When politics and fandom collide

This is going to be a rather more serious-minded post than most of mine here. A few of you may have an idea what sparked off my thinking about this earlier in the autumn. If you do know, please keep it to yourself, as it's not something that I want splurged all over a more general post like this. By the way, I'm not talking about in-universe Equestrian politics here. I'm not talking about fandom politics in the sense of "Why does X con never invite Y guest?" or whatever, either. I mean real-world politics and how much it should or should not impinge on fandom events.

An example that comes to mind is the Mare Fair convention. This event was somewhat controversial in its own right because of its fully 18+ nature (very uncommon in the Pony fandom) and its close links to 4chan – though of course we all have to recognise that the FiM fandom itself was pretty much born on 4chan back in 2010.¹ I wasn't there and though I do know one or two people who were (and, I will acknowledge, had a good time), I don't think it's fair to comment on what the atmosphere may or may not have been like when I had no experience of it and have barely looked at videos or reports from it.
¹ Not quite, since the first G4 PMV pre-dates the 4chan MLP fandom.

After the convention itself, and not at the actual venue, there was an incident (widely reported on social media) in which some people formed a swastika in a swimming pool. There was a lot of back and forth about what actually happened, who meant what, what action would have been appropriate, etc – but certainly it put some people right off, me included, though of course many of those (also me included) would never have gone to a 4chan-related/inspired event anyway. FWIW I thought one reaction, that they couldn't do anything about it because it happened outside con time/grounds, was pretty weak. It's a private event, so they certainly could ban/restrict such people from attending very easily if they'd wanted.

Still, I don't have enough details to say more. Here's a post on Estee's Fimfiction that has some background in the comments.

No, my real point is this. I absolutely do not subscribe to the notion that something being important means you have a moral right or even imperative to talk/post about it anywhere and everywhere regardless of what anyone else in that forum might want or what its own rules might be. As I often point out, even in 1940 with the UK at war and under imminent threat of invasion from a huge number of real, actual, armed Nazis, there were places in pubs, clubs etc where war talk was absolutely forbidden. Providing some kind of safe space away from the latest controversy/drama/danger/whatever is a good thing and I won't budge from that.

This does not of course mean that politics and serious matters should never come up. I could point to the earlier years when "love and tolerate" was taken by a few too many people to mean "absolutely everyone should be welcome in this fandom". That led to cases of creepiness and worse by people who should have been told "No. You are not welcome here. Get out" on sight. I think the MLP fandom has improved its behaviour on that now, but the fact remains that it was unacceptably lax for too long. That is a source of shame for us as a fandom, and we mustn't let it happen again.

But, just as I think calling every unpleasant right-wing person a Nazi¹ is both lazy and utterly counterproductive, I also think that insisting that politics should be discussed everywhere and that if you don't do it, you're effectively enabling a cover-up, is also counterproductive. It's certainly true that "There's a time and a place" can be misused for those purposes, but I don't believe that it is inherently a bad line to take. I deeply dislike what those people did after Mare Fair, and I wouldn't want people who did that in a group I ran. Mind you, I doubt said people would want to be in such a group, so the issue is unlikely to arise.
¹ That is a subset of right-wing people. Calling all right-wing people Nazis is even less to my taste.

So, in general: I think we were wrong to brush awkward and difficult subjects under the carpet and pretend everything was sunshine and rainbows when it wasn't. I think there are times today when we have to face up to difficult and awkward subjects. I simultaneously think that the existence of places where you can be reasonably sure that you won't suddenly encounter a political screed, even one you agree with, is right. Sometimes people – certainly me – need their escapism and a place to get away from the real world for a bit. It's one of the things fantasy fandoms are for!