So, before I say anything else, I want to say that Phoenix Comicon 2015 was a rousing, immense success.
The panels were fantastic. The panelists were even better. We sold out of our copies of The City Stained Red, which is tops. And, above all else, the fans were absolutely phenomenal. Phoenix Comicon is my very favorite show specifically because it’s where I find most of my readers and they’re all amazingly cheerful, happy to see me and complimentary.
Example? By the end of the convention, I had a small stack of cookies, bon bons, macarons and other confections that people had brought me. It’s actually probably pretty easy to assassinate me, given how much I enjoy getting baked goods at conventions, but I digress.
So, to that end, thank you to all who came. Thank you for supporting me in my writing. Thank you for supporting me at my panels. Thank you.
Given that I started by writing something positive, it probably feels like cheating that this blog post will be about something I have great difficulty talking about, but it can’t be helped. For as much fun as I had at the con and as big of a success as I considered it (and it was a huge success), there was a sore aspect that stuck out to me. It had nothing to do with the convention, just a random person in the audience.
During a panel, I was joking around with Myke Cole, as I often do. I can’t remember how it came up, but the subject of Tinder, the dating app, came up. From somewhere in the audience, some fellow shouted: “Sam seems more like a Grindr user to me.”
Grindr is like Tinder, except for gay dudes.
The panel kind of slid to a stop there. There were a few muted chuckles, but one of those dark silences that you usually hear right after a joke fails hung over the crowd for a moment. I was kind of thrown off my game by this comment.
Bear with me as I try to explain this.
It being implied that this fellow had suspicions that I was gay did not bother me. I’m pretty secure in my orientation and I’m perfectly happy that way. What bothered me was the fact that someone thought this was clever. Like, what if I was gay? What then? What would it matter? The joke didn’t really land because it wouldn’t make much sense outside of a group of fifteen year old boys shouting “LOL GAY” at each other in home room.
Given that I am not a fifteen year old boy, despite the humor I espouse, it didn’t really amuse.
I could have ground the entire panel to a halt to call it out, but I just moved on. We had a good time.
But it was weird.
Like, I wish I could say that this was the first time people have speculated on my sexuality to my face. But it’s not. And it’s not less weird each time it happens. It actually gets more weird because it’s a very peculiar situation that actually happens a lot. Not the sexuality speculation, but overstepping boundaries, in general.
For as much as I love social media, there’s times when it’s really wearing.
There’s times when I’ll write out a joke to my friends, stare at it, then delete it because I know someone else will read it, assume that because I’m joking about this to someone else, it is okay for them to joke about it with me.
There’s times when I’ll write out what I think is a pretty funny tweet, stare at it, then delete it because I know someone else will read it and make a painfully obvious joke that I was deliberately trying to avoid.
There’s when it’s very difficult to do social media.
And that’s because my fans are wonderful people. Not once has anyone ever made a joke that was intentionally malicious, hateful or savage in my direction. Not once has anyone said something that I would consider way over the line. And that’s what makes this so frustrating: it’s very rarely an intentional leap over the line, it’s usually just a toe or a step over the line.
And the line is hard to see sometimes.
There’s a lot of theories out there about the nature of being a public figure. Some say that being someone associated with an act, product or accomplishment dehumanizes you, however a little, in the eyes of an audience. Some say that this phenomenon, coupled with the way social media brings people closer together to creators, makes it easy to treat people like objects rather than people.
As for me, I think it’s just a matter of social boundaries being difficult to read.
Delilah Dawson agrees and wrote a pretty good piece on it.
That’s why this is difficult. And if I keep saying it’s difficult, it’s because it’s really that difficult. Hateful messages are pretty easy to deal with: you can block them and then move on. It’s the good-intentioned, poorly-executed overtures that are hard to handle.
You get lame jokes. You get really weird, overfamiliar, inappropriate commentary. Sometimes you get propositioned. And if you react to these, you don’t always get a sympathetic reaction from people.
Sometimes, they say: “So what? It’s just a joke!”
Okay, fair enough. I like jokes. I can appreciate good jokes. But here’s the thing about jokes: when a comedian does a joke and the audience is silent, he doesn’t start accusing the audience of having no sense of humor. He makes a note to work on that joke, then moves onto something funny.
And just because there is a joke doesn’t make it funny. And even funny jokes get old after a while. I mean, ask Wil Wheaton if he thinks “shut up Wesley” comments are funny.
Case in point: I love fan art. I absolutely adore my fans who feel moved enough by my work to put it into illustration. I’m in awe of their talent.
Yet I’m always reluctant to talk about it on twitter. Because, without fail, I will get someone who said: “LOL I MISREAD THAT AS ‘FART.'”
It is so lame. It is so old. It is such a lazy, stupid, awful joke. There’s nothing particularly offensive about it, it’s just been done so many times that I really have no patience for it.
A good friend of mine says he auto-blocks people who make obvious, old jokes. He says that if it’s obvious that he’s reaching past that joke, it’s disrespectful to make it. I’m not quite there, but I see what he means.
Sometimes, people say: “Well, you kind of have to expect some shit, being a public figure.”
And that makes me sad.
Like, I understand that reaction completely. I’ve overstepped tons of boundaries in my lifetime. I once commented on an author’s appearance–an author I barely knew–and they got pretty pissed at me. Which made sense: I didn’t know them well enough to make that comment. And sure, I had that flash of “it was just a joke, jeez.” But I realized that I was in the wrong there and I apologized.
And apologizing can be supremely scary.
I have always said there’s no shame in apologizing and I stand by that. But there can certainly be shaming in apologizing. The current rhetorical climate means that admitting fault is often the same as admitting vulnerability and you can be mocked, abused or threatened for doing so. It sucks.
But we move on.
And that’s why I’m not making sweeping proclamations, banging my shoe on a podium, calling for an end to fan interaction. Like I said, above all else, I love my fans. I love being close to them and I love that they can be close to me. That’s why I accept that, sometimes, we will overstep each other’s boundaries. This will happen.
All I’m saying is just be mindful.
Before you make a joke, ask yourself if it’s the kind of joke you’d make with someone you know well.
If you make a joke and it doesn’t land, remember there’s no shame in apologizing.
Most of the time, faux pas are just that: social accidents or mistake. If you’re acting with good in your heart, you will almost always be forgiven, and eventually your awesomeness will overwhelm the incident.
Also, the key to a good poop joke is to make it someone else’s hypothetical poop. Never refer to your poop or your audience’s poop. That’s just weird.
PROTIP.
I like this post. I like it because I make a very very concerted effort NOT to send things to people on Twitter I don’t know, unless it’s pretty damn safe to do so. That being said, as a fan of yours, sometimes that line of “oh this would be funny” gets VERY blurry. It’s blurry because of what Twitter is and how it works. I read your tweets and you tweet a lot (PLEASE don’t stop, you’re hilarious) but reading your tweets gives me a sense of familiarity that I haven’t earned. It FEELS like I know you. But I don’t know you, have never met you , and you are not my ‘friend.’ Yet that familiarity makes it hard to resist a good joke that would be funny IF I KNEW YOU. It’s gone far enough that I’ve written something, looked at it, and then said, um, no, that would be too weird. So thank you for this blog post. I hope I have never crossed that awkwardness line and also hope that if I do, I have the grace to apologize.
I agree. I think that the illusion of familiarity created by so much one-sided exposure to a public figure is what causes a substantial amount of the problems with creepy, boundary-crossing behavior. It’s so natural to treat someone familiar to you as though they were a friend. Our minds aren’t really built to deal with feeling that close to someone who has no idea who you are at all. It’s stressful and weird to have to constantly question everything you want to do or say in order to keep yourself from crossing those lines. I usually end up just avoiding the interaction altogether just to make sure that I don’t bother them. Of course, I miss out on the opportunity to talk to someone I respect and admire that way, so it’s far from an ideal solution.
Great piece, Sam. I think the difference between stand-up comics and the everyday folks who *think* they’re standup comics is the wannabes think humor is the vindicator. The “safe mode”. They try to claim they were just joking, as if that makes it all go away. The pros understand humor is going all in. They’re sticking their necks out. They’re living and dying by the fickle and unpredictable nebulous nature of the room’s collective sense of humor. If a joke doesn’t fly, that’s on them. I don’t often hear the professional comics go “chill out, it was just a joke”. That’s usually the line of their online fan defenders. The pros know the power jokes have. They wield it.
The people who understand this but aren’t professional comedians are usually just normal people who are actually seen as funny.
Thank you for this post. I was at this panel, and when I told my roommate about it afterward, he was firmly in the “it was just a joke” camp. Thank you for elucidating a compelling counterargument.
I’m glad that PCC was otherwise an awesome time. We always enjoy your panels and I’m glad we finally listened to Aunt Sandee about picking up City Stained Red! Looking forward to reading it. 🙂
Sam
This is something you clearly feel strongly about and as someone not in the public eye maybe I’m missing something. But… The Grindr/Tinder thing I get being very weird but the Twitter stuff. Why do you care if followers make crap jokes from your tweets? Just ignore them, no? I mean they are not a direct attack on you and the presence of the crap joke in the replies to your tweet just persist to make the “joker” look like a dick.
I’m not saying you should expect this on Twitter any more than someone not in the public eye. You may get more of it as you have more followers but surely this is common on the Twitters and just needs ignoring completely – or am I missing something
I’ve seen this the other way around, with a panelist making a quip about “What the hell is Syrian Cuisine anyway? Camel!??” and getting a “Not cool” from the audience.
Isn’t part of the annoyance is that it’s a derail. I mean: “So what if somebody’s gay. How is that funny? Do we have to stop the interesting conversation to deal with this? ” The “not cool” was perhaps the optimum response.
I think cons must be a perfect storm for this kind of thing. On the one hand, you have a lot of tired people in an extrovert mode they don’t usually use and perhaps haven’t updated for a few years or decades. On the other, you have a context where people are very aware of new social mores.
So the extrovert’s stock, “[Random Quip Here]” response is fraught with peril. This, I think, is a good reason to keep up a local social life with a wide age range.
Sam, I appreciated this post very much. Social boundaries are fickle, ever evolving aspects of humanity that we, as a species, cannot seem to grasp. Among all of the genres of “boundaries,” I find it equally interesting and infuriating that “social boundaries” have become the trademark digression of good people everywhere. Some totem-pole God put social boundaries at the bottom on a scale of what is not acceptable to ignore. The truth is, violated social boundaries are one of the most upsetting because of how casual it can be; a few words can hold a lot of weight. You said it best; if someone oversteps a boundary, they should just apologize. If not, smite them into a billion shards of limitless horror.
Hope you are doing well.
Well said. That is a sorta hard situation since you couldn’t really do much about something you found a bit offensive without making it into a big production. I mean it wasn’t a huge deal but it is the type of thing that nags at your recollection of the event, and that sucks. Boundaries are one of the hardest things to define since they constantly change between people and also as your relationship with a person grows. I think you probably have it more often than a lot of people though because you seem pretty easygoing and approachable. That’s a good quality to have in my opinion but it can have it’s downsides. I’m not really sure there is a good answer to that issue. Lol. Anywho haven’t been by the blog since my baby was born and a bit off topic but the redesign is very nice and professional looking. Now I’m going to go see if you updated your bio age since I have always found your agelessness amusing. (And according to my iPod I agelessness is not a word, just an FYI there)
It’s tough, because frequently those of us who are the most “out there” on social media can be the most guarded in real life, and when confronted by that conflict, people don’t always know what to do. And it gets worse when there are co-conspirators out there whom we routinely cross boundaries with. It’s the old question of “do I know you well enough to make that joke?” And the answer’s often “no.” Both the public and those of us nominally in the public eye walk a fine line nowadays. But glad the con went well – hope to make it out to that one someday soon.
Just wanted to let you know that I read this. And I think it’s an excellent post on a tough subject. Thank you for writing it.
“Before you make a joke, ask yourself if it’s the kind of joke you’d make with someone you know well.”
I’d argue that you should consider if it’s the kind of joke you’d make with someone you don’t know AT ALL. I mean, I joke about all sorts of horrible horrible things with my friends that if I mentioned them on social media I would definitely be on some sort of a list…
Good post, Sam. I can’t say I’ve often be in a scenario like yours, but I have been witness to poor taste in comments in casual situations. I used to just ignore them, but nowadays, I am more inclined to respond rather than simply letting the comments pass. Nothing too reactive, just a “wow, lame” kind of response (dependent on the situation, of course). I feel that in today’s society, many people just want to be heard, but they don’t always know how to go about it, so its up to me to show that I don’t find how they are expressing themselves to be appropriate. It’s not always easy to do without putting the other person on the defensive, which is not my aim. But I don’t want my silence to be interpreted as tacit approval.