjects and respectfully disagree sometimes.
It used to be that encountering a different point of view was often an opportunity to examine your own stance and maybe change your mind, or at least clarify why you hold your opinion on that topic. Now for most people, a contrary view is just as likely to harden their original position and there’s little reflection involved. It’s not a conversation if nobody
is listening to each other, rather it’s a shouting match. We do tend to play the man and not the ball, not just here but everywhere. It’s very depressing. We are less civilised in our public debate than previous generations; why should it be different online?
Anonymity.
I think the ability to be ‘hidden’ online has made it easier to be rude and uncivilised. That’s probably not the only reason, and I’m not saying it necessarily applies here at AAR. But you’ve only got to look at the cesspit of some social media sites to see how true it is.
I think online gives people the thought that they can say whatever they want. I am on several forums and am amazed at how negative and really b****y people get. Someone asks a question on our college parents forum and people yell, find it on google or let your kid grow up. I get those are options, but really do you have to say that to someone just asking a question. We don’t know all of anyone’s situations, it would be great if we could all just have a bit more grace. It just seems to be everywhere now.
Every time I am stressed, my mantra is:
Grace. Joy. Hope. Love.
“It used to be that encountering a different point of view was often an opportunity to examine your own stance and maybe change your mind, or at least clarify why you hold your opinion on that topic. ”
It’s difficult to do when people are arguing from different sets of assumptions and different understandings of what the facts are. And it’s also difficult when people are acting out in response to fear or trauma. And we have a lot of fear and trauma in our world today.
People have always come from differing perspectives and they’ve always argued about the facts. I was just reading about the 1936 election–either side saw the nation in starkly different terms and disagreed wildly about what the country was like. So I honestly don’t think that’s it.
I also am sure that every era has had fear and trauma. In many ways, this is far less traumatic time than many many other eras. I think our news coverage is now unrelentingly negative–we’ve stopped seeing all the incredible advances the world has made in the past years.
But there’s no getting around how lonely many of us are. And when you are disconnected from others, you’re way more anxious. And the longer you are feeling isolated, the easier it is to stop trusting that others, even those who have different values, might have the same dreams and hopes that you do. (I do not mean YOU–I mean all of us as individuals.)
“I also am sure that every era has had fear and trauma. In many ways, this is far less traumatic time than many many other eras.”
Of course. Tillie Olsen’s “I Stand Here Ironing” (first published in 1956) has the narrator describe her daughter: “She is a child of her age, of depression, of war, of fear.” And the 1950s also brought us McCarthyism.
“(I do not mean YOU–I mean all of us as individuals.)”
As an FYI, no one ever has to make this disclaimer to me. I never take anything personally. My problems with the trigger warning discussion have to do with weak critical thinking, and I feel compelled to try to excavate the implicit assumptions of the arguments. I am literally discussing the ideas. The problem is when people make shoddy arguments that rely on assumptions they don’t hold. Or possibly another way of looking at it is that sometimes people don’t realize that their arguments reveal their assumptions, and they feel attacked by having those assumptions revealed and associated with them. But really, I am just following the argument’s logic.
Sorry – I’m an English professor and I teach critical thinking as part of my writing classes. And believe me, I’ve had my unstated assumptions revealed and turned back on me more than once. Hazard of the profession.
FYI – you can see reader feedback to the Kay Mussell interview/conversation by clicking on the little heart at the bottom of the page. Those links still seem to be live.
Readers Respond on Feminism and Romance : All About Romance
Wow. I didn’t pay much attention to last week’s column because it wasn’t a topic I found interesting. After reading today’s, I went back and all I can say is I’m sorry the conversation went sideways. Change is inevitable. The Romance genre and the Publishing industry has changed quite a bit since I started reading 60ish years ago. Your reviewers have changed, the type of books you review has changed, the mindset of your readers has changed. Its all good. When I was still working (semi tech field), I used to say you have to get ahead of the change otherwise you just get rolled over by it. I think you guys have done a decent job.
As far as last week’s column goes, Mark said it best: Authors do not owe readers a safe space, but Authors and Publishers do owe readers clear expectations of what they will be encountering in the book without giving away spoilers. It’s really a marketing issue. When I was young, I used to choose the books I wanted to read based solely on the blurb on the back cover. For the most part, that worked well. If something upset me, I put the book down and moved on to the next book. Now a reader has so many resources available to get advance info about a book. In addition to AAR, I look at other review sites, Goodreads, Amazon, reviews in newspapers and magazines, as well as recommendations from friends. Are trigger warnings needed? I don’t know. Too many people ignore them and then get upset anyway. Some people thrive on the emotional catharsis and other people don’t. People do need to learn to either scroll on by, or stop reading if they are getting upset by something they are reading.
Sorry–this went into spam. I have rescued it!
It is fascinating (at least to my reading of these essays/posts and “comments”) that we continue to have much the same conversations today as 25 years ago. The questions posed and topics mused are similar (and in some cases about the very same books and authors), as are many of the comments and opinions. No judgement about any of it. Just interesting. It brings to mind that old saying about “the more things change, the more they seem to remain the same.”
(There are some great posts – in “feedback” posts – by authors on those old pages. (I clicked around a bit. Also, the wayback machine has a copy of the site from 2001 – with some live links still in place. Good stuff!) And I about had a heart attack when I saw so many email addresses included in some of those posts. I think I’m glad that particular practice has gone by the wayside here at AAR.)
It is hard to know if people’s conversations were more “civil” or comments were “taken personally” in those days – or if commenters were more aggressive or personal in their comments – because the site didn’t allow or show comments in the same way as today. It appears that folks could “reply” in some way or send comments (perhaps on the message boards or directly via email?) and someone (Laurie, I assume) chose which comments (or perhaps only parts of those?) to include in the “comments” or “reader feedback” posts. Again, no judgement about any of this except to say that I think it is hard to compare the tone of those “feedback” posts – or peoples’ reactions to them – then and now as a result. Things were mediated 25 years ago (even on the Internet) in ways they are not today.
Personally, I do not like heavily modified comments. I think that you lose too much truth. I am not at all put off by comments here. However I well remember the comment section on amazon and I thought that it became a real horror show. This was disappointing to me because I am most sincerely interested in what other readers are thinking about.
I’m going to be very frank with you: yes it has, and part of that is due to weak moderation. I know that you want this website to be an open market for ideas, but it’s primarily a romance novel review website. Can it be a place for academic study of romance and romance tropes? Yes, and it should be. It shouldn’t be a place where we, for instance, spend a week debating whether or not people who need trigger warnings are adults.
Throw inflammatory, click-attracting blog posts like last week’s and dozens of others and add in a comment section that’s not heavily moderated and it turns into an unpleasant mess. It’s been slowly but surely driving off more liberal commenters to places like Smart Bitches, Trashy Books. It drove away commenters like Keira, Blackjack and mel burns. I wouldn’t want an echo chamber but some of the things I’ve seen posters get away with on here are stunning. So yes, the discourse attached to the site has changed over time, but only because of the way it’s being run these days.
Funny I’ve stopped visiting Smart Bitches Trashy books because if you deviate anywhere outside what is considered correct you get jumped into sometimes viciously. No I have not been on the receiving end of it but I witnessed it plenty and moved on.
They have a different array of problems, but it’s been a long time since I’ve seen an argument that’s this bad over there.
I stopped reading a while back because my opinions aligned with some of those being jumped on so it’s quite possible that a lot of readers like me just moved on. Consensus has a way of stopping debate. As I said it’s been a long time since I’ve read there so it’s possible I’m missing the mark
Thank you for your comment, Bronte. I think you have expressed something I myself have been thinking which is that there seems to be a move by some readers for totalitarian consensus. Minor deviations are tolerated, but opposing views are not.
Indeed.
SMTB doesn’t like what it doesn’t like, for sure.
No, I believe you’re both probably right – I don’t visit there regularly.
I don’t think it’s a problem of moderation. I think it’s a problem of some people being unable to calmly engage with views that don’t match their own. The post about content warnings was not inherently inflammatory, but a lot of commenters were ready to be inflamed by it.
I disagree.
To some specific extent.
See my post there, I do not want to post this twice.
I have answered your post there. Thank you again for your thoughtful take.
It’s difficult to calmly engage with any topic when personal attacks come out and then aren’t properly moderated.
I have looked at your comments over time. Your dislike of my moderation has been consistent since at least 2018. As has your strongly worded criticisms of other readers here. AND I think you have the right to post here just as anyone else does.
And yes, some readers have left. Some have left because their, for lack of better word, conservative comments were attacked and they didn’t feel welcome. Over the years, I’ve heard from commenters on both sides of issues saying AAR isn’t welcoming to their beliefs.
The Atlantic no longer allows comments. My local newspaper has quit–they only allow letters to the editor now. It’s certainly one way to go.
Thank you for your perspective. I send you grace and peace.
I find it fascinating you think my comment history is worth digging into. I may have the right, so to speak, to do all of this – but when controversial posts happen, moderation ought to be stepped up accordingly. If you want a low moderation website, then blogs shouldn’t lean into clickbaity topics. Freedom of Speech protects us from the government, it doesn’t protect us from John Q Internet having an opinion. Threatening to cut out comments entirely instead of actively moderating is certainly a choice, but also show off an abdication of responsibility.
And likewise.
I’m just going to say thank you to Dabney and all the other reviewers for whom this site & all of the work that goes into it, is a labour of love. Long may y’all continue to do so. As for everything else, deep breaths & ‘this too shall pass’
I have been visiting this site since it was Laurie Likes Books & have to say No, I do not really think the conversations have changed all that much. I remember a few that were so intense with hundreds of amazingly rude and insulting comments that the entire posts were removed. But, they were very good reading and an interesting look into the thoughts of other romance lovers. So, if anything at all has changed, I think maybe people are little kinder to each other these days 🙂 Please don’t change a thing.
I appreciate your perspective and agree that this site has hosted some heated discussions since its beginning. As someone who has been here for more than a quarter of a century, both as a reader and then as a reader and reviewer, I’ve taken part in quite a few of them.
But as a reviewer, I can say I have seen a change. The conversations have turned uglier, and the proponents of certain views will instigate a pile-on via X (formerly Twitter) or other platforms to ensure their side “wins”. I’ve found myself commenting less because I just don’t need that kind of ugly in my life. And that’s a shame. Because I love books, I love talking about books, and I feel like doing it less and less.
It’s a challenge these days, that’s for sure. But my sense is most of our readers DO want such discussions. Not all, but most.
I respect that. The question was “Have the conversations changed?” and so my response is Yes, and the above describes how.
It’s disheartening to me. There is a coterie of people, and the numbers seem larger than they used to, who shout others down. I see it in my building in ways we didn’t used to have and on the net.
I’ve followed this site for, well, not sure how long but it’s probably close to 30 years now. I still read the blog(s?) on a regular basis and check the message board periodically to see if anything intriguing has popped up. But I don’t comment that much nowadays because I don’t comment anywhere all that much. Main reason? Time. Secondary cause? Life in general.
There is just too much to do to elsewhere spend a lot of time following threads online, especially the really long ones. And, in particular, I actively avoid the perennial hot button topics that seem to crop up on a regular basis. I’m not talking about once or twice here but quite a number of times over the years to the point I can almost predict ahead of time what arguments are going to be made on a lot of them. So, at this point it’s less about avoiding any controversy as it is more been there, done that. A lot.
Which is probably why I didn’t even pay that much attention to the post about readers & safe spaces but have been avidly reading the comments on this one. Because other people’s observations & opinions on how things have changed or not here and elsewhere is interesting. Fascinating, even.
Semi-off topic, but Nah mentions Blackjack and I want to say I miss her comments. I’ve no idea why she stopped posting here and I’ve not seen her posts elsewhere. She had a definite POV, and even if I disagreed I found her often insightful.
As for the more general topic, there’s been nastiness online for a long time. I think it’s getting worse in some places but I don’t think AAR is one of them.
I can’t speak to Blackjack but I do think many people are most comfortable spending their time on sites that reflect their views. Places like AAR, where disagreement is often the norm just aren’t for everybody. I miss Blackjack too–I, personally, am so fond of having people challenge my perspective! But I can totally see that for many, life is too short to feel criticized by strangers on the internet!
I cannot answer your question, as I’m not sure how you were two decades ago, I don’t even remember how I was! For me, AAR was a great discovery, a place where you could read about romance novels, awesome!
But I’m sure that the Western world has changed. Now everything is either black or white, with no greys in between. Polarization, they call it. And that’s something that permeates everything nowadays.
Well, I’m always hopeful we can move towards more nuance!