The Leewit @ghost_bird@witches.town

KC: Nerd culture is exclusionary by nature - the myth of nerd identity begins with straight white boys who were bullied at school.
HG: Nerd culture as a "fictive ethnicity" for white men, imitating the collective identities of marginalised groups. Nerd bullying as the privileged imitating the self-defense of marginalised groups.
#NineWorlds

KC: Fan culture depends on emotional investment. So does brand-based marketing. There's a toxic synergy when companies market to fans. Toxicity begins with over-investment and the inability to separate yourself from the product.

General agreement that Marvel's diverse comics are mostly tokenism - the titles get publicity but little support.

KC: What do you do, as a business, when you've (rightly or wrongly) identified your most important customers as the most toxic fans? Publishers and creators are afraid to say no to them.

#NineWorlds

White male nerds suffer recurring amnesia, which is why we're still having arguments about weather Star Trek should be "diverse" and "political", or Wonder Woman "getting too feminist".
#NineWorlds

Next up: "Toxicity in Fandom", with Helen Gould, Simone Brunzell, Katherine Cross, and Mia Violet.
#NineWorlds

"We have no shadows any more, so the modern or postmodern monster is the thing you've seen and misidentified." - Liz Gloyn
#NineWords

(An unspoken theme in this talk is that dangerous female monsters that begin in Classical misogyny get reimagined as sympathetic, domesticated, and eroticised in modern treatments.)
#NineWorlds

Classical monsters tend to be feminine and to exist on the margins because the Classical idea of civilisation is masculine. Maenads as a part of Bacchic festivals are a "domesticated" version of the same principle, making a temporary space outside the city to be free of civilisation.
#NineWorlds

Monsters as a rhizomatic system of symbols, existing "underground" across times and places to emerge when conditions are right.
#NineWorlds

"My problem as a Classicist is... if monsters are representations of our fears and desires then why are we still interested in Medusa, or the Minotaur, who represent the fears and desires of a very different culture?" - Liz Gloyn

"Content warning that nasty things happen in Classical myth, but probably less in the monsters we're discussing than in the family sagas."
#NineWorlds

"Pacing yourself is a skill. You can be proud of going slowly and not trying to push yourself too far."
#NineWorlds

"Bodies as instrument versus bodies as ornament."
#NineWorlds

Panellist: All feminised Others experience a gab between the way your body is and the way it's expected to be. Exercise can help you inhabit and own your body and feel less like a brain in meat-suit.
#NineWorlds

"For the first thirty-five years of my life I associated fitness with failure to meet the expectations of other people." - Stiainín Jackson
#NineWorlds

Wide variety of exercise being discussed: wild swimming, walking, roller derby, ballet,

Key issues: being comfortable with your body, feeling comfortable occupying (public) space... negotiating the painful gap between the way you are and the way you're expected to be.
#NineWorlds

Next up: "Fit is a Feminist Issue". Sadly, I'm going to have to leave part way through. #NineWorlds

(Trying to practice taking selfies, but so far my two looks are (i) blank-faced automaton or (ii) "I am attempting to emulate the human 'smile', as you call it".)

...but not much debate, because of a shared assumption among MPs and Lords that "we all know" what British values are. Shared cultural IDs revolved around:

- The importance of the World Wars where "people died for our values". (Death as sanctification.)
- The Magna Carta as the symbolic "cornerstone of democracy". (It isn't, so any definition can be attached.)
- Non-existent "issues in Birmingham" as proof of the failure of multiculturalism.

#NineWorlds

School inspection requirements changed from "promoting community cohesion" to "promoting British values". Debates held about the meaning of "British values" but not about the actual change. #NineWorlds