jottingprosaist:

star-anise:

mydaroga:

Can someone explain when and how “discourse” came to be the word of choice for meta and discussion and how all meta then became wanky?

I’m too tired tonight but maybe hit me up later. It makes me cranky as a postmodernist because “discourse” is an incredibly useful word for me in my work, but when I use it on Tumblr, the children think I’m calling things wank.

Based on my personal experiences, this began when the question of social justice became really prominent in fandom. Because these discussions/meta about social justice in fandom and fanfic were actually rooted in academic social justice literature, “discourse” entered the vocabulary. In the very beginning, it was actually used correctly and some useful discussion was had. (“Problematic” came into use at the same time, and was also useful in the beginning.)

Later, fandom culture had changed such that *every* discussion had to occur in terms of social justice (ie. nothing is in bad taste, rude, or squicky; it must be abusive, homophobic, morally wrong, etc). When wank happened, it was also couched in social justice language. Such language gave (seeming) legitimacy and moral weight to any argument, so I can see how it was seductive. This became normal to the point where I personally think that these days some wankers don’t even realize they’re wanking rather than doing productive social justice. Thus, discourse became synonymous with wank.

(I too am annoyed that “discourse” as a word has been, well… tainted. When I use it sarcastically, I write it as The Discourse or Disk Horse to show that I don’t think wank is legitimate or good-faith discourse.)