How to feel

I’ve seen this argument going around a lot about needing to label fiction as fiction on web platforms. So I guess as not to confuse people… There are a lot of things wrong with this, all of which I’d like to unpack eventually.

But one of which I finally put my finger on: telling people how to feel. It’s annoying.

And this is effectively what forcing someone to label something as “fiction” really does, is it sets up the reader in advance (if they even check the label) a framework for how they “should” feel about it, and how far they ought to take their “belief” before it becomes “dangerous.” etc.

The Onion also made an excellent case against being forced to label parody, which I won’t re-summarize here. More on this as my brain works through it.