*eyeroll*

[kaigou]

Dear author:

You wrote, "Solicitations for volunteers [for the survey] were sent to Buffistas.com, All Things Philosophical on Angel and Buffy, Slayage.tv, and the Bronze; these either did not respond to the solicitations or refused to post them."

Unh-hunh. After reviewing your pathetic excuse for a hypothesis: "Series-oriented fans see themselves as loyal to the series; whereas story-oriented fans see themselves as loyal to the story, the characters, and/or the relationships.*" ...I suspect it's less that ATPoBtVS refused to post the survey link, so much as the First Evil is a smart enough evil that she saw little reason to make the rest of us suffer through your idiocy.

nolove,
the Second Evil


*Did you really think the owner/moderator of a site called All Things Philosophical — with pages listing extensive treatises comparing the existentialist, pragmatist, and essentialist themes in the show and that's just for the appetizer — wasn't going to be able to nail a false dichotomy at a hundred paces?

Comments

[leorising]

And who the hell doesn't submit anything like that to TWoP, anyway? Jeez.

I seem to be stalking you this weekend. Stop being so interesting! :D

[kaigou]

TWoP? The... something? (I'm not that interesting, you're just that bored! Go bowling!)

[leorising]

Television Without Pity. Best bud Darkpool has many friends there. TWoP in general is a Big Noise in fandom allsorts.

Bowling, lol! Not with these hands. I will be finding other things to do today, tho. :D

[leorising]

Would help if I gave you the link: http://forums.televisionwithoutpity.com/index.php?showtopic=2891151

D'oh! *facepalms*

[kaigou]

Ahah, okay, that name I know -- just wasn't thinking in context for the abbreviation.

On the other hand, if you had such a bizarrely moronic hypothesis, would you open yourself for critique and response from any of the snarkalicious minds at TWoP? I guess at least we can say the social scientist in question might've been dimwitted, but at least dimwitted with some sense of self-preservation.

[leorising]

Sorry, I should've written the acronym out to start with.

Reminiscent of that gal you were talking about who thinks mentioning her weak points is equivalent to actually dealing with her weak points. This one has extra FAIL and a cherry on top, though, because she knows her hypothesis is weak and won't even put it out to the smart kids for vetting. A good hypothesis should stand up to snark, don't you think?

To me, much of Academe is a lot of smart and semi-smart people jacking off smaller and smaller butterflies to win acclaim from smaller and smaller populations of other people who are preoccupied with jacking off butterflies. Or counting the number of angels dancing on the head of a pin, if you prefer. The whole environment invites and honors poseurs and bullshit artists, IMO. Okay if that's what floats your boat, but me, I just don't see the point. Life's too fucking short.

Yurgh. :P

[kraehe.livejournal.com]

"To me, much of Academe is a lot of smart and semi-smart people jacking off smaller and smaller butterflies to win acclaim from smaller and smaller populations of other people who are preoccupied with jacking off butterflies. Or counting the number of angels dancing on the head of a pin, if you prefer. The whole environment invites and honors poseurs and bullshit artists, IMO. Okay if that's what floats your boat, but me, I just don't see the point. Life's too fucking short."

This.

Also, Is Graduate School a Cult? (http://chronicle.com/article/Is-Graduate-School-a-Cult-/44676/)

[hl]

What does that even mean? Who are 'story-oriented fans'? Fans of single issue fiction (i.e. one novel or one movie instead of a series of them), or also fans of a series but who don't consider themselves so? I'm kinda confused...

[kaigou]

I'm kinda confused...

No kidding. Me, too -- I mean, so how, exactly, can you be a fan of the series and not be a fan of the characters, the story, and so on? What are you a fan of, then? The opening credits?

[hl]

The closing credits are my personal favourite, tbh. /0\

[kaigou]

Oh, yeah? I hereby declare the FIRST ANNUAL ULTIMATE FLAMING CREDIT WAR! You END CREDIT people are going DOWN!

*winds up near-incoherent volley*

*slings*

actually, that would be kinda awesome, to do a parody flame thread

[hl]

I saw one of those! It was certainly bizarre. I wonder if I can find the link among my browsing history to share.

[kaigou]

If you do, please share!

[kellicat.livejournal.com]

The writer of that hypothesis comes off as a fandom noob or a student desperate for help on her paper. It also sounds as though the writer is an academic type 'slumming' in fandom and is shocked to find that they don't appreciate her genius deconstruction.*

*Perhaps I'm reading too much into it. Then again, I've seen enough 'slumming' on the part of academic strivers to get suspicious when I see something as simplistic as this hypothesis pop up.

[kaigou]

Published! In a peer-reviewed journal, no less! And then in a collection of essays -- and not a self-published or small press collection, at that!

...at which point I thought to myself, self, I thought: why the hell did I call it quits on being a professional philosopher when, wow, look, it's so EASY. Just come up with a really idiotic hypothesis, find a survey sponsor, and I, too, could be, like, published. And stuff.

and completely unable to respect myself in the morning but I suppose that's beside the point

[kellicat.livejournal.com]

I'm saddened, but I am not surprised to hear that this writer is actually published. A lot of academics seem to think that fandom should be graced by their presence and that nobody who's a fan of a TV show is smart enough recognize a bad hypothesis.

[kaigou]

My immediate reaction: "What? What? I've been waiting YEARS for fandom to recognize how much it's graced by my presence! And here comes some snot-nosed social scientist who thinks she can just WALTZ in and do the gracing? Who does she think she IS? Get in LINE, kid!"

I think I slept funny. Feeling oddly punchy this morning...