Acafans and power in fandom

The main thing that seem to piss people off about acafans is the use of theory to bludgeon people in ship wars. They take the Tumblr wank style – in which social justice terms (misogyny, homophobia, transphobia, racism, fetishization, objectification) get used to attack other fans for shipping things wrong, instead of being aimed at the media producers – and use their professional credentials to try to silence opposition.

Other objections seem to be about anyone who is perceived as pulling rank (using either fandom-specific or real world authority). Though this objection is impossible to resolve, since in any social media situation, some people will have more power than others.

Also, I personally think that forums like Tumblr and Twitter are pretty toxic. Certain people become internet famous (so called Big Name Fans) and then people in the fandom start to think of them as celebrities that need to be taken down a peg. And since celebrities are not real people, but superhuman archetypes that exist only in the collective unconscious, they cannot hear you when you bitch about them. Except that most Big Name Fans are underemployed women scraping together the time and money to go to conferences, and not actually the equivalent of Lady Gaga.

Meth-using MSM

Treatment News : Gay Meth Use Accounts For 1 in 6 New HIV Cases in Seattle Area

pozmagazine:

Meth-using MSM were actually 5.2 times more likely to be diagnosed with HIV than MSM who did not use the drug. 

I worry that meth use may be a marker for something else (like self-medicating depression) and that putting the blame on meth is going to scare people away from services.

Though stimulants do make mucous membranes drier and probably more permeable.

I found this quote in the original report.

MSM who used meth were less likely to have a late HIV diagnosis (AIDS within 6 months of testing positive) than MSM who did not use meth (18% versus 25%, P = 0.04). And meth-using MSM had a shorter time from their last negative HIV test than did MSM who did not use meth (median 242 versus 334 days, P < 0.001). But meth-using MSM were less likely to be linked to care within 3 months of HIV diagnosis than non-meth users (93% versus 97%, P = 0.05)

To me, this says that meth users are making an effort to look after their health by getting HIV testing, but that the current system is not very good at linking them to care. Active drug users used to be excluded from HCV treatment, and I wonder if that is still an issue in HIV treatment.