On having separate tags for in-universe and out-of-universe commentary
lies:
I think it’s a result of how habituated I’ve become to the particular line that the LBD creators drew between in-world and out-of-world reality that Jane Eyre’s presence on Tumblr, the realism of the videos, and various other aspects of how the story is being told have hit me really hard as feeling much more real than LBD ever did. Which I kind of love. And I can totally understand the impulse of not wanting to mess with that, to just forget about the people behind the scenes creating the show and just go with it.
When Ep. 3 crossed my dash I just reblogged it without commentary, because I wanted everyone to see it, and I didn’t want any out-of-world thoughts of mine to detract from the mood it created of actual jeopardy, and the sympathy I felt for this poor girl stuck at an abandoned bus stop in the middle of the night questioning her choices.
I know it’s silly to think that the AoJE tag won’t end up featuring lots of meta-analysis and criticism (though I’m kind of enjoying the absence of some of the snarkier stuff that I both loved and ended up actively avoiding with LBD). But I wonder: Would it make sense to try to fork a separate tag associated with the show that is just for in-world commentary, a tag for discussion that doesn’t acknowledge the fictional nature of the show? Could something like that even work?
Heh. Now I’m feeling self-conscious about even tagging this. I don’t want to pollute their creation with my out-of-world ravings. I’m not sure who even follows me among those people who are into the show. But for the hypothetical few of you who do that, or who might find this in the notes on the original post: I’m curious what you think.
Wow. Good idea. I’ve already posted out-of-world thoughts on the AoJE tag (and initially tagged things AJE) and I’m definitely looking forward to discussing stuff about the adaptation and meta stuff and all that with you all. However, I’m also totally excited about experiencing it as if it were nonfiction. I mean, for me those two ways to enjoy it aren’t mutually exclusive, but I can see how they might be for others.
So, maybe it’s a good idea to have a separate tag for in-world commentary, and I would love to be involved in both tags if we can come up with one that makes sense. Not sure what that would be though.
AoJEmeta for the out-of-world stuff? That would be the tag that Ms. Eyre herself wouldn’t see. But I’m sure someone can come up with something better.
For now I will tag this AoJE… Sorry if anyone doesn’t want to see it, but I do want people who have opinions about this to weigh in!
I kind of think that for the AoJE tag be used for anything other than general commentary would be unlikely to work. It makes sense to me that if some people did want to use a separate tag for in-world commentary, that they’d be willing to do more work to accomplish that, so maybe that tag should be the one that’s longer or less intuitive. But on the other hand, that tag could conceivably host in-world interactions with the show’s characters, and if it was something that called attention to its special nature (if it were #AoJEWorld or something like that), then that would create another problem to account for (“why is Jane using this odd tag, rather than the obvious #AoJE one?”)
I guess it’s inevitable that consumers of this kind of creation have to do some work to maintain the line between real and make-believe, and to actively suspend disbelief and turn a blind eye to anomalies. Like, if eyrequotes is going to tag her posts #AoJE, and if that tag contains lots of out-of-world commentary, I have to be willing to believe that she’s participating only within certain invisible boundaries. It presumably was the desire to maintain a clean line with that that kept the in-world LBD characters largely out of Tumblr, and since I’m loving that Jane is here I have to be willing to accept a certain reality-maintenance effort on my part as part of that.
I just really like what the show’s creators are doing, and how it’s affecting me. It reminds me of the “so many startled butterflies” from aeternamente’s ficlet. It’s like the Autobiography of Jane Eyre is weaving a spell, and I’m falling under it, and I don’t want to do anything that might interfere with it or frighten it away. Including talking about it.
I think I mostly just need to relax. :-)
Reposted from http://lies.tumblr.com/post/47833102309.
Tags: AoJE.
