The Campaign Craze
Buffy, Star Trek, Roswell... The Sentinel? When fandoms attack.
      by Rachel Hyland

Buffy standing up. Errr... the fans Stand Up For Buffy.

When Fox began its webmaster witch-hunt in 1999, fans of the hit show Buffy the Vampire Slayer were already having a pretty hard time of it. Not only had the news been confirmed of Angel's (David Boreanaz) departure from Buffy for an eponymous effort (thus putting at an end hopes fostered by all-too-many "Buffy and Angel get married" fanfics), but The WB network had spitefully withheld the broadcast of third season episodes "Earshot" and "Graduation Day Part 2," fearing the anti-teen-violence, anti-snake-demon-Mayor themes these installments promoted. The "Stand Up For Buffy" campaign, which drew national attention when it placed an outraged advertisement in Variety, showed that the Buffy revolution had arrived, and that the little show on the little network had had a big impact on a lot of people -- and they weren't going to be quiet about it. When Fox then sent out reams of Cease and Desist orders to website owners hosting multimedia Buffy-ness, such as sound clips and video excerpts, the fans revolted. Similar lawyering had happened before, with X-Files, Simpsons, even Star Trek sites, but this time it was Buffy they were messing with. And it was time for the Buffy Bringers to get involved.

solo84, the driving force behind the Bringers (and whose parents should be ashamed of themselves -- what taunting must the poor child must have suffered!) proclaims the disgust of all Buffy fans in the campaign's manifesto. "What FOX has done is use us for their own profit," solo84 writes. "They've squeezed all the free promotion they believe is possible out of our work and now they're going to pretend as if we're the enemies. The ones to be sneered at and stomped out. Well, I'm here to send you a message baby. That's not the case. In fact it's quite the opposite." Indeed it is. Inspired by the Bringers, Operation Blackout, a protest of Fox's determined illogical enforcement of their legal rights (damn them!), plots to really annoy those corporate bastards by having hundreds of fansites based on such shows as Buffy, Angel, The X-Files, and Millennium shut themselves down -- all voluntarily -- on May 13. Diabolical, isn't it?

When all the sites are blacked out, where will we find all the lickable pictures?

Hundreds of website owners have joined the campaign, which, while beginning with Buffy, is seeking to also address some old wrongs done to the websites of other genre shows. Some website owners, however, are not as enthusiastic about the Blackout as organiser Jade would, perhaps, like. "I think the blackout is pointless," says webmaster Biz, who runs the encyclopaedic Institute of Vampirology. "It won't do anything... but if only a few sites shut down, and others stay up, it makes even less of an impact. So I'll be taking down my site." He rather lessens the impact of his support when he concludes, "It's only a day, so, whatever." Another website owner, Sepra, of The Buffyverse's Wacky Love Shack is less blasé. "It's important," she says. "Like non-violent protest. It shows Fox how much free advertising they'll lose. And as The Master said, 'Sometimes a little is enough.'" Even sites that hold only fan fiction (which has largely been ignored, so far, in the copyright debate), are closing their figurative doors for the day. "I signed up for it," says Felicity, author of heart-wrenching Buffy fiction and host of many a like-minded fan's forays into the Buffy-verse. "I mean, I don't know how much it will really affect them. But I think I'm going to. Anyway, you can say I'm going to and I will!" Ah, the power The 11th Hour wields. (If any of these links are functioning on May 13, be sure to report it to your local authorities.)

Of course, some website owners have decided against taking down their pages at all, whether The 11th Hour says they're going to or not. 11th Hour contributor Little Willow, of Little Willow's Slayground is cautious, but supportive. "I might take down the front page of Slayground for the shutdown -- just the main entryways and just for the day," she says. However, while she believes the campaign is well-intentioned, she feels it is somewhat misdirected. "Instead of taking the sites all down and getting people a 'Not Found' error, I'd put up a little briefing on the Shutdown and Bringers, as it were, to explain to people who click into the site without any knowledge of the movement." Christy, webmistress of Buffy Unlimited, one of the first sites to be shut down by Fox, agrees. "Instead of closing down for the day, I'm going to set up a sort of RIP memorial to some of the shut down sites, on the front page," she says. "It's just my little way of showing some support." Rather than shutdown, Christy believes that what Buffy webmasters, and others, are already doing is helpful. "They are holding their ground (by not giving in to threats from FOX.) Rebuilding when their sites have been torn down, like [with] Buffy Unlimited. And at the same time voicing out against FOX. Letting them know how they feel."

But how do the fans themselves feel about the closure of some of their favourite sites? Lynn, moderator of the Buffy and Angel Boards, put the shutdown of that particular site to a vote, and the overwhelming majority came back with a resounding "nah ah!" "NOOOOOOOOOO!!!" posted chetta. "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" up-graded Oxygen. As for Lynn herself, she says "I don't think TPTB give a toss. If we could shut down their site," she adds wickedly, "it might make an impression." And Zyliq provided this insight: "FOX has to go after a website now and then or they will be in danger of losing their copyrights... I'll skip the rant on how fundamentally absurd intellectual copyright law is in this country, prance right over the confusion the internet has wrought upon that, and go straight into bleeding heart liberal mode. I'd love to stick it to them! Unfortunately, shutting down web sites seems about as effective as me going out onto the patio and taking a two-by-four to my head. It doesn't hurt them, just us, and I'd rather think there's a better way."

Perhaps that "better way" is Fanstock, yet another protest against Fox motivated by the conglomerate's treatment of Buffy fans. "To truly make a difference we have to bring our campaign into the public eye," says Darcie Hobart, instigator of the protest and loyal supporter of both the Blackout and the Bringers. "Although the website shutdowns have been dominating my life for months, the majority of people don't even know they're happening." Fanstock wishes to change all that, by garnering some media attention to the cause with a rally at Fox Studio's Los Angeles headquarters on June 19. "Our immediate main objective," she explains, "is to raise awareness of the situation. Our ultimate main objective is to get FOX, and any other corporate entity trying to mess with the web, off our backs. I'll settle for a compromise; I have a feeling we will have to."

Hobart seeks to bring all of genre fandom together for this event (and, hey, those thirty Trekkers might show up!) "Fanstock isn't about just one show," she says decisively. "It's about all genre shows. Yes, it was started by me as a [Buffy] Bringer, but I like other genre programs too -- including the one most of you at The 11th Hour hate so much." (Whatever could she mean?) "Our motto is 'United We Stand'," she says, obviously a fan of the classics. "Fans can no longer afford to stay in their little Trek corner or Buffy corner. The website shutdowns affect us all."

So go ahead and join a campaign!

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