This just made me laugh so hard.

myJunegirls

Now I'm going to need to go look up the #askeljames hashtag to see what else people asked!!!

.http://www.ew.com/article/2015/06/29/el-james-twitter-qa

(and don't forget to click the Simpsons gif- classic)

MrsJenE

The one from "Tony Lee" almost made me pee my pants.

sfgiantsjo

OMG, perfection.

dmlk413

Love it!

Young_Love

BEST

myJunegirls

I had to go read the #askELJames on Twitter.  

That was the best way for me to waste some time this afternoon.  Suddenly this Monday isn't so bad after all.  THE BEST!!!

ThisModernLove

This is one of my favorite social media things ever.

booneybear

Those people are all my favorites today!

GilliC

MrsJenE said:

The one from "Tony Lee" almost made me pee my pants.

Me too!

CeeCeeSugaPie

GilliC said:

MrsJenE said:

The one from "Tony Lee" almost made me pee my pants.

Me too!

Yeah, that one was great!!!

GreenBride624

I saw a BuzzFeed posting on this & my favorite from there was:

"Can you confirm that you will be writing the story of Ramsey Bolton from his perspctive, showing he is just misunderstood?"
-Ros

lolololololol!!!!

Young_Love

So, there's been some reaction from people talking about this as online bullying...and asking what makes other things online bullying if this isn't. It's an interesting question. I mean...if this happened to me, I would be humiliated and definitely feel like I was being bullied/piled on. And I'm imagining if this happened to, say, Diana Gabaldon, people on this board would be outraged.

Jay Asher raised this question on his fb and there were some interesting responses. 

Does it become ok to say things to people online when they reach a certain level of fame/notoriety? Just because we think something isn't good, does that make it ok to be awful to the person who created it?

I'm just sorting through all of this myself and I'm curious if you guys have any thoughts.

(I'm saying this as someone who legit LOLed at this post, but then sort of thought about it and wondered why I was so quick to LOL. I still have very negative feelings about these books, for multiple reasons, but I'm sort of from the "promote the things you love, don't bash the things you hate" school of thought when it comes to talking in public about it.)

InLovewSB

@Young_Love - I can't speak to some of the other more humorous tweets, but MANY of the tweets were asking ELJ how she feels about or how she justifies a series of novels that romanticizes abuse. I think that these are legitimate points. She has never truly owned to the fact that Ana is manipulated, coerced, and abused by Christian. To me, until she addresses the abuse issue, then people have a right in this 'Q&A' environment to ask the hard questions, and this is not online bullying. If you are a good author, then your work will hold up under criticism. Or you can be ELJ and ignore the issue completely while you bathe in your riches.

#askeljames Do you ever wonder how powerful your books could have been if you'd had Ana break free of the abuse in the end?

— Paul Anthony Shortt (@PAShortt) June 29, 2015

#AskELJames Is it only ok for Christian to stalk, coerce, threaten & manipulate Ana because he's hot, or is it also ok because he's rich?

— 50 Shades is abuse (@50shadesabuse) June 29, 2015

Lauren DeStefano ‏@LaurenDeStefano Jun 29

If a big part of an author's day is blocking abuse survivors, maybe it's the author who should be asking herself some questions. #AskELJames

Maggabyte ‏@SamMaggs Jun 29

#AskELJames How are girls supposed to form healthy relationships if this is what they're taught is true love?

dione tennant // 28 ‏@alIonsytennant Jun 29

how do you feel knowing you've made your riches from convincing young impressionable girls that abuse is 'love'? #AskELJames

Young_Love

InLovewSB Good points! I also heard that actual abuse survivors were asking her legit questions and she (or her team? who knows) was blocking them, which is so not ok. 

sfgiantsjo

Young_Love said:

So, there's been some reaction from people talking about this as online bullying...and asking what makes other things online bullying if this isn't. It's an interesting question. I mean...if this happened to me, I would be humiliated and definitely feel like I was being bullied/piled on. And I'm imagining if this happened to, say, Diana Gabaldon, people on this board would be outraged.

Jay Asher raised this question on his fb and there were some interesting responses. 

Does it become ok to say things to people online when they reach a certain level of fame/notoriety? Just because we think something isn't good, does that make it ok to be awful to the person who created it?

I'm just sorting through all of this myself and I'm curious if you guys have any thoughts.

(I'm saying this as someone who legit LOLed at this post, but then sort of thought about it and wondered why I was so quick to LOL. I still have very negative feelings about these books, for multiple reasons, but I'm sort of from the "promote the things you love, don't bash the things you hate" school of thought when it comes to talking in public about it.)

Great food for thought. I totally laughed at the comments, but your post has made me think about why that may not be 100% okay. Some of the tweets that are more of a personal attack are not okay, and in hindsight,  I do not feel great about feeling gleeful about them. 

In general, the tweets were directed at her books. At what point does bashing an artist/writer's work, become personal? Is it okay to mercilessly attack the product EL James put out there, or is there a point in which it crossed the line into bullying? I don't know the answer to that.

GilliC

I didn't read many of the tweets, but of those that I read, most weren't personal attacks. I don't think questioning the message of someone's work or the questionable means of its creation to be bullying at all. I think this isn't too much different from mainstream media.

It's fine to review a book (or film or other artistic pursuit) and criticize it, but it's not fine to criticize the artist for unrelated qualities. "This film sucks because its characters were one-dimensional and the acting was abysmal!" is okay, but "It's not surprising that the actors in this film performed so poorly, since they were being directed by a talent-less hack who's so unoriginal that he makes the cookie-cutter characters in the script seem creative by comparison."

Unfortunately, much of the internet has no editors who can speak up when that line is crossed.

myJunegirls

Young_Love said:

InLovewSB Good points! I also heard that actual abuse survivors were asking her legit questions and she (or her team? who knows) was blocking them, which is so not ok. 

I heard that too- and that is so not cool.

I will say I LOL'd over this and how this all went down.  You are absolutely right though- if this happened to SK, I'd be all ragey and up in people's tweets.  But I think it makes me laugh about her because she refuses to admit this was ever fanfic, etc.  She just doesn't own her own process of how this book came about.  So this does make me laugh- and some people had some very valid points!!

I have to say "Really?" to her team and not foreseeing this is how this would all go?  Who thought this was a good idea?

MrsJenE

myJunegirls said:

Young_Love said:

InLovewSB Good points! I also heard that actual abuse survivors were asking her legit questions and she (or her team? who knows) was blocking them, which is so not ok. 

I heard that too- and that is so not cool.

I will say I LOL'd over this and how this all went down.  You are absolutely right though- if this happened to SK, I'd be all ragey and up in people's tweets.  But I think it makes me laugh about her because she refuses to admit this was ever fanfic, etc.  She just doesn't own her own process of how this book came about.  So this does make me laugh- and some people had some very valid points!!

I have to say "Really?" to her team and not foreseeing this is how this would all go?  Who thought this was a good idea?

Yes.

pinkybooklover09

I totally see the value in the argument of bullying her and what not. I just legitimately do not care. I realize that makes me the worst...but she's a plagiarist and a millionaire I doubt she gives any amount of effs over how I feel about her.

katienichols08

I'm with myJuneGirls.  I just feel as though someone who is in complete denial about how the books came about needs to be knocked down a peg.  Yeah, I'm horrible...but I just have such a problem with someone who takes credit for something someone else did.  My dad is a songwriter and I know how much hard work and money and effort goes into creating a song/producing it/etc...so if someone came and stole a chorus from it or changed the words but kept part of the melody and then didn't give my dad credit for any of it (and not just monetary), I would be stabby/ragey/highly upset and I feel that's what she did to Stephanie Meyer--I mean--not even a little bit of royalties or a hint of a thank you in the acknowledgements or ANYTHING.  Those were HER characters.  

Anyway--that's my soapbox.