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canadian-shack-wank

Canadian Shack Wank

a shack with a Canadian flag on it in the middle of a frozen pondIn January 2012, one nonny linked to a Cesperanza post about Cesperanza and other Due South fans reviving a 10-year-old meme and writing ficlets involving shacks in the Canadian wilderness. The nonny was Very Concerned about whether this was a form of cultural appropriation and would not let go even after admonitions from other Gentlefailers such as, “You're reaching.”

"Canadians get very upset about how unoppressed Canada is. They would like to be oppressed like the rest of the world."

But the above was as nothing compared with Canadian Shack: The Quickening, in which Gentlefailers learned that the CS meme is racist against First Nations people. Facet of Cathy said so! (She was writing from A Central Canadian Perspective!) Despite a total lack of consensus among Canadian Gentlefailers that the term “shack” is classist or racist in their country.

Some noted that the CS meme revival was poorly timed, as the First Nations housing shortage had just become a news item, but the word "shack" itself does not come with the postcolonial baggage being asserted. Other Gentlefailers scoffed at the claim that the CS meme implies the entire Great White North is devoid of First Nations people“dude, do you know how big northern canada is” — and at the claim that //"two white dudes [were] tossing out a poor family out into the cold and fucking on their ill-begotten bedding."//

Man, the only thing that comes to mind is that I bet this person hasn't even been up north, damn”

Commodorified, for her part, “urge[d] writers to engage in consultation with a bona fide Canadian,” and StarAnise chimed in with, “I don't want to tag this post “privilege and oppression” because this is not it, but seriously, I am really sick of all of the representations of Canada being some vague rural place with badly-built houses.” Which she expressed by implying that all rural Canadians in poorly built homes are First Nations; ergo, the CS meme is racist.

Indywind replied, “I think the best response I can come up with is to write some porn set in rural south USA in a welfare slum trailer. ” Which provoked serious RAEG from Seperis, who didn't seem to care that both Indywind and StarAnise themselves grew up in such conditions.

Back at Commodorified's, Estelendur insisted that Seperis was stereotyping people due to her being angry, the gracious hostess compared Seperis to an arrogant hipster medical resident, and Legionseagle (failing to actually understand Jackycomelately's point) wrote, “I am seriously considering setting up a keyboard macro where in one keystroke I can respond 'As a citizen of one of the wealthiest nations in the world it is a bit like a white male complaining about reverse discrimination*' every time someone from the US says something on the internet I disagree with.

StarAnise's post made Fandom_Wank (note: not Unfunny_Fandom). Recessional, who was not linked in the OP, announced that she'd been Fandom_Wanked and let the world know that “I really do not care if people think I am overreacting to something I find offensive.” For that, she received 9000 asspats for her “courage,” the asspatters urging her to “stay the course.”

The exception was Sprat, who is Canadian First Nations. Sprat wrote, “I am deeply offended and angered that you would use a tragedy like the one in Attawapiskat as part of a bizarre and disingenuous argument about something unrelated and comparatively unimportant.” Shaming Recessional for throwing around videos of indigenous Canadians living in squalor just for SJW points, they continued:

“I think this argument is such absurdly obviously grudgewank that it's really beneath notice. But it doesn't stand alone, and it's so outrageously offensive to me in a personal way that I am commenting despite my best judgement. I am just so fucking sick of seeing this happen, of seeing people like you make fandom an uncomfortable and unfun place for people like me, all in the name of defending my rights. Look around you. Who agrees with you? Whose voices are missing? Are you achieving what you claim to be trying to achieve? Or are you, in fact, silencing or driving out everybody who isn't college-educated and middle class? If you are a member of a privileged group, social justice is about listening more than it is about talking. Find out what the people you claim to want to champion actually need from you. I doubt it is going to look anything like this.”

Recessional, at least, had the grace to apologize to Sprat. Gentlefailers, for our part, were impressed: “An actual member of marginalized group not happy with the way a bunch of circle-jerking college kids appropriate rage on issues they have no real knowledge of? Shock.”

Kilgaffney, on James D. Nicoll's post about the shack meme, wrote, “I think most of the Due South fandom has forgotten that the show was supposedly mocking American stereotypes of Canada in the first place. (I dunno how successful it was; I mostly ignored that show.)”

And GoldJadeOcean managed to drag 9/11 into this all somehow.

Finally, there was also the obligatory racist comment, the LOL UR ALL BUTTHURT LOOOZERS comment, and a thread asking, "what ubiquitous fucking-setting does your fandom have?"

In July 2012, a nonny was sufficiently inspired by (among other things) this wank to write Spock/Dobby Canadian Shack Fic.

canadian-shack-wank.txt · Last modified: 2021/08/31 13:51 by RedDeliciousApples