Let me just get this out here up front: I am not qualified to be your personal therapist, nor do I have any desire to. Everything discussed here is going to relate to behavioral trends and patterns, which means your very specific situation may or may not follow them. These posts are intended to help people recognize and understand some common recurring situations and the broader context in which these situations develop. My hope is that this will expand the number of people with a view of the complicated social context that feeds these issues and improve our tools for addressing them.
Today’s topic has become particularly prominent due to the proliferation of social media: Explosive “Overreactions!”
I’m going to address this by drawing an analogy to a sibling dynamic. I’m also going to explain why there are quotation marks around “overreactions.” Finally, I’m going to make a likely-controversial conclusion about what is required to break the cycle of these incidents. But first, let’s make sure you know what I mean by this topic.
Topic Defined: In this post, and Explosive “Overreaction” means a reaction that appears to be significantly stronger and/or louder in degree than the action that stimulated it.
The Older Sibling Problem:
In this example there are two siblings: the older sister, Adrian, and the younger brother, Andy. (This is definitely for sure not a real story from my childhood or anything.)
Adrian is 3 years older than Andy. For reasons unknown to Adrian, Andy is a constant little shit who loudly taunts her, pokes her, punches her in the butt, and basically tries to provoke a reaction in any way he can when she is trying to focus on something (literally anything) or complete a task. Any time Adrian asks or tells him to stop, Andy ignores her and keeps at it. Their parents aren’t interested in intervening and tell her not to be a whiner or a tattle-tale when she complains to them. They say they don’t want to hear about it unless there’s blood. They tell her to ignore him. Adrian literally cannot ignore him because he keeps her from being able to focus on homework and physically invades her space. Andy’s behavior continues unchecked.
Finally, one day Andy is refusing to stop punching Adrian in the butt while she is taking food out of the freezer, despite her repeatedly telling him (“using her words”) to stop. Adrian warns Andy that if he hits her one more time, she is going to hit him with whatever is in her hand. Andy punches her again. Adrian brings a frozen vegetable lasagna down squarely on top of Andy’s head. Andy squeals like a stuck pig. Mom comes running. Adrian gets punished because she is “older and should know better.” Andy laughs. What a shit.
This cycle repeats over and over. Andy is always the instigator, Adrian tries not to react because she’s supposed to “know better” (per Mom). Eventually she can’t bottle it up anymore, loses her shit, enforces her boundaries, and gets punished. Always she is the one who is supposed to be the better person and ignore the little shit biting her ankles.
“Overreacting”
Adrian’s reactions are not proportional to the single, specific incident that immediately preceded them. They are, however, proportional to the sum total of reactions to all of the events leading up to that incident. This doesn’t make it any more acceptable to slam a block of ice into your brother’s skull, of course. But it certainly explains why someone might react that way in response to getting punched in the butt.
I’m putting quotation marks around this word because it doesn’t convey the whole truth. In reality, this kind of overreaction is really a collection of misdirected/delayed reactions. If we can start to understand that, we can get at what is really making them happen. Obviously it is not the butt punch that caused the homicidal wrath… it is a culmination of months or years of this treatment and always being told the equivalent of “You are not allowed to assert/enforce boundaries at any point regardless of how damaging your brother is being because you were born first.“
(So hey, if you are a parent and you’ve been saying this to your kid, please re-examine your application of this concept and whether you are actually teaching them they’re not allowed to have boundaries.)
Application to the SCA:
This kind of interaction can happen anywhere in the SCA, but there’s one place people seem to absolutely relish the opportunity to get in a jab: Authenticity.
With respect to authenticity, I’m going to use 3 broad categories to capture the entire SCA. There are the people who are hardcore into authenticity, and pursuing it is their jam (A). There are the people who are kind of in the middle, who think authenticity is cool and the people who pull it off are awesome, but who don’t pursue it terribly seriously (B). And there are the people who actively try to piss off the people who pursue authenticity because for some reason that’s what they think is fun (C).
Category A is Adrian.
Category C is Andy.
And Category B is half Mom watching the tip of the iceberg get nuked and half Andy’s friend (who isn’t a little shit and has made good-faith efforts to play respectfully with Adrian) seeing a violent reaction and getting scared.
Mom has to try to do damage control with the only information available at first glance and does the best they can with the energy they have.
Andy’s friend is too scared to keep trying to play with Group A and maybe wonders if it’s even worth playing with Group C anymore.
Mom yells at Group A for hurting Group C and scaring away their friend (who was interested in being Group A’s friend too). Group A gets told that as leaders and people who are looked up to in the SCA, they should know better. Group C has no consequences but gets to tell more “Mean Group A” stories now. Group A tries not to react to Group C until something breaks the dam and starts the whole episode over again.
What can we do about it?
We can start by not putting all of the onus for good behavior on one side of the table. It is absolutely true that Adrian is bigger and stronger and knows better than to slam a frozen entree into Andy’s skull! It is also true that she shouldn’t have to put up with him ceaselessly punching her in the butt simply because she was born first or is a Peer or whatever. That’s harassment. And it’s not innocent fun; it creates an environment where she is so saturated with stress that an uninvolved third party might try to squeeze past her and she turns around and slugs them! And now you have a Mean Laurel beating up on someone who was just trying to participate in good faith.
Active disregard for the most basic rule of participating in an SCA Event and contempt for those who care about and pursue authenticity are toxic and have no place in this club. Imagine if people showed up at SCA Events trying to fight without being authorized and actively taunted and jeered at the people trying to elevate their fighting skills, and the leaders & Peers of the fighting community were told to keep their mouths shut and ignore it and then chastised if they refused. They would certainly be wrong to react by sending the jerks to the hospital with broken bones, of course! But they are, and should be, expected to stand up for themselves and the community.
Authenticity should not be any different. You can participate at whatever level you like as long as you meet the minimum standards, follow the rules, and are courteous to others. And people should be allowed to talk about that and assert it as a boundary, even (especially!) the ones who are “older and should know better.”
If you want to create an SCA where explosive decompression happens less often, you need to install a blow-off valve. Create a space where people are allowed to talk about these things instead of silencing anything that could possibly be considered intimidating to a new person. A single explosion is going turn new people off a whole lot faster than regularly seeing adults who are able to express themselves reasonably, explain their boundaries, and admit out loud that something might not be their personal preference while still not necessarily being wrong.
And please, can we stop letting Andy get away with intentionally being a little shit all the time?
(No Andys were permanently harmed during the making of this story. The real Andy is a much more enjoyable human now that he is an adult who makes better choices. Love you, bro!)
Smash the Shell 
Responses to “Explosive “Overreactions” and the SCA”
A friend shared your blog post with me and wow! This resonates so well with me and my experience! Thank you for sharing it and expressing it so well!
-Milesent
(OL, Midrealm)
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do you have any formal training, schooling, classes, or even a degree in psychoanalysis or psychiatric studies or social work? are you an armchair psychoanalyst or a student of human nature? just putting it in context, not judging or criticizing. just wondering.
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I took psych classes in undergrad and considered minoring in it, but it would have added a 6th year to hit the rest of the requirements since they didn’t overlap much with my BS requirements. I’ve been trained in mediation, and I studied strategies for “getting to yes” (aka manipulating people) in law school. I work in disaster recovery now and have some training in emotional/mental 1st aid from workshops we’ve gone to.
Informally, 2 out of 4 of my parents are psychiatrists who love to talk about their work. The rest is observation and experience from consensus-building work.
This is why I work with patterns and trends… I’m NOT a therapist. I’m a scientist and a communicator. I’m already taking in new data from the discussions about this post and it’s tangential issues to look at other trends. Humans are fascinating!
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This statement, “Active disregard for the most basic rule of participating in an SCA Event…” appears to imply contextually that there exist other requirements than an attempt at pre-17th c. garb. that might be worth comment upon by other members of the organization? Is that your intent? Or am I misunderstanding the purpose of this statement?
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There are indeed other requirements for participating, per SCA governing documents. There are additional requirements for participating in some other activities such as combat, youth activities, and equestrian activities. (Events can also set additional requirements for activities if they choose, but those are not applicable across all Events.)
People don’t have the right to ignore the rules. When someone points out a rule, that’s not unnecessary commentary… So I’m not really sure what you are asking.
Are you asking if I think we should only be holding people to one rule and not the others such as the code of conduct? Please note that authenticity is only the *example* here because it’s widely known as a heated issue. It’s not the exclusive topic of these behaviors.
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I was curious as regards the specific example of authenticity, because the only requirement for authenticity, per the SCA’s by-laws is the one regarding the attempt at pre-17th c. garb.
I was clearly being obtuse in my initial reading of the piece if the focus was supposed to be the larger issue of behavior in the society, as I am in concurrence with you that harassing behavior is always wrong, and should be discussed and dealt with more directly, more openly, and more often.
I’d initially written a paragraph discussing the aspects of our by-laws that discuss the behavior required of SCA participants and how the failure to focus on that as a core aspect of the SCA experience is an ongoing problem, “participants are expected to behave in an appropriate and respectful manner.” but apparently was being a bit nearsighted as I set it aside to better understand your perspective on the issue of authenticity. Apologies.
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As someone who is deeply in the “B” label and has been for twenty years, I’d like greater context. What is the equivalent of “punching Adrian in the butt”? What is the equivalent of hitting Adam with frozen food? I guess where I’m lost is that I believe that the Society for Creative Anachronism is inherently intended to run the gamut. The very name is suggestive of that. We shorten it to “SCA” or “The Society” to remind ourselves that it’s bigger than it’s parts but what you’re describing is a perceived “problem” that stems from the very name of our group. To use your analogy/labeling, “Creative” is embodied by type “C”, “Anachronism” is embodied by type “A” and “Society” is where type “B” lives and breathes.
Personally, I just want everyone to get along and enjoy the game. Ostracizing anyone should be anathema to all. The problem is that to the Type “A”s, the type “C”s and sometimes the “B”s are ruining their Period experience. I’m sorry, but that’s a bunch of bull. We have 7th Century Visigoths running around with 17th Century Elizabethan aristocrats but that’s okay because it’s “Period” and the blending of the modern into a semblance of “Period” is a problem? .
Conversely, why is it that the casual participant feels a need to put down people who have dedicated their lives to perfection? I envy those people because I do not have the patience, focus, time, resources or wherewithal to bring that much attention to one project or even one hobby. Kudos to those people who do.
The problem with the SCA is that the type “A”s are too serious and the type “C”s are not serious enough and then there are those of us in the middle who throw up our hands and wonder how to get everyone to get along. The “A”s and “C”s need to have a conversation and see if there’s a way to get some concessions and leave the extremes behind.
There are reasons I stick with the SCA and don’t do hard core medieval re-enactment (see “hard core”) or a LARP (Fireball? Really?). It’s the people. It’s the lack of pressure one way or another. I want this wonderful experience that has lasted for decades to grow and flourish and the greatest impediment to that is there are other games out there. Other callings and hobbies that don’t have those same pressures or hurdles.
No one should have to suffer indignities for doing what they love but nor should any one need to inflict indignities on others for doing what those people love. To boil it all down I think that if you’re an “A” you need to decide “To ‘B’ or not to ‘B’”. And if you’re a “C”? You need to just “Whisper words of wisdom, let it ‘B’”. If we in the SCA can’t learn to love and appreciate the broad diversity within this hobby then that’s okay. After all, as history has shown us, no matter how great something was, nothing lasts forever.
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It’s an analogy, so there’s not really an “equivalent”. Behavior that would fall into Group C includes intentionally wearing something obtrusively modern and going up to an authenticity enthusiast at an event to gloat that you are wearing something modern. Or specifically telling a herald you’re doing something just to make the scribes cry. It’s about intent. I agree with you – I don’t know why these people do this or why they find it fun. It’s something I’m looking at, though, because I think there are definitely reasons that could help us understand.
If you’re just camping in a modern tent, or wearing modern shoes for comfort, or your garb is T-tunics because you’re not that into garb, that’s not Group C. These people are Group B and are not doing anything wrong.
I never said anybody was ruining anything. I pointed out a major reason some people in the SCA (often leaders/Peers who are told they have to keep silent or they’re a bully) overreact to things, and I said those reactions can also hurt the people who are innocent (Group B). I think this is a major reason we see outbursts from these folks, and if this helps them understand that, perhaps they will be able to start working through the pent-up frustration in a healthier way.
That said, there absolutely ARE some authenticity enthusiasts who are snarky jerks to people in Group B, and that’s not okay either. If people are making a good faith effort to participate, we should lift them up, not beat them down.
The SCA has rules. There is a code of conduct and a minimum garb standard (just “an attempt”). If you refuse to follow the rules and prefer to direct your energy specifically into upsetting other people, then no, I don’t think there’s a place for you in the SCA. Everyone else isn’t obligated to sit there and take abuse for the sake of “getting along.” And that applies to people of ALL ranks.
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Also, I love the heck out of your last paragraph. Let it B. Heeheehee.
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For those who are struggling to extrapolate beyond garb, I can give you a real life example of this. A certain peer whose persona is not western European has been struggling for some time with the rules for submitting heraldry to get what he wants passed. Partly this is because there is difficulty finding sources for heraldry in his chosen culture (access and language are making it doubly tricky) and partly because he won’t compromise on the style in order to get it passed (something like wants an eye of Horus as depicted on this particular tomb, but won’t consider a sun up which is a single eye, which he then draws in whatever style he wants once registered.) Multiple heralds have tried to help – they’ve done research, they’ve found ways that a western European/Anglo-Frankish heraldic equivalent could be registered, they’ve done the hard work to get the submission rules changed, but it hasn’t worked. He then won crown tourney, and while Crown Prince, got involved in a discussion on the Kingdom’s College of Herald’s facebook page about how submissions outside the standard Anglo-Frankish, post 13th C model of heraldry that we use can be done – and he threw up a whole lot of stuff that he’s still angry about from a bounced submission made nearly a decade ago. There was a second conversation going on about how to encourage people to step up as Court Heralds, which involved discussions about how we could change our kingdom’s culture and educate our royalty to give their heralds more than an hour or two of notice, so people had time to prepare.
The two conversations were running on the page at the same time, with multiple comments and reply-threads, and he kept coming in with the attitude that “well, the College of Heralds is petty, bureaucratic and obsessed with red tape, and if you’d actually bother to help people, you wouldn’t have these problems”. Note that he didn’t pay attention to the multiple individuals involved in the conversation, it was *always* “The College of Heralds”, and he ignored all the people saying “hey, I’m a member of the College, you are talking about me, and that doesn’t fit at; I find that insulting”. And that included a few heralds who had done an enormous amount of work researching heraldry and symbol-usage in his chosen culture for quite a while, and who had worked to get the rules of submission amended to recognise that work – and did it specifically for him.
The result was 90% of the heralds in the Kingdom – and all bar two of the court heralds – extremely reluctant to work with a man who was shortly to step up as King. There was a lot of private heartache and soul searching about whether or not we would step up to do court for him, and there was a genuine, real risk of his Coronation having no heralds willing to do it. Several people stopped playing during his reign, a large number of people who would normally joyfully step forward to do court came up with reasons not to, or simply didn’t attend royal events, and a few people, despite having no desire to work with him, felt their love for the game came first, and stepped up.
But we nearly didn’t. And part of the consideration was – what happens if we refuse? The story becomes the College of Heralds threw a snit when they were criticised and held the Crown to ransom. There would be no acknowledgement that we had, en masse, been basely insulted by this person. There would be no acknowledgement that the majority of grumbles made about the College were issues we had fixed years ago. There would be no acknowledgement of the work done, or that there is an ongoing movement in our kingdom to improve how the College does things to make it easier and simpler for everyone. What would be said was that we would be in the wrong.
So in this scenario, it’s an entire group of people who are A, and the C people are those who perhaps had difficulty with a submission years ago, before a number of substantive changes to the submission rules, or had a bad experience with one herald, and in this case, one person who had both experiences not recognising that Group A did more than just what Group C kept complaining about, and Group B is supremely ignorant of both sides experience and doesn’t care either way. And Group B and would have just seen Group A refusing to do something really important because… they didn’t like the King? and Group C would take it as more reason to keep bagging on Group A as a whole **all while still calling individual members of Group A friends, and taking advantage of the results of their work without acknowledgement**.
And you can apply that experience to a whole lot of groups in the SCA – the Crown only gives awards to their friends, the Knights don’t care about anything that isn’t heavy-combat and think everything else should come second, Seneschals/Reeves/Marshals are just on a power trip when they try to enforce the society’s rules, you can’t get fed properly at a feast if you have food issues (oh my god, go to a Cook’s list and mention people who don’t tell the kitchen about their allergy ahead of time to see the fall out of that one!), and so on and so on.
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