Zee made me post this.

[schmerica]

Dear fandom, sometimes people are a) immature b) bitchy or c) wanky. Surprisingly enough, there is no direct correlation between this and being under 18. Seriously, you deal with underage people ALL THE FREAKING TIME, and you don't know it, because we don't choose to tell you. Most people CAN'T TELL, and that's FINE. If you do have the emotional maturity to deal with fandom reasonably, and you don't broadcast your age and make it into a issue for list owners and such, nobody SHOULD care.

(Less life experience CAN mean more wankiness, but you know what? That's usually if you are a person prone to it anyway. Other people just keep getting worse and worse about the longer they go on. Seriously, there's a certain type of kerfuffle-raising that's a skill; you get better at it with time.)

I have to admit, too, that when I entered fandom as a teenager (after I started college, but before I was legal for anything), one of the things I absolutely loved about it was its age-blindness. On the internet, what matters is how you present yourself and how you act that matters, not your age. At 17, it is kind of amazing to be able to strike up discussions and friendships with people anywhere from your own age to three decades older than you and have none of them automatically, without even thinking, treating you like a silly kid.

Signed with love and frustration,
Pearl-"I Was a Baby Fangirl and I Lived to Tell About It!"-o

Comments

[melpemone.livejournal.com]

I entered fandom as a mouthy fourteen year old, and soon learned to keep quiet and read my porn in the corner. I found it a tremendous injustice that people wouldn't talk to me because I was so young, but nearly 11 years down the track I kinda get where they were coming from - I have every faith that the teenager I'm talking to about buttsecks has a modicum of maturity, at the very least, but their parents scare the shit outta me. So I recommend that people under 18 don't friend me, but I'm not really very diligent about checking. :-)

[lamardeuse.livejournal.com]

I have every faith that the teenager I'm talking to about buttsecks has a modicum of maturity, at the very least, but their parents scare the shit outta me.

Thank you for summarizing my main concern with the issue so neatly. I had serious misgivings when I was in HP; you literally have a lot to fear if you engage in direct interaction with a minor about this kind of stuff, not from the kid but from the parents. I didn't try to stop people from reading, but I did put disclaimers up the wazoo and deliberately refused to engage with people who I knew were underage.

[melpemone.livejournal.com]

Eee! omg, hi! I love your fic! I just finished re-re-re-reading Head Trip - please have my extremely belated thanks and kudos?[/fangirl]

Man, HP came with tremendous baggage, didn't it? It was a fun four years, but I'm relieved to be out. And yeah, I used to have nightmare visions of the police knocking on my door thanks to some overzealous parent, and a couple of times I struggled with what to do when a friend came out with their "P.S.: I'm 16, sorry" post. It's a lose/lose situation for everyone involved.

[lamardeuse.livejournal.com]

Yes, and wow, you're in Australia, where the legislation is even more draconian than here in Canada. *sigh* I had to age up my Harry in my big fic to avoid the risk of being labeled a child pornographer, and I yanked my podcast of an underage story off the net as well.

And thank you for the fangirling! You're very kind. :)

[pearl-o.livejournal.com]

There's not really any way you CAN check, dude; the ast majority of us are considerate enough not to put our age in our lj profiles or mention it in unlocked/uncut posts.

[melpemone.livejournal.com]

This is extremely true, and I'm fine with that. I'm completely and totally aware that there are people underage that I talk to all the time - I'm just not aware of most of them. :-) I did the exact same thing, so it would be hugely hypocritical of me to criticise any underage friend of mine for omitting their age. Just... there's a fair few draconian laws here in Australia, and if I'm found to be providing porn to a minor, it's jail time. Same with writing porn featuring people under 18 (I had to pull all my HP fic, though I've decided since that my personal limit is 16+, because that's the age of consent, damn it, and perfectly reasonable). In short, it got a bit scary there for a while, and made a lot of people very paranoid. HP fandom will do that to you. *g*

In summary (!), I'll put up disclaimers and warn off teenagers because that's what I have to do. But I'll turn a blind eye because I sympathise, and in return I hope they don't inadvertently rain trouble on my head. Which is far easier in dS, for damn sure. :-)

[pearl-o.livejournal.com]

n summary (!), I'll put up disclaimers and warn off teenagers because that's what I have to do.

Dude, of course! I totally understand that; I expect everyone to do that, you know? That is not insulting, that is just the legal situation. My post is more of a response to people whose problem is not "hey, legality, gotta cover my back" but more directly set in stone and unthinkingly dismissive.