ah, HP, how art you the crucible of humanity...

[permetaform]

in reference to a fan with cancer: http://www.4christina.org/

quoted wholesale from here

I am so disgusted I have no words to describe how low and vile, truly evil the fans of heidi8 can be. I've said before about some real gems that I wished they could go about fandom marked in some way, so other people could see them coming and be forewarned. I can't. But I can spread this message as far as I can, which I will do in this journal, my LJ, and my GJ. Because these people display behavior that is so fundamentally gross, they should be shunned.

On LJ, they go by:

* kiwiria
* light_music
* countess_shell
* aome
* deathp4nts

What did they do?

They took it upon behalf of heidi8 of the Harry Potter fandom to troll a dying woman's journal. She has a rare form of cancer, and is in the hospital right now possibly fighting for her life. If she comes home, she will be faced with these heidi8 supporters doing their best to smear her name, and even in some places, calling her illness into question.

this post explains more, with the pertinent links and more information.

More about the wank at cimorene111's journal.

[wank addendum] [1], [2], [3], [4], [5]

The reason why this raises my hackles: it's not hard to post a link, even for someone you dislike. Personally, it's tons easier for me to make a comment than to send off an email; what disturbs me is that so much brouhaha was raised because heidi8 didn't want to post a simple link.

And to me, who links to tons of shit and gets requests to post links sometimes, this is just eyebrow raising in the level of...I dunno, 'indifference'? 'hate'? 'disgust'? that it takes for someone to not even take the 5 seconds it'll take to help out a fellow human being. It's easy; and even if it's posted it just gets thrown into the judgement of public opinion. "BNF"s can't do *anything*; herding fandom is like herding *cats*. The only thing BNF's *can* do is raise awareness, and it's not hard to advertize.

At all.

[edit] the response by heidi8; which, okay is more than a link, but still, it still is just a request for a 'shout out'. Not for anything major, a link, a word, maybe even a pimp of cleolinda's project (the movie parody project).

gah, fandom. you so silly.


The fan with cancer's info page: http://www.4christina.org/

Her ebay page where she's selling the crafts she's been able to make.

From what I can tell, her husband's lost his job and she lost her insurance; I'm not asking ya'll to help if you are already strapped for cash. But, and only if you are able to, help out a little?

[edit] guede_mazaka's looked through her website and found some backing info to this fan's claims.

btw, ya'll have great comments that I want to respond to, but it's 1pm and I gotta run (I'll be back around 10ish)

Comments

[permetaform]

wait.

what generation is heidi8 from?

does she understand exactly what a 'shout out' entails? o.0

'cause it's just like a "hey, look at this" not "omg please set up a huge project for me"

[par-avion.livejournal.com]

Heidi is a very recent addition to my flist (last two weeks?) but I think she's about my age. I'm 33.

I see this as a story about the dangers of being a BNF. One small misunderstanding becomes a huge F_W thing. I find it believable that if I were approached by someone I didn't really know (note that I don't know who Heidi does and doesn't know) and asked to do this, I might not have time *right at that moment* to do it. I might not even respond to the request at all, let alone say if you make a post to f_a I will link to that. But it would't be wank, because I'm nobody. Heidi has two kids and is about to give birth to a third, a husband, a job, a very busy website, and her email-doohicky hasn't been working. ::shrug:: I barely have time to read my flist, let alone post and comment to the extend that I want to, and I don't have the kids, husband, or website to take up my time.

When people on my flist need something, big or small, I help out if I can. But I can't take care of the whole internet. And, unlike many people, I know who is on my flist because I chose them, and I don't automatically friend back.

[ladyjaida.livejournal.com]

I see this as a story about the dangers of being a BNF. One small misunderstanding becomes a huge F_W thing. Yes. Exactly.

[sarahtheboring.livejournal.com]

Not to acquit the trolling (which is badbadbad) or blame the victim here, but the wording of the post quoted in heidi8's entry struck me as kind of vague. She didn't actually ask to be linked. It's about how breast cancer gets too much press and nobody cares about non-"famous" cancers and the kindness of strangers and... actually says nothing about linking at all. I would be confused for a moment too, if I were reading that, and it didn't take long for a moment of confusion to explode into a worldwide hatestorm.

But the silver lining is that through the worldwide hatestorm, people are being directed to the site where they should've been to begin with.

...random nobody's 2c. best wishes to all.

[daegaer.livejournal.com]

I don't know Heidi or Christina at all, I'm not in the HP fandom, and I'm not taking sides here -- but what I see from Christina's comment and Heidi's reply is a genuine misunderstanding. Christina's very obviously trying to be polite, and her deferential polite language puts her actual concrete request (to post the Amazon link) in the middle of the second comment. Her first comment is an explanation of her need for the link to be posted - but it contains a paragraph that does look like she's asking Heidi to organise something with her real life charity contacts. By talking about Heidi's wide range of "contacts" in a comment to a post in which Heidi is talking about just such a real life contact's charity work, I can see where the misunderstanding came up. It looks like she's asking for a number of things: for some sort of educational campaign on her terrible illness, for that information to be spread on LJ, and for her Amazon link to be posted.

Given that Heidi went to some trouble to direct Christina to what she thought was a more helpful LJ community, offered to alert her friendslist to Christina's post there and said she'd use the Amazon link, I don't think it's fair to say Heidi didn't want to post a link. She misread what Christina was asking, but I think Christina then misread Heidi's "refusal" - the only thing Heidi said she couldn't do was something Christina didn't mean to ask for, but the refusal was read as being for the action Christina did ask for - even though Heidi had offered to do what she wanted.

I think both of them misread each other, both are under medical stresses, and neither deserve to be made targets.

[permetaform]

huh. good points. ::ponders::