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People used to comment on web comics.
People used to comment on fanfiction.
People used to comment on fanart.
People used to comment on OCs.
I hate “content” culture.
I hate “consuming content” and scrolling immediately to the next thing.
People used to be excited about the art that other people created.
People used to want to share that excitement with creators.
I hate this future.
Once someone tagged art that I made with “woah” and I think about it at least once a week. Someone else said “oh neat” once. Someone else WROTE A WHOLE DAMN POEM IN THE COMMENTS. Anyways even just one word can change how someone sees their art. You don’t even have to think about it too hard. You could put a keyboard smash and I’d probably cry from joy.
I’m also trying hard to interact more, I understand that it’s hard to break away from opening your phone and being in Content Consumption Mode.
people will steal fanfics and pay over $100 for bound fanfiction books being sold on etsy without the actual authors knowledge or consent but they wont write a single comment on that same exact fanfic on ao3
they’ll also chat or praise or recommend your fic in closed discord servers where you can’t see it (and don’t necessarily want you to be lol) and bring none of that engagement to your actual fic on AO3 or your inbox on tumblr. This happened to me multiple times in servers I’d already left, or actually been essentially chased out of for having Bad Gross Wrong Opinions and I only heard about it because of the couple of friends who stuck it out in the servers and let me know.
i honestly think there are 3 factors going on with this:
- People are trained by twitter and instagram etc to ‘consume, like and keep scrolling’ unless they want to argue, and they take that habit everywhere. This really does account for a lot of it from casual fans but it’s not the whole issue imo.
- Tumblr Culture deciding circa 2016/2017 that adding on in the reblog on fandom posts/headcanons/etc was cringe, annoying, bad manners if it was enthusiastic, praising or adding on, and reason for shunning and shaming if it was a countering opinion – not an attack but trying to have an intra-fandom discussion where you don’t 100% agree on all points is completely unwelcome in most fandoms. “Don’t add on!” “Make your own post!” “Don’t tag this ‘i don’t usually like this ship but i like this’” “Don’t tag this ‘ship’ it’s platonic!” “Don’t make me read your stupid opinions!” It makes people afraid to even comment in the reblog tags let alone comment on posts, and it carries over to people being afraid to say the wrong thing in an fic comment. It means the only people still replying are either old school internet folks or the utterly shameless and entitled who were going to demand and criticize no matter what.
- Lots of people in Modern Fandom/Anti-Influenced have decided that fic writers are mini pro ‘content creators’ who don’t really belong in spaces where the ‘readers’ hang out and discuss their fic/pick it apart/pass around recs, either sincerely or to ‘laugh at the cringe.’ They don’t want the talk to fic writers and they don’t want to be reminded that fic writers have personal lives or emotional problems or kinks or ‘bad trope preferences’ or opinions on the fandom source show/movie/book/whatever that the ‘reader’ fandom is also interested in. They want writers to get up in a box on a pedestal and not try to talk to them person to person, and they certainly don’t want to comment on your fic or post like you’re a human person. (and frankly in anti-fiction heavy spaces they are monitoring each other in the comments and are afraid to be seen ‘supporting’ the wrong ‘content.’)
But the net effect is so depressing as a writer. I write for me, as the obligatory command goes, but I have around a dozen actually active fics in progress and more on the back burner and it’s hard to focus on one or another without a specific focus or knowing there’s no audience for it. Fiddling with outlines and keeping my fountain pens busy with a paragraph here and there keeps me entertained but it feels harder and harder to feel like it’s worth taking any of it to a finishing and sharing stage. The last couple things I posted early last year actually annoyed people and lost me friends/community. And while I cherish the couple of people who reached out to support me personally and say they liked it……… The experience changed how fandom feels for me.
It’s a risk-reward thing, if fandom makes posting fic a high risk activity and isn’t willing to reward authors with community/acknowledgement that they posted anything at all, more and more fic folks are going to decide to just keep their words to themselves.
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