creativity 2.0: creativity has never really been a democratic process

[sophiaserpentia]

I learned a lot, about myself and the nature of fandom, from the great WoW RealIDFail controversy of last week.

Being a fan of just about anything will generally get you a lot of grief, and so people learn in public not to mention that they are a fan. Unless you're talking about sports fans -- which makes me think that scorning fans is yet another secret form of misogyny, peppered with our society's general scorn for intelligence. I think this is part of why, whenever the producers or writers of an entertainment franchise do something that ignites fan controversy, discussion within the fan base isn't so much between opponents & supporters, as it is between opponents and people making fun of opponents.

But I got to thinking about the notion of being "emotionally invested" in something. A fan is someone who has made a significant emotional investment, not to mention a significant financial investment as well, in an entertainment franchise. That's not to mention the contribution they make to the community -- fan art, fan fic, etc., the glue which binds fans together and keeps them spending money -- and their enthusiastic free publicity for the franchise: word-of-mouth and viral marketing which advertisers dream of (because it means customers doing their job for them).

However, fans are not usually seen by the producers and creators as being co-investors at all. From the other perspective, the "investors" are the creative talent and the ones who sign the checkbooks at production time. This leaves fans in an incredibly vulnerable position: they are investors who have no real say in the decisions that are made.

This may be a large part of why so many people's relationship with a fandom, a very personal and intense experience, often quite literally a formative part of their lives, more often than not ends with sadness or disappointment. Fans make what is for them a huge investment in something in which they have no real say; the only vote they get is to stop consuming.

As a writer I can see how the flip-side might become somewhat harrowing; if you listen to fans *too* much, if you deliver only what they want, you might feel too constrained and feel as though you've had to sell your artistic integrity.

Before RealIDFail I would likely have sided with the writer 100%. But as I've said before, the meaning of a creative work is essentially the response intended to be provoked in the reader/listener/viewer. The writer or musician or developer does not develop subsequent works in a vacuum, especially at the point when there is a large, vibrant, active fan community. (So was Stephen King saying in Misery that he felt hobbled by his fan base?)

I'm not sure what I'm saying here in terms of how much an artist or developer owes to the fan community, I'm just... thinking about this and seeing if there's a dialog to be had about it. How much of a say do fans have? How much say should they have? Will artistic quality or meaningfulness suffer or improve if fans are allowed greater access and influence? There's a perception that an artist who caters too openly to fans will create inferior content -- is there any truth to this?

Comments

[hearthstone.livejournal.com]

Everyone makes their own meaning, based on past experience, personal taste, societal expectations and so forth. And although it's tempting to let the creator's intended meaning take precedence, creators are not always consciously aware of what that is. If a significant portion of the audience sees a piece and interprets it differently than the author intended, I think that interpretation has its own legitimacy. (Problem is defining what is a significant portion...) This is particularly problematic when issues of privilege are involved, I think, because that's a big blind spot for a lot of people.

[sophiaserpentia.livejournal.com]

Yeah, privilege is kind of hovering over all this. I've seen some amazing fan art, it can be quite meaningful and well-done in its own right, but by virtue of existing in someone else's universe is somewhat denigrated, downplayed, and very rarely given the same level of importance as the original works. I'm not saying this isn't the way things should be, but I think more balance and appreciation are probably in order.

I have a rather conservative view when it comes to the meaning of creative expression: that meaning is the response the author/artist intended to provoke (though we could debate here whether there are subconscious levels of meaning an artist didn't know she intended, I'll set that aside for now).

Often viewers, readers, listeners have reactions the artist didn't intend -- these are a very personal kind of meaning and while I think it should not be tangled with the artist's intended meaning, is certainly an important part of all this. In fact it's where things get really interesting, because I think a back-and-forth between creators and fans can elucidate new levels of meaning. An artist who does not interact with fans of her or his work, or respect their views, may be missing important aspects of why they have the fans they do (for example, I see this especially with mainstream artists who get befuddled if they have legions of queer fans).

[akaiyume.livejournal.com]

Problem is defining what is a significant portion...

I would say that every single interpretation has its own legitimacy. Granted if a large enough percentage of people have a similar interpretation, that would point to that particular meaning being more relevant to a certain time and place, but that is very different from the legitimacy of the interpretation. A large group of people sharing an interpretation would tell us more about that society, culture, or sub-culture than about the work of art itself.

Art isn't so much about creating a thing that carries universal meaning - seriously, if that were then those slippery floor warnings would be near the height of artistry. It's more about arranging symbols that can be felt, be moving in spite of radically different cultural and personal experience. A sort of reminder that human dignity isn't based on how one experiences the world, but the simple shared ability to experience it.

[azaz-al.livejournal.com]

A few things:

Blizzard is not one lone writer churning out creative works and hobbled by his/her crazed fans. What you have with the advent of MMOs is a genre or art form (if you will) that COULD NOT EXIST without a multitude of players. It is, in effect, shaped by the people who play it. They become part of the art form. Stephen King could write books and store them in his closet and they could be found long after his death. In fact, in some of the stories he has written the writer character (who is clearly based on him) does just that - often enough to make me wonder how often he's stored away a novel for a rainy day to stave off his publishers when his creative well runs temporarily dry. Emily Dickinson wrote poems considered beautiful and classic but which were only found after her death. Sometimes I worry too much interaction and need for feedback is killing me as a writer, in fact.

MMO's are not novels. MMO's are not plays. They aren't paintings. They are more than just twitch games. They are more than just tabletop RPGs. They are something new and different and terribly, terribly compelling. The little anthropologist person who's lived in my head my entire life sits back and watches, cooly, as some of these absurd situations I get myself in play out, and my emotional reactions, and other people's emotional reactions, and wonders just why anyone can get so worked up over it, but everyone does. Lioke I said to you in the car the other night, there's something here the psychologists and the art field and everyone who dismisses these as "silly games for geeks" is missing. Something very huge is going on here. I'm not always sure its entirely healthy. I'll be damned if I can fully explain it. There's no way how I can explain trying out this game in Wrath beta and walking into Crystalsong forest for the first time and beginning to cry because I'm touched by the beauty of it. It is embarassing even to say that. But its very real. It frightens me a little. Maybe more than a little.

I drifted a bit there but - beyond just the interactive universe itself - its the interactions between players themselves that make the Blizzard universe alive and meaningful. Example - like the whole Internet Dragons post said - they made these dragons you can kill, right? Some are so hard they take weeks or months of planning and a concerted, group effort of up to 40 people working together as a team to defeat. Without those people, dedicated to working together to do things like this in game, it's just pretty pictures on a computer screen. Those people are then an integral part of this "product". this goes beyond just mere consumers. With a book, you buy the book, you read it, a sort of passive observation. Same with a movie. With a console game you play single player, you interact with it at home in a limited sort of way. But this is a new and different animal.

It will be interesting to see where it goes.

[sophiaserpentia.livejournal.com]

Yeah... the culture of an MMO's player base is not exactly like a fandom, but there are some parallels here -- including the larger culture's general outlook of scorn and mistrust.

A fandom is a way of making a franchise into something more interactive, and I think honestly that greater interactivity is the way of the future. Once someone comes out with a total sandbox MMO -- by which I mean a way for people to tell their own stories or collaborate on stories using the interactive tools of an MMO, I'm going to have geekgasms from here to infinity.

[wlotus.livejournal.com]

Similar questions can be asked of something like the casting in The Last Airbender. I have read some commentary from people who are deeply offended that the cast is entirely white, save for the villain, who is a person of color. The characters in the original series are Asian, from what I understand. So, did the creators of The Last Airbender owe it to the fan base and to Asian people everywhere to cast Asians in the leading roles? Are those of us who are offended by the casting interpreting the casting incorrectly, or does our interpretation/offense have some merit?

Where should the line be drawn between listening to the public too much and not listening enough? Should creators listen to the public at all?

[sophiaserpentia.livejournal.com]

I've read some of that same commentary -- and I think there's something to that. People who want to sell entertainment should IMO be sensitive to concerns of that sort. The fact that they can get away without doing so is a testament to the patterns of privilege in the larger society.

M. Night Shyamalan says he just cast the actors he thought best fit each role. Is this a statement about his internalized racism? Since he is Asian-American I have a hard time imagining he just didn't notice.

[wlotus.livejournal.com]

Since he is Asian-American I have a hard time imagining he just didn't notice.

Oh dear...yes, that makes his casting choices even more problematic.

It is entirely possible he did not notice, though. Seeing white actors play the lead in non-white roles may be so common to him that he never thought of the race implications. It could be that he has biases against his fellow Asian-Americans like some African-Americans have against their fellow African-Americans. (Too ethnic, not easy enough to work with, not classy enough, whatever.) That would be racism internalized, turned against one's own people, and then justified when challenged.

At least he didn't insist the actors use their real names and addresses in the movie. :-) Which I gathered (when I read the link you included in your post) was the issue with the WoW debacle. But it seems as though the community's uproar caused the developers to change their mind, so this would be a case where the fans did have a say...rather, they had their say, whether the developers wanted them to have it or not, and their say was uproarious enough that the developers felt they had little choice but to listen.

[sophiaserpentia.livejournal.com]

There's also the possibility that he fell prey to a sort of white gaze, knowing that he was aiming for a predominantly white audience and perhaps decided "not to make a statement" with his movie. (Though this would require him to overlook or disregard the fact that the Avatar cartoon characters were all presented as being of Asian ethnicity, but the cartoon series did just fine anyway.)

[akaiyume.livejournal.com]

In the type of situation you are talking about there is catering going on. Not to the fan base of a particular work, but to the fan base of the current oppressive culture.

[akaiyume.livejournal.com]

But as I've said before, the meaning of a creative work is essentially the response intended to be provoked in the reader/listener/viewer.

I still disagree with this quite vehemently. I don't think that anything can strip away the relevance of art any faster than this idea so many people have that art as the One True meaning. Those are the lines of thought that allows for meaning to be co-opted and watered down, de-radicalized so easily. Or conversely in rarer cases, held as Law, leading to what you call the "tyranny of the written word" - although even then tracking through time can show how the stated and defined "meaning" twists and varies.

The idea that art has a one-true meaning is what causes the in fighting in fan communities, the way fans splinter into affinity groups. There are a lot of disappointed "fans" out there that I would hesitate to call fans. If one's enjoyment of a particular entertainment franchise depends on whether or not things happen a certain way, then you are not a fan of the show. You are a fan of your own interpretation. It's like those sports people who stop watching the play-offs if their favorite team is eliminated. They are a fan of the team, not the game. If they like the game, it would be still hold a level of enjoyment for them regardless of who is playing. So yeah, if as an artist you deliver only what the fans want, then it woiuld be harrowing. You are delivering a one-true which is not even based on your own ideas.

That being said, when it comes to WoW, the gnashing and grinding of teeth and the threats to quit over Tauren paladins or the removal of Thrall fits what I am talking about above more than the RealID fiasco.

As a work of art or entertainment, WoW is significantly different from a novel or television series. If you want to put in terms of art, it is more like a bit of performance art which relies on unscripted audience participation. The creator sets the structure, but whether the walls end up blue, pink or tye-die can vary (yeah, horrid metaphor, but you get the idea). Furthermore, Blizz has so far, invited feedback on some areas of that structure (allowing add-ons, basing ability decisions on whether the community finds something "fun," etc). RealID as previously preposed was not so much a change in direction or format as it was about limiting which members of the audience got to participate based on factors that had nothing to do with Azeroth and everything to do with real world politics and oppressions.

part one

[sophiaserpentia.livejournal.com]

I addressed some of your first points above:
http://sophiaserpentia.livejournal.com/921843.html?thread=8585459#t8585459

I don't want it to sound like I dismiss the meanings that people read into things that were not intended by the artist. I just don't think they should be tangled up with the artist's original meaning. It's quite fascinating to me actually when large numbers of people see something in a work of art that the artist didn't (consciously) intend. A work of art, once published, gathers a cultural artifact in orbit around it.

I'm just wary of that added meaning drowning out what the author or artist originally meant to say. This is especially important in the case of artworks which convey dissent; it's all too often that the dominant culture misses the dissenting aspects of a work of art in favor of a "safer" interpretation.

Re: part one

[azaz-al.livejournal.com]

But what about the case of something like an MMO, in which the whole POINT is for the viewers to interact with it and add meaning?

Re: part one

[sophiaserpentia.livejournal.com]

Well, so far, to date, there isn't really that much interaction between the user and WoW content. For example, there are no branches in the quest line, a la "choose your own adventure." Except in RP, which is sadly neglected in WoW, you don't get to make the choices your character would.

Hopefully some future version of WoW, or some next-generation MMO, will implement more quest-line choice. I read that Guild Wars 2 will have something of this sort: when you roll your character you define certain things about them, like their alignment and beliefs, and this determines how NPCs interact with them, what quests become available, etc.

Re: part one

[fizzyland.livejournal.com]

I like the idea of games not where you set your alignment save as a starting point, but one where your choices and actions move you in one direction or another. A little bit of the faction reputation concept, combined with some moral-influence type responses from the game.

Re: part one

[sophiaserpentia.livejournal.com]

I've seen MMO's compared to theme parks. It's not quite as passive as reading a book or watching a movie, but it's not entirely as interactive as many might prefer. It's more like having a closely scripted experience.

Re: part one

[akaiyume.livejournal.com]

Well, I think the mechanism by which meaning becomes entangled with the artist's intent is a by-product of "one-true" thinking. The fact that so many of us can't conceive of multiple ideas being equally right and equally valid, has led to to statements of personal interpretation carrying a very false sense of being backed up by the "authority" of the creator, regardless of the creators intent or how closely our ideas are aligned with that of the creator. The idea that meaning has to come from an authoritative source is ridiculous. And ultimately demeaning.

So, in my opinion, an author stating (and, unfortunately beyond the creator's control, the difference between the two being undertood) "this work means this" as opposed to "my intention in creating this was to convey X" directly contributes to the process which smothers dissent.

I think I get what you are saying. Yes it is bad - very bad - that the authority to determine meaning can be stripped away from a person and their labor of love is presented as something else (with the underlying implication that this new interperetation is what they meant) by the authority of a dominant culture, or a rabid unified fanbase, or anything else. I can get the idea that since the way culture works means that some group someone somewhere is going to try to impose a "THE meaning" that creators and those who are invested in how a different meaning would shape the world around them might want to fight tooth and nail to say, "no that is not it."

Just ultimately, to break out of the pattern where meaning relies on an outside authority (which wouldn't be done without the underlying idealogy that some people are better, more correct, or more equal than others) we have to abandon the idea that ANYONE has the right to dictate what something means.

Re: part one

[sophiaserpentia.livejournal.com]

Okay, I see your point. I imagine, for example, the creators of Sesame Street complaining about the way in which the gay community has made icons of Bert and Ernie. To my knowledge they haven't really, but I'm just using that as an example of a way in which an original creator might stifle dissent by insisting that their intended meaning is the only possible valid one.

I was thinking about this a bit during the commute home and I think maybe I need to articulate my thoughts on this with a bit more precision.

In the old model ('creativity 1.0') an artist, musician, author, etc. creates a work of art. She or he had certain things in mind (whether consciously or unconsciously -- it gets complex when you throw Surrealism into the mix) and this is what I would say is the 'meaning' of the work. Quite often there is a degree of dissent intended; it is that communication of dissent that was foremost in my mind when I adopted this notion of what a work means.

Once the creative work is published it enters the culture, where if it becomes popular a culture forms around it. There can be quite a bit of meaning expressed by the members of the fan culture -- and I want to be absolutely clear on this -- and it is just as valid as creative expression. It's distinct, but valid. Sometimes the cultural meaning conveys more dissent than the original (Bert & Ernie) but more commonly it conveys less. More commonly a creative work has to be protected *from* the culture industry.

What I'm describing as 'creativity 2.0' is a kind of new thing where artists have continual interaction with fans, and often even exposure to works of fan art, to the extent where it may be difficult or impossible to discern artist's intended meaning.

I think, too, that a work of art is distinct from an entertainment franchise... (*goes to add 'culture industry' to the tags*)

Re: part one

[akaiyume.livejournal.com]

Yeah. I think in some ways we are communicating on different levels here. Something close to the debate between practical activism vs. radical ideology.

I agree that it is entirely possible that retaining control of the "meaning" of dissenting art and symbolism for a time may be a step that is needed to get us to the place where we can dump this whole idea that meaning needs to be controlled. Just we need to be mindful or else we end up reinforcing the patterns of oppression - including those times we happen to change the particulars for some people.

On the other hand, reality carries more meaning than words, and putting something out there with the only "message" attached being "you may not dictate how anyone else uses this" is pretty damned powerful.

Perhaps enough of both need to go on for things to come together?

As far as creativity 2.0 goes, I guess the fairest answer I can think of to your concerns involves a sort of reciprocity. The more an artist wants to dictate meaning in an on-going creative dialogue, the more they would be obliged to use the stories/language/symbols/etc that elicit that particular meaning/reaction in the fans. Basically letting outside influences have more say in the how's of how the message is gotten across. Because really, the only way to demand that your message be gotten across in your (uhm, by your, I'm meaning the artist, not you specifically) voice, is to say your voice is the correct one. Unless you limit your co-creation pool to a small number of very like minded people, it may be possible to hold on to the message or the voice. To demand both is not collaboration. It is a dictatorship.

I guess the flip side would be altering your message to gain popularity. That is the entertainment franchise, which is about profit, no matter how much they try to disguise it as art or message.

Re: part one

[akaiyume.livejournal.com]

I guess I should add that a collaboration where any side feels forced to stay isn't really a collaboration. In a world free of marketers at least, a creator is under no obligation to cater message or voice to what anyone else wants to hear. And fans need to realize this. An emotional involvement does not create obligation. Whether in personal relationships or creative ones.

So no one owes their fans more of the same.

Giving the fans what they want whether you are feeling it or not would be lack of reciprocity with the mob dictating instead of the creator.

part two

[sophiaserpentia.livejournal.com]

I think MMOs are a fascinating exercise in the democratization of creativity -- It's why, really, I titled this post "creativity 2.0." Up until now, there was always a strong distinction between storytellers and listeners. Role playing games were developed around the time the first fandoms came into being, and I think they were both the start of a movement towards interactive or even democratic creativity.

It's something we're still learning how to do. The future of this medium is (I hope) an MMO where users create their own storylines, zones, and quests together. So far as I understand it there's been mixed success with "sandbox" MMOs, but I've been reading about some promising developments.

An interesting thing about WoW is that since BC they've started incorporating references to WoW fandom. They even hired Flintlocke creator Dave Kosek as one of their content developers.

Re: part two

[akaiyume.livejournal.com]

I think a sandbox MMO would be lovely. It would be like the computerized, large-scale version of diceless tabletop RPG's where everyone takes the statement in (some) rulebooks about the mechanics being guidelines and suggestions to heart. The kind I prefer to play.

Although for an MMO I think there would have to be the limitation that PvP is entirely free for all or disallowed (unless limited to certain zones where you could chose the side you want based on the wars supposed goals - maybe updated a lot to reflect outcomes, and new zones going to war, etc).

I don't see WoW moving in this direction. Rather the opposite, in fact. Way to many "goals" that equal "winning." And pushing more all the time. Plus, while the landscape changing depending on what you personally do is kinda neat, it is definitely a step in the "guided adventure" direction and they say the want more of that.

[fizzyland.livejournal.com]

Except that this was not in any way an artistic dispute - I think we gamers are pretty forgiving for creative experiments and new directions. But sometimes those attempts fail(vehicle combat in wrath for instance). And then there's the other side, the corporate owners. In this situation, they made deals with Facebook and Microsoft's Massive(here comes targeted in-game ads!) to sell everyone's personal info and at the same time, expose every single person to harassment.

I think things like MMO environments are different than what I'd call one-off entertainment like books or movies. Those can stay true to the source because they're static pieces of art. Games being immersive and interactive, they have to be responsive in different ways.

[akaiyume.livejournal.com]

Can't wait to see the lore explanation for those in-game ads.

It's Miller Time - for the Horde!

[fizzyland.livejournal.com]

I can see it now - every time you talk to an important npc in-game, their speech will end with 'brought to you by Carl's Jr.'

Re: It's Miller Time - for the Horde!

[akaiyume.livejournal.com]

Maybe there will be an NPC school of mages who "know things" about stuff like the lotto because they have portals - like in the Atkins switcher vid.

Re: It's Miller Time - for the Horde!

[sophiaserpentia.livejournal.com]

Maybe Natasha, the 4-year-old girl from 'Eng-land' who fell out of a plane and landed in Outland, will start remembering ad slogans.

[sophiaserpentia.livejournal.com]

Goblin crass commercialism.

[sarahmichigan.livejournal.com]

What you said about fans being co-investors made me think of some of the concepts discussed in "Groundswell." You might like it if you haven't already read it.