Blocked By VOYA Magazine

When I was younger, my mom taught me that when someone was bothering you, it was important to make it clear that you'd like that behaviour to stop. If it didn't, then it was best to disengage and interact with that person as little as possible. Starting fights doesn't often solve anything.

I've followed that ideal for most of my life. So when the initial mess with VOYA came up, I, like others, made my displeasure clear, offered criticism, and then watched as they stubbornly refused to change or take responsibility for wrongdoings. VOYA Magazine stooped so low as to block and gaslight those offering criticism, respond to industry professionals with sarcasm and rudeness, as well as respond to attempts to help them with insults.

Normally, I'd follow my mother's advice and walk away, but I can't this time. Not when a magazine that claims to be the "Voice of Youth Advocates" turns around and spits on not only their audience, but those they claim to "advocate" for.

If you haven't heard of the madness, it all began when VOYA Magazine published a review of Kody Keplinger's RUN (which they've since deleted), in which they claim the book should be for mature junior and high school readers due to a bisexual main character and swearing. The main issue, of course, being the implication that the mere existence of a bisexual character warrants a "warning." The real problem is best outlined by the author herself:

Nowhere in the review does it mention the straight sex. What makes the book mature was the mere fact that Bo expressed that she liked girls as well as boys. 

Tristina Wright (@TristinaWright) sent an email to VOYA after reading the review, and the following response from VOYA staff sent the internet into a frenzy.

The whole exchange makes me cringe hard. Of course, people make mistakes, right? Nothing a simple apology wouldn't fix. But the event only spiraled from there. 

Emails and tweets piled up from various writers, bloggers, publicists, publishers, agents, editors, basically everyone and their grandmother, expressing that this was not okay. The biphobic comment was awful, but VOYA's blatant disrespect towards one of their readers was inexcusable. Naturally, people wanted an apology. Instead of giving one, VOYA Magazine decided it was better to just block people and try to sweep the matter under the rug. 

An email response from VOYA. Deflect, deflect, deflect. 

The rage flames grew higher, and rightly so. Among other offenses, VOYA misgendered someone and continued to do so after being told to stop. 

They responded to valid concerns and criticisms, and offers of help with sarcasm and rudeness. 

Lied about apologizing to Tristina for insulting her and her child. 

They claimed that genderqueer is simply "twitter lingo." 

Naturally, this PR catastrophe bothered a lot of people in the community and there was a lot of blowback. After all, this kind of ignorance and bigotry is not accepted and cannot be allowed to run unchecked. So, VOYA released first a half-assed, victim-blaming apology: 

"The LGBTQ Community has taken offense" is the polite way of saying "The LGBTQ Community is forcing us to say this but frankly we've done nothing wrong." Surprisingly, this didn't go over well with the community (it's like they think we're stupid or something), and so VOYA released a longer, more eloquent, victim blaming apology: 

You'll notice VOYA now blames the community for not stepping forward sooner. The biphobic comment was noticed, by many, including the author herself and her publisher. But for them to speak out on the issue would have been seen as a major taboo (as the golden rule for authors involves never responding to a review). The fact that all this came out during BiWeek had less to do with us "searching to destroy our enemies in a public forum" (as VOYA has accused), and more to do with the fact that people were actively seeking out reviews about books with bisexual characters. An advocate looking to celebrate BiWeek came across the problematic review, and it was the magazine's horrible behaviour that blew the backlash to epic proportions. 

After all, this could have all been avoided if VOYA Magazine had acted like a professional, thanked Tristina for her feedback in the original email, and then edited the problematic line. Instead, they've proven that they don't care and they won't change. For all their apologies, they just don't care what the LGBTQ community has to say. 

As of Sunday night, days after all this hit the fan at high velocity, VOYA is still attempting to cover themselves with lies while censoring and blocking those raising issues. Hannah Moskowitz, a prominent member of the YA and LGBTQ communities, just this morning was blocked from VOYA's Facebook page with all her comments deleted. For all their apologies, they continue to dig themselves deeper and deeper into a hole. 

Like my mother always taught me, I'll be walking away from VOYA and making sure I never associate with them. But that's not enough. It's not enough for one major reason. 

VOYA Magazine is the Voice of the Youth Advocate. They claim to advocate for youth, all youth, and yet they've shown the exact opposite. They've shown to all those who look to them for advice, such as librarians, educators, bloggers, reviewers, etc., that bisexuals are something to be warned against. That bisexuals are the other, that though they are allowed to exist, they are "mature content." 

How many queer teen lives has VOYA affected in their screenings of f/f YA novels? How many innocent books were marked as "too mature" simply because there was a mention of LGBTQ? In comparison, why was Kody Keplinger's first book, The DUFF, not rated mature by VOYA despite the rampant (straight) sex all throughout the novel? 

VOYA cannot be allowed to be "an advocate for youth" if their advocating is selective. Bisexual, lesbian, and genderqueer youth deserve to be advocated for just as much as straight youth. I work in child welfare, and I've seen first hand all kinds of "youth advocates." I've seen those who would throw themselves on a grenade if it would give one vulnerable youth a better life, and I've seen "advocates" who would gladly throw children on grenades if it helped them get a better salary. 

VOYA Magazine is the latter. They are an advocate that only wants to exploit youth, young adult fiction, and what it may see as an "easy cash cow." 

Teens don't need fake advocates. They need people who care. Not people who brush off the realities of issues facing a large portion of their audience, of those they "advocate for." 

After all, would you want your youth advocate posting things like this in a public Facebook account? 

Lisa is the co-owner and review editor at VOYA. Definitely seems like she cares about youth and their rights. 

I refuse to stand by and allow VOYA to continue like this. I won't be able to sit comfortably wondering how many more queer youth are hurt by their unchecked abusive behaviour. 

I'm here to ask you, all of you, to make them accountable for this. It's time to boycott VOYA. I ask not only that you sign the petition to boycott, but to actually stand by it as well. 

Queer youth need to know that they have those that stand with them. That they don't need a content warning. That they don't need to be silent. 

BOYCOTT VOYA. 

Privacy and Social Media

So I just read this and it got me thinking. Andy Boyle was recently in a Burger King in which he watched a fight between a married couple. He tweeted the play-by-play of the fight, including pictures of the couple, and even a video of the fight. And I don't know what to think of it.

On the one hand, there is an indignant part of my brain that wants to stamp my foot and exclaim, "THAT'S JUST NOT RIGHT." I want to get all huffy and say it's unfair to broadcast their problems across the internet without their consent. And yet, another part of me is completely indifferent to how THEY feel. After all, if they didn't want their fight to be public, they would have discussed their issues in the car or at home. There is no privacy in public anymore.

In the end, I'm so torn by what to feel that I can only feel saddened for the couple, if only for Andy Boyle's last two tweets. Because whether it was broadcast all over the world or kept absolutely private, their marriage is still ending, their love is lost, and these two people have to decide how they want their marriage to proceed.

But it's a perfect example of how our views of privacy are changing. What is "private", really, when we spend our time on social media sites, telling the world about ourselves? Updating our relationship status, something extremely private (especially when break-ups are concerned), or tweeting about our ups and lows? We pour ourselves into these pages, and because it's the internet, we almost feel anonymous. It's hard to fathom that every time we hit send, enter, or open our browser, we are utterly exposed to the world. Anyone with internet access can find what we've written, read it and know us, without ever meeting face-to-face.

And that can be scary. More so, it can be just as frightening when we realize that we have absolutely no CONTROL over what we post on the internet. The second you hit "send" it exists in the internet, even as some small piece of code, whether or not you choose to delete it. People can take what we've posted and spread it in seconds. Your picture could be half-way around the world, on eighteen different websites, and there is virtually no way to undo it. And that's not counting the content about us, that's not posted by us. Unflattering Facebook pictures, incriminating tweets, maybe even downright rude text messages. Our entire lives exist on the electronic devices we carry and the websites we visit.

We are the tech age. In cyberpunk terms, we've become one with the machines.

Which may not be a bad thing. However, if we continue along this trend, and the world grows even more reliant on the internet and our gadgets, our perception of privacy MUST change with it.

There's a great quote from a recent South Park episode that reflects what I mean here. The clip is here, but since it's highly likely that it will get taken down from youtube, I'll also transcribe a bit from it.

In this episode (called Bass to Mouth, btw) a site called Eavesdropper has appeared in South Park, and is posting up gossip about the kids at school.

KYLE: I'm not looking at that.

STAN: Come on, dude, it's pretty funny.

KYLE: It wouldn't be funny if that website posted something about you.

STAN: I wouldn't care.

CRAIG: (reading) Exclusive, Stan Marsh thinks Elise Thompson has a hot butt crack.

STAN: What?

CRAIG: (reading) In an email sent yesterday to Kenny McCormick, Stan Marsh wrote, "Dude, you should have been in PE today, Elise Thompson's butt crack was totally showing." He went on to call her butt crack "Nice" and that the whole experience was "pretty awesome."

STAN: Kenny! (Runs to Kenny's locker) Kenny, what the f**k?

KENNY: (muffled) What?

STAN: How did Eavesdropper get a hold of my email to you?

KENNY: (muffled) I don't know.

STAN: Do you just leave your emails open for everyone to read?

KENNY: (muffled) No.

STAN: That was a PRIVATE email from ME to YOU.

The scene goes on, but I think you get the picture. We have an assumed privacy that I think stems from the social convention of keeping secrets. If we confide in someone face-to-face, show them a picture, tell them about our day, it's expected that the person will not run around town telling everyone they know. Sometimes it's because it's private, sometimes it's just polite, and sometimes it's not our news to tell. And yet with social media sites, those social conventions of confidence are thrown out the window. Because with a click of a button, we tell EVERYONE, and it's become an easy way to stay completely connected and yet emotionally distant from everyone we know.

I wanted to bring up another aspect of how privacy and accessibility have clashed. Emails are considered a semi-private thing, right? Same with DM's, private messages, and the like. But what about queries?

I never thought of queries as something to be kept private. After all, on the AbsoluteWrite forums, people post their queries all the time to be critted. I still don't believe queries should be private for this simple reason: Your query is a business proposal. This is a matter of business, not personal life. Yes, your book is your baby and wah, wah, you're an artist. And you are. But the second you send your query, you're opening yourself to the world, and presenting yourself as finished, polished, and ready to be critiqued by a professional.

Do I have a problem with Sara Megibow's #10queriesin10tweets on Twitter? No. Because the moment those authors hit send, their work is no longer private. More so, Sara makes sure the queries cannot be identified, and does not ridicule, but uses the mistakes some writers have made to help others better their craft. If this is a violation of privacy, it's certainly a much kinder violation than Andy Boyle's public broadcast of a deteriorating marriage.

Our perceptions of privacy will change, inevitably. It probably won't be spoken of. Like most social codes, our ideas of privacy will shift and change without much conscious thought, until one day we look back and realize that what we're doing now would have seemed ridiculous 20 years ago. Perhaps in the future, in 20, 30 or even 50 years, we'll stop hiding behind this false anonymity the internet provides. Maybe our social contracts will shift so much that keeping secrets is nullified, and we speak the truth, no matter how blunt or mean or incriminating.

Maybe that won't be such a bad thing.

Peace,

-Katie