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a koala sanctuary; a soon-to-be gated community that hadn’t installed the gates yet, but had enough roads for an introduction to driving. I’d gone to protests of the development a few years earlier, so that’s capitalism for you. world is swarming with children Finally getting my driver’s license was exhausting. Which is a
charging headlong into the streets without a care in the world. Even
strange thing to say about driving, a task that chiefly involves
though he gave (admittedly useful) information with all the
sitting down. For a lot of my friends, it was just that thing they
overblown prophesying of a PSA about underage drinking, he was
did around the end of high school, barely even thinking about it.
still less intense than Mr Susan.
A lot of my friends don’t have highly strung parents and an overwhelming anxiety disorder. For me, it was a six-year process of navigating parents’
After I’d taken some lessons with Al, my dad got on board the learning-to-drive hype train. Every weekend we’d drive for an hour and a half to the Outpost Cafe in Canungra, have coffee and
anxieties (and my own), bureaucratic labyrinths, driving schools,
pancakes, then drive an hour and a half back home. On top of my
myriad sexist microexpressions, and my own dwindling
own fears, I picked up all of dad’s anxiety as well while I was
confidence and bank account balance. All up, between lessons,
behind the wheel. He lost two brothers to a car accident when he
my three tries at the test, and paying for the actual license, it cost
was a teenager, so my dad is a careful driver and a nervous
$1400, but now I have that small plastic rectangle that allows me
passenger. My anxiety is high enough at the best of times, but
to operate a metal box propelled by an explosion and controlled
between them, dad and Al had me convinced that driving in Mad
by two foot buttons and a circle. It still has the same photo from
Max and driving on real roads are basically the same, except it’s not
my learners though, and it kind of looks like I’m not sure if I’m
fun to watch and everyone’s crying and when shit explodes it’s not
pooping or farting.
awesome.
Early in 2009, soon after I turned 16, my mum took me
By the time I was up to 93 hours of driving, dad moved to
for my first driving lesson in my gran’s busted up corolla, which
Tasmania, but my adrenal gland was so burnt out I didn’t care if I
turned out to have a compartment full of sweets that was only
ever got behind the wheel again.
accessible from the driver’s side, so bonus. We went to a nearby patch of land that was once 11
18 months of not driving had passed by when I saw a van for sale 12
painted to look like the Mystery Machine. It was probably a rusty
I so nervous about? I love driving.” It was like someone flicked the
bucket of garbage under all that paint, but I had never been so
“off” switch on my anxiety levels. At least until I started doing the
tempted to spend money I didn’t have on something I didn’t
tests.
need...until I remembered that I couldn’t legally operate it. Turns out if I need motivation to do something, I just need
The thing about driving tests is that for all the anxiety beforehand,
to be presented with the opportunity to make irresponsible impulse
they’re very, very boring. My first test was on the third of March in
purchases.It was September of 2014, and my learners would expire
Rosalie, which everyone told me is a perfect storm of narrow streets,
in April of 2015. You’d think that would be ample time to get seven
tricky corners, uptight yuppies, and school zones. I spent the entire
more hours on my logbook, and then book and pass a test, but
night before panicking
you’d be surprised. My driving anxiety was through the roof at this
about the test, and about having to wake up so bullshit early for it, so
stage, so as luck would have it, my new instructor was the chillest I
I wasn’t super confident to begin with. I went in figuring that I’d
had ever encountered. The new guy, Dan, was a security guard
either pass, or learn what I needed to do to pass next time.
before he was a driving instructor, and apparently he was
At the start of the test, the examiner asked for my form, which
headbutted by Skrillex at some point. I finished my logbook with
I gave him. He then asked for my paperwork. Not sure what this
Dan, and in an unprecedented event of bureaucratic efficiency, my
meant, I mumbled a few confusion noises. He then informed me that
logbook was approved four days after it was submitted. It’s
by “paperwork” he meant my medical certificate, which was not as
possible that they just felt sorry for me, since my logbook was a
obvious as his huffing would suggest (as a type 1 diabetic I need a
first-edition, and they’re up to like the third.
doctor’s approval to drive, which is a massive pain in the arse). The
In between my logbook getting approved and me booking
examiner spent the entire test with his legs spread all the way apart,
my test, Dan had left the driving school, and all his students were
so whenever I had to change gears to first or second, I’d brush his
passed on to Ben. The first thing Ben said to me was that he was
thigh. I found every excuse I could to stay in third.
much more chill than Dan, who was possibly the chillest dude I’d
I failed the test, largely because I didn’t give way at a
ever met. Alarmingly, Ben was indeed significantly more chill than
roundabout and the examiner had to use the teacher-break (I don’t
Dan. The night before my first lesson with Ben, I had a bit of a
even have an excuse, I was just bored), but also because I stayed in
breakthrough with my driving anxiety. In the middle of panicking
high gears when I should have shifted down. So I learned what I
about manoeuvre disasters, I stopped and said to myself, “What am
needed to do to pass the second time around: give way properly
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and pray to as many gods as I can that the examiner doesn’t need so
which he maintained was not his fault), and the guy who racked up
much space to air out his giant balls.
so many speeding fines that he just barely avoided a prison sentence. Failing twice got me pretty introspective. I started noticing bad
My second test was an absolute fluke of booking, the 9th of March
drivers everywhere, drivers who, though terrible, were allowed to
(less than one week later) in Sherwood, a favoured location because it
drive while I wasn’t.
has wide streets and limited tricky corners. At the start of the test, I
I don’t recall the context, but I vividly remember a friend
confidently rolled my way out of the testing centre, turned a corner and
from school delivering an impassioned anti-female-drivers rant one
failed to give way at a pedestrian crossing (you might be noticing a
morning before class. His slam-dunk arguments consisted of
theme here). The test lasted a total of five minutes, and I challenge
rhetorical questions along the lines of: who’s always 10 below the
anyone to fail harder and quicker than I did. As far as blows to your
speed limit on the freeway? Who’s always stalling at intersections?
self-esteem go, failing your driving test twice in one week is a big one.
Who hesitates at roundabouts? It would take a few years for me to
I’ve failed auditions before, I didn’t get into my first-, second-, or
realise that this was the purest manifestation of the reason I put so
third-choice uni courses, and my year 12 formal date told me a month
much pressure on myself to be a perfect driver all the time. I wasn’t
before the formal that he wanted to go with someone else (he
just operating a vehicle, I was an ambassador for all women. When I
specifically described her as “hotter”). But my list of “biggest blows to
fucked up, it would be treated as though all women everywhere
my self-esteem” now had a new number 1 placement.
fucked up. When I failed two driving tests in one week, every woman everywhere failed with me. This might sound like a crazy
Around the time I finished high school, there was a fairly popular
and egotistical thing to say, but everyone who’s faced some kind of
facebook page called “Passing your driving test on the first try because
stereotyping will know how I feel.
you’re not [an idiot]” (the actual title contained an ableist slur, and I
In hindsight, I should have realised the guy was an
have a conscience). Among some of the more notable people who
irredeemable fuckwit at this point, but sixteen-year-old me cared so
liked this page were the girl who thought highway drivers were so rude
much about fitting in that I didn’t say anything.
for honking their horns at her every time she changed lanes, the guy who complained incessantly about losing his license for driving while
My third test was with another instructor altogether. I couldn’t get a test
it was suspended (it was suspended for doing 120 in an 80 zone,
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before Ben went on holiday, and he wasn’t back until after my learners expired, so he passed me on to Alex, who was new to the driving school and my chillest instructor yet. This test was on the 7th of April, 13 days before my learners expired, in Greenslopes. This examiner seemed to pick up that I had no problems driving, it was just exam stress that was holding me back. He also kept his legs at a reasonable distance apart, so lower gears weren’t the problem they were the first time. I stalled twice doing a “turn-around manoeuvre” (which is what three-point turns are called these days) and again in an intersection, where I freaked out and stayed stopped for much longer than necessary. Driving back to the testing centre I was certain I’d failed. I would have to take a break and let my savings account heal before trying again, and there was no way I’d get another test in before my learners expired. When we got back to the centre I was on the verge of tears when the examiner said, “Well, all I have to do now is tick off ‘Successful’ and we’re done.” I let out a success-laugh, but otherwise maintained my dignity pretty well. Turns out I’d had less than the maximum allowable number of non-critical errors, which is pretty good for someone driving an unfamiliar car on unfamiliar roads (also, I didn’t fail to give way this time, if anything I gave far too much way). So I have a license now, that’s a thing. Probably won’t buy a car though, I’m pretty broke after spending all my money on driving tests.
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about the relationship with popular culture that underlies the movement. Torgerson describes his theory of ‘unreliable packaging’, which he claims explains the ‘brokenness’ of the Hugos. He puts it thusly: Sad Puppies is well and truly over by the time you’re reading this. It’s now mere detritus on the convention hall floor of nerd culture, swept away with the discarded flyers and Pocky boxes. As a campaign to promote the nomination of an approved, ‘traditional’ slate of writers for this year’s Hugo Awards, Sad Puppies’ damage has now been done. And there’s plenty about the faction that is ridiculous, regardless of any damage done. Their belief that the Hugos are ‘too insular’, on the basis that their winners have recently included more women and writers of colour; that the solution to this insularity is a kind of affirmative action for their approved writers; their misty-eyed nostalgia for a time when men were men and so were authors. Did everyone forget that Mary Shelley is often considered to have kicked of the whole science fiction canon?
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So it’s easy to write it all off as nonsense, and f fringe nonsense at that. To read a think-piece or two about it, and then move on. And as invested in issues of representation and access we may be, it’s also easy to get jaded by shit like this, especially post-gamergate, in the face of a thousand micro- and macroaggressions. But it’s worth taking a look at the primary sources when it comes to movements like these, instead of just gleaning their intent from a scathing io9 article. It’s baffling when people who have loved the same sorts of stories all their lives as you have can see something so dramatically different. There’s insight to be gained there. You can find all the ridiculousness above, and more, in “SAD PUPPIES 3: The unraveling of an unreliable field”. An early blog post by the Puppies’ Brad Torgerson, the post makes the slates’ objectives clear, but it also has a lot to say
“That’s what’s happened to Science Fiction & Fantasy literature. A few decades ago, if you saw a lovely spaceship on a book cover, with a gorgeous planet in the background, you could be pretty sure you were going to get a rousing space adventure featuring starships and distant, amazing worlds. If you saw a barbarian swinging an axe? You were going to get a rousing fantasy epic with broad-chested heroes who slay monsters, and run off with beautiful women. Battle-armored interstellar jump troops shooting up alien invaders? Yup. A gritty military SF war story, where the humans defeat the odds and save the Earth. And so on, and so forth. These days, you can’t be sure. A book has a spaceship on the cover, but is it really going to be a story about space exploration and pioneering derring-do? Or is the story merely about racial prejudice and exploitation, with interplanetary or interstellar trappings?” I originally read this article for several several assignments, and I often struggled to maintain my academic composure. This guy can’t think sci-fi and fantasy were never allegorical, right?
It’s a weird misunderstanding of the genres on a few levels. Torgerson is concerned that Fiction About Stuff has been put too much on ‘permanent display’ at the expense of the kind of wholesome stories he grew up on. And as an example of the good old days, he gives this quote from Star Trek: ‘To Boldly Go Where No One Has Gone Before.’
Star Trek, which brought us roughly eight thousand episodes about race, episodes about class, and episodes about gender identity (or even about sexuality using gender identity as a metaphor, in one episode of The Next Generation, which would no doubt have Torgerson’s head spinning with Trainspotting -baby fury). The show with that one episode of the original series where aliens with half-black, half-white faces persecute aliens with half-white, half-black faces—the episode so literal and heavy-handed it inspired The AV Club’s listicle ‘Space Racism Is Bad: and 17 Other Not-So-Subtle Lessons We Learned From Star Trek.’ 26
And the version of the quote Torgerson uses is taken from ST:TNG, in which ‘No Man’ is changed to ‘No One’. He has quoted one of Sci-Fi’s most famous, explicit concessions to equal gender representation. It’s political correctness gone mad. The theory here seems to be that genre fiction was agenda-free before lefties, chicks n’ queers noticed it. And, misunderstandings of said fictions aside, that’s clearly not true. I can see where the confusion is for Torgerson. He longs for the fiction he read in the 60s, 70s and 80s. He sees the generic conventions of fiction from that time— buff or brainy male heroes, beautiful female objects of rescue and desire, aliens or monsters as unambiguous foes—as ideologically neutral. They just are, for their own sake; apolitical enjoyment. But those stories present a worldview as clearly as any leftist tract. Assumed heterosexuality, monstrous otherness and all those other old chestnuts are rendered invisible by their ubiquitous presence in our culture at large. Like a dude painting himself brick-pattern and standing in front of a brick wall. They glide to the reader without tension. That doesn’t make them simpler, or more neutral. Torgerson’s own website banner reads ‘TORGERSON: BLUE COLLAR SPEC FIC’. That’s a worldview you’re peddling, buddy. This is where the tension originates, and it’s the same tension behind Gamergate
YouTube comments. There are nerds who want to keep being given what culture’s always delivered, who are baffled when they’re served something different (regardless of whether that something different has been around all along), and see difference as invasive. Torgerson explicitly describes this with his ‘Nutty Nuggets’ metaphor- they feel like they’ve been sold something for decades, they like it, and they don’t like it when someone messes with the formula. They even see it as sinister. We all like a little nostalgia, but intellectualising it to the extent that other voices are feared and rejected is more than a little masturbatory. I want to hear different stories, from as many different kinds of people as possible, even Torgerson’s- because a larger world of stories has intrinsic value. Not because I feel obliged by historical or current cultural imbalances (and if I feel a need to advocate against them, it’s not some kind or gormless guilt), but because it’s more interesting. I want my fiction as wide and weird as possible, because I love it. That approach leaves room for revisiting old favourites, in old works and new. Sad Puppies can’t move beyond them, and the fear and insecurity behind it does fiction no favours. 27
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On Bullshit (with thanks to Harry Frankfurt)
How do you expect me to know I’m talking over you? we exist only in response We never had that conversation. to grasp bullshit’s character forbids the indulgence of impulse I only watched. but the notion of carefully wrought bullshit is truth’s greater enemy You’ve always been possessive. concocts out of whole cloth some kind of laxity in bluffing’s nearness I didn’t touch her. Only with my hands. quaint equivalents snuggle the paradigm
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humbug hokum buncombe claptrap balderdash Yes, but I was lonely. the bullshitter eludes discipline
If I am talking, it’s because I feel safe. There are realms replete with unmitigated bullshit. There’s nothing I can do to fix that part of myself. our essential nature is elusive I’m just a bad boyfriend, I guess. be true to yourself and resist sincerity I wouldn’t know if I were talking over you. You’d have to tell me.
Zenobia Frost
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