TL;DR

I struggled with this answer, because, while it would be diplomatic to simply apologize, I won’t apologize that it was hurtful, because, as you’ll learn in this post, that group of “more obsessive” people have been and are much crueler to their victims than I was with that one word about them. 

~Here is a picture of Our Lady of VC for the more obsessive fans to frame and worship~

Side note, before we go any further: Anon, why do you care who I lump anyone in with? I could say everyone who follows X is “a gullible baby,” and everyone who follows Y is “a perfect cinnamon roll, too good for this world,” but that doesn’t make either true. Obviously, if you don’t think you follow AR “slavishly,” then you don’t! Take a breath, this is tumblrland, this blog is for VC fandom love and fanworks (and fandom etiquette and education sometimes), it’s meant to be an outlet, an escape from reality, so don’t take things personally.

This is actually a great opportunity to educate you, Anon, and anyone else who might not be aware of the history between Anne Rice, her “People of the Page” (her phrase, not mine. ”POTP”) followers, her fandom outside of POTP, and outside people who have had opinions on her works. I could write a dissertation on this topic but it’s not worth the effort; this post will be TL;DR for most people. I’m doing this so I can tag it and use it again the next time this topic comes up. 

The short answer is: In the beginning, all of AR’s FB followers were POTP. No distinction needed to be made, because they were ALL highly obsessive to the point that they were her online army she could rally to attack people/reviewers who dared to have an opinion on her works. There have been many instances in which something critical to AR came along – or something that she INTERPRETED as critical – and AR makes a statement on her FB page about it, which is a thinly veiled order rallying her troops to inundate that source with their “discussion” on that review. Sometimes her POTP simply made so many personal attacks in the comments on the offending critical post that the victim is forced to withdraw/delete their review. This whole cycle has happened too many times. In fact, AR has recognized this pattern and actually said that she will no longer link to negative reviews of her works (½/14):

“Guys, I am always open to publishing negative reviews of my work for consideration, to balance the many positive reviews to which I link. But the negative reviewer must bring the review here and request it. When I’ve linked to negative reviews for discussion, some of the reviewers in question have felt that they were unfairly targeted; and they have objected to some of the comments made on their reviews. It just doesn’t work. So I no longer volunteer any negative review, no matter how well written, for discussion. Again, reviewers are welcome to bring their reviews to the page, and post links and offer them for discussion. Same with blog posts. I might not repost every single one; but I’m happy to see them posted on the page and to read them and consider them for reposting.”

“… if I link to them for discussion, some of these people get very upset. They accuse me of “demonizing” them. They call the People of the Page “hell hounds” for their comments. And admittedly, some people do make very unpleasant comments…”

She has 1.1 million followers as of this posting, and I, myself, am one of them. So, of all 1.1 million, at least one of her followers is not an obsessive “hell hound,” as described above.

I actually think she has moved past much of the drama, and now her POTP (both our kind, Anon, and the “more obsessive” kind) are more focused on news items, poetry, VC adaptations & casting ideas, headcanons/canon requests for AR, and other good things she likes discussion on. I enjoyed her #Fan Questions for Lestat, and the 15 yr old inside me still gets excited when she posts something about “Where are they now?” like Lestat doodling on a napkin, or the whole coven all flopped together on a couch watching Hell on Wheels, that’s good stuff *u*

Hit the jump for links to examples of POTP vs. reviewers clashing, etc.

1. War on Fanfic

So this is before the POTP’s time, but it’s worth noting that Anne Rice waged a War on Fanfic in the 1990′s. She had every right to do so, but it destroyed the fandom. She sicc’d her pack of lawyers on all VC fanfic authors, and forced speculative fiction (old-timey-wimey word for “fanfic”) sites to shut down. The fandom was driven underground; fanfic could only be shared very privately, possibly through email exchanges or carrier pigeons.

This experience taught AR a valuable lesson: Anything that she didn’t approve of could be shut down by forces she could marshal. Lawyers cost money, and take on only legitimate legal cases, and legal battles can get messy (she’s had other legal issues but I won’t go there, you can use your newfangled googley-woogly machine for that).

2. The Pandora story

Here’s where the POTP became AR’s army, and they didn’t cost a penny, and there were no legal ramifications in sending them forth on her behalf.

“Kayleigh Herbertson found Pandora to be a poorly written novel where the vampires didn’t act like vampires… after Herbertson was done writing the review she took the book, which was already falling apart, and turned it into decoupage.”

“[AR] chose to respond by posting a link on her Facebook page (where her 740 thousand Facebook followers could find it) and appended the invitation: “Comments most welcome.”.“

Her POTP left an enormous amount of harassing comments on that page, and eventually, it was taken down. Here are my two favorite POTP comments from that article:

• HOW DARE YOU EVEN COMPARE SHITTY ASS STEPHANIE MEYER TO THE QUALITY WORK THAT IS ANNE RICE HOW DARE YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! YOU FUCKING HAG, I HOPE YOU GET HERPES
• You bitch! 😡

Here’s a link to another article on this situation, with more context.

3. Mess of Links

Here, have at it. I can’t read through these all, but you can!

• Googley-woogley machine results
• AR writes: “J. Malin wrote this extremely negative review of “The Witching Hour” for Amazon… it seems a good idea to look at a deeply critical review, especially one that it is very well written. Comments welcome.
• A review of IWTV with POTP comments.
• Review of Beauty’s Release “And sometimes, pain is just … painful” by Aletheia Knights, with lots of authentic POTP comments.
• Aaaaand here’s AR’s call to action discussion on Knights’ review: “… I stumbled on this amazing negative review of my erotica, “Beauty’s Release,” … I would honestly welcome opinions on this review. Please understand: I am not trying to incite “fans” to pile on this reviewer. Not at all. What I welcome here is honest discussion because the review puzzles and baffles me. This is perhaps the longest negative review I’ve ever seen of my erotica, and I’m somewhat, well, stunned, by the tone, intricacy, and length of all this… Your comments are most welcome.”

Hope this helped! I think we’re all coexisting pretty well these days, her People Of The Page and her – what I like to call ourselves – People Off the Page. Let’s just all take a chill pill and enjoy this series together, and if not, let’s just do it in our own way. Live and let live.