»
I debated posting this at all, because I have nothing to do with Vividcon and am not a vidder, but..
(![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
elspethdixon Jul. 4th, 2010 03:53 pm)
elspethdixon Jul. 4th, 2010 03:53 pm)I felt like something needed to be said in response to comments like this one I'm going to quote:
If a fan is old enough to come to VividCon, I expect them to be old enough to ask for what they need. I've seen posts talking about how people don't want to "out themselves" as disabled by asking for the things they need, and I'm sorry, but that's not a valid criticism of the con's policies. You don't get to say the concom is denying you what you need when you never asked for what you needed. If you don't ask what you need you don't get what you need. -- from here.
First up, I want to make clear that I don't know the commenter, or know anything about her circumstances, so for all I know, she's disabled or suffers from social anxiety herself and already knows everything I'm about to say and is being harsh on *herself* here, or discussing a way of dealing with things that works for her, but it doesn't work that way for everyone.
I'm not going to touch on the issues of ablism as and accessibility as it relates to fen with physical disabilities here because fans who actually have disabilities have already done so, and I probably wouldn't know what I was talking about anyway.
Instead, I'm going to say that even for adults, asking for something you need can sometimes be extremely difficult, and not just because it may require you to reveal *why* you need it (though that can be difficult enough, for reasons people have discussed before - warning: both links lead to posts with descriptions of sexual abuse and assault). If someone suffers from depression or social anxiety, asking for something, even something as relatively small as "can you tell me if your vid has X in it?" or "can I sit near the exit so I can leave if I get overwhelmed?" can be very difficult to say. Just getting to the con and then coming down from your room to watch vids can be difficult; deliberately initiating social interaction with someone in order to ask them to do something for you - something you know (or at least, your depression/anxiety knows) could be seen as asking for special treatment - is even more difficultly laid on top of that.
I have no problem asking people in my main fandom, whom I regularly interact with, if their fics contain X thing I want to avoid. Cold emailing complete strangers, on the other hand, is something I find very difficult to do. And I don't suffer from depression and am not a survivor of any kind of trauma - I just happen to find emails and phone calls very stressful.
For some people, contacting relative strangers to ask for something is paralyzingly intimidating, and it is a real accessibility issue. Obviously, the rest of the world can't magically know what people need without our ever having to say it, but you can make it easier to ask. If nothing else, you can make it clear that requests for help are expected and welcomed, and not impositions.
Shaming and criticizing people who have trouble asking by implying that they're being childish, that "real adults" are able to do this, does not make it easier.
If a fan is old enough to come to VividCon, I expect them to be old enough to ask for what they need. I've seen posts talking about how people don't want to "out themselves" as disabled by asking for the things they need, and I'm sorry, but that's not a valid criticism of the con's policies. You don't get to say the concom is denying you what you need when you never asked for what you needed. If you don't ask what you need you don't get what you need. -- from here.
First up, I want to make clear that I don't know the commenter, or know anything about her circumstances, so for all I know, she's disabled or suffers from social anxiety herself and already knows everything I'm about to say and is being harsh on *herself* here, or discussing a way of dealing with things that works for her, but it doesn't work that way for everyone.
I'm not going to touch on the issues of ablism as and accessibility as it relates to fen with physical disabilities here because fans who actually have disabilities have already done so, and I probably wouldn't know what I was talking about anyway.
Instead, I'm going to say that even for adults, asking for something you need can sometimes be extremely difficult, and not just because it may require you to reveal *why* you need it (though that can be difficult enough, for reasons people have discussed before - warning: both links lead to posts with descriptions of sexual abuse and assault). If someone suffers from depression or social anxiety, asking for something, even something as relatively small as "can you tell me if your vid has X in it?" or "can I sit near the exit so I can leave if I get overwhelmed?" can be very difficult to say. Just getting to the con and then coming down from your room to watch vids can be difficult; deliberately initiating social interaction with someone in order to ask them to do something for you - something you know (or at least, your depression/anxiety knows) could be seen as asking for special treatment - is even more difficultly laid on top of that.
I have no problem asking people in my main fandom, whom I regularly interact with, if their fics contain X thing I want to avoid. Cold emailing complete strangers, on the other hand, is something I find very difficult to do. And I don't suffer from depression and am not a survivor of any kind of trauma - I just happen to find emails and phone calls very stressful.
For some people, contacting relative strangers to ask for something is paralyzingly intimidating, and it is a real accessibility issue. Obviously, the rest of the world can't magically know what people need without our ever having to say it, but you can make it easier to ask. If nothing else, you can make it clear that requests for help are expected and welcomed, and not impositions.
Shaming and criticizing people who have trouble asking by implying that they're being childish, that "real adults" are able to do this, does not make it easier.
Tags: