Do you know why it seems like people are interacting with blogs less and less? Like, a few years ago, maybe like 6 at most, i would have days long conversations in the rb chains, i would send out a billion asks to my mutuals and blogs I follow and would get a billion asks back. It was actually fun to rb ask games and rb chain games because there was a near 100% guarantee that you would be included and interacted withAnd now it’s a gamble if anything you post will break 20, maybe even 10 likes
TL;DR: people are afraid of attempting interaction, because they are worried they will receive negative interaction in return.
A culture has been fostered where many tumblr users, especially in young fandom, expect and rightly assume that they will be critiqued and questioned on any piece of fiction or art that they interact with, by it’s creator, and by their followers.
We talk a lot about the decline of comment culture in fandom spaces these days, and I recently saw a post that reminded me of my prevailing theory about why that started.
I can’t speak for everyone, but I know that I personally stopped commenting on people’s art and fic on tumblr specifically when I saw the culture shift toward creators berating and publicly shaming the people who reblogged their work for any kind of comments or tags that the creator didn’t like.
I stopped commenting art when I saw prominent posts going around ranting about how awful it was to see comments like “I don’t usually like x but your work…” and “don’t ever ever compare an artist’s work to another thing you like” and “don’t tag as kin/don’t tag as your OC’s name.”
And then came the era of artists starting to investigate the blogs of people who reblogged their work, and shame/mock/harass/block anyone who reblogged their art who appeared to have a fandom opinion they didn’t agree with.
And I am not saying there were even a lot of artists, writers etc DOING this.
But there was enough, and it was visible enough, to make the idea of commenting or leaving a tag on someone’s work seem daunting.
Because you never knew if that creator was going to explode on you for some harmless comment wanting to be nice and share your thoughts about it, or even just because you reblogged their art and they decided they didn’t like you.
^^^^^ This 100%.
I’ve felt for a while now that the discussion of fandom engagement (ie sending asks, liking/reblogging, leaving kudos/comments/bookmarks, etc.) has been missing a very big part of the discussion when it comes to harassment of fellow fans.
Because a lot of times people talk about people not being more involved with fan creators & connect it to things like people migrating from different social media & coming from different site cultures or people viewing fan creators as equal to “content creators,” and whereas these things also play a part, harassment is also very much a key player in why people don’t participate in a lot of fandom activities & are becoming more passive in their engagement of fandom. A very big factor, in fact.
And honestly, I can’t blame people for it when there’s a very real risk of getting death threats or being spammed with gore or porn or being doxxed for enjoying fandoms the “wrong” way. I know part of the reason why I sometimes hesitate to reblog a post or leave kudos/comments is because of this, and knowing full well that if I reblog or interact with someone who’s a bit too harassment-happy, I could not only be putting myself in some hot water but other people who follow & interact with me, too. Because usually people tend to harass not just one person but anyone they view as being affiliated with their target of harassment.
Encouraging people to interact with other fans is great! But we aren’t going to see a lot of fan interaction like we used to if we don’t address the very real harassment that goes on in fandom. Because people aren’t going to want to reblog art or stories or send people asks, etc. etc., if they think they’re going to get hurt over it.
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