jakebe | On Standards (Reply)

the_gneech posted a bit in his LiveJournal about the status of Yerf, and how even if the archive were to come back tomorrow it would take more than just...its presence to rebuild Yerf. In one of those "you never really miss it until it's gone" situations, I missed the impact and import of Yerf until, maybe, a few months ago. It was one of the best ways you could break the uninitiated into the furry fandom; if someone went, "Hey, what's furry about?" you could go "Oh, it's about funny animals...here!" and send them to Yerf without fear of, you know, a Nazi wolf spinning a rabbit in diapers on his penis and force-feeding him butter.

Of course, whenever the subject of Yerf comes up, the subject of standards and 'elitism' is almost always sure to follow. A lot of people (especially budding and/or adult artists) were really vocal critics of Yerf, stating mostly that the Yerf crowd was just a bunch of snobs and prudes who liked to gather 'round and pat each other on the back over how incredibly awesome they were. Back in my younger, more incendiary days, I could see the argument. Now, more and more, though, I'm thinking maybe the folks at Yerf just wanted a gallery of good clean art on unlined paper. What's really wrong with that?

I could follow it up by saying that the furry fandom seems to have a problem with any sort of standards being imposed on it. But it's not a furry-specific problem. I know loads of people, furry and non, who love to become righteously indignant when you place any sort of standards or expectations on them. It's become politically incorrect to expect people to strive at what they do to not be bad at it forever. If you want to be an artist, you should work to make yourself a good artist. If you want to be a friend, you should work to make yourself a good friend. If you want to be a writer, you should work to make yourself a good writer. The people around should of course support you -- but much of that support includes letting you know when you've gotten off track. Or when you're missing the mark entirely.

A lot of the places I used to consider horrifically elitist (The Giant's Club especially) I've come to realize aren't as bad as I thought. Sure, they've got their problems, but mostly the patrons of, say, the SCFA or the GC really just want to have a certain standard of behavior and effort maintained. That's all. And it's worthwhile to strive for that standard if that's really where you want to go. There's no shame in admitting you have room for improvement.

This isn't as good an essay as I hoped it would be. :) But then, they almost always never are.