Sitting on a flight to Nashville I found myself wondering who is responsible for hiring stewards and stewardesses. What are the standards there? Who decides? I think about that idea more and more as I move through different facets and phases of my professional life. Who decided that story was good enough to print? Who decided that book wasn’t good enough to publish? I think about two books of the science fiction variety that have gone on to have wild success yet were both self-published (through amazon, mostly). Hugh Howey’s Dust and Craig Alanson’s ongoing 14 book Expeditionary Force series are examples of books that didn’t pass the gatekeeper test but went on to do quite well.
Gatekeepers are largely about establishing (or more often preserving) a certain type of culture or look or feel. I struggle with the concept, because it means difference is rarely applauded by such people and that really is not their job. At the same time I recognize the need for gatekeepers in a society such as ours where access to voice and to sharing your voice is so wildly prevalent. Social media is a hotbed of voices screaming out to be heard and often what you hear is the most salacious or most repeated voices and messages. This is another form of gate and gatekeeping, because it conditions us to look towards such sounds/voices as the standard.
I don’t quite understand the standards for a number of things. One person’s idea of proficiency is another’s concept of lack of talent or failure. I was in a meeting the other day with an extremely talented marketing person and it made me feel, well, terrible about what my own team marketing looks like. It also built a new standard for me. That meeting helped me understand what gates I am forced to hold in my position.
I suppose gatekeeping matters the most when you are trying to establish standards and trying to determine what you want to be good and want to be acceptable. Still, it has the direct effect of reminding us what is not good and not acceptable—to us.