#my comprehensive list of fandoms is actually perplexing

[gildedtragedies]

me with my fallout 4 hyperfixation fic that i updated daily for three weeks and then never looked at again

Some of us really need to be doing “Finish That Fanfic We Haven’t Updated in a Year November” 💀

[booksandabeer]

A personal—and therefore separate—addition to the post I just reblogged.

This is absolutely not meant to be a comprehensive, constructive, or even coherent response to the "3 f problem." This is me thinking out loud on my own blog. I won't comment on how or why writers should or should not want or need feedback; that's not my place.

But as a reader, allow me to say this:

I understand that there is a lot frustration, disappointment, and even anger on the part of fanfic writers when it comes to the way people interact with their works or, in fact, don't interact with them—and the majority of these feelings are completely justified and backed up by the clearly noticeable drop in comments on AO3. However, as someone who actually comments a lot, I will admit that I'm frequently put off by posts that aggressively yell at me that "comments are payment" and that I "MUST comment" because otherwise I'm a bad, ungrateful person who refuses to "compensate" the author for "the cost of writing" (see also: likes are “worthless” all that counts are reblogs). Not only do these diatribes seem to reveal an unfortunate and deeply ingrained transactional, even capitalist, approach to fandom, but they're also often based in the—conscious or unconscious—assumption that readers are (and only ever will be) inherently second-class citizens of Fandomlandia who must earn their right to be a part of the fandom and who are only barely tolerated as long as they fulfill their part of the transaction.

I also continue to be slightly perplexed by the constant assurances that "ALL comments are welcome and appreciated" and that there is "no wrong way to comment."¹ And yet, I see elaborate ‘How to leave a comment’ manuals circulating on here all the time. I know that for the most part these posts are well-intentioned, and I'm genuinely glad if someone finds them to be helpful, but I fear that they are more likely to have the opposite effect. I'm not convinced that presenting people with a whole catalog of things they could potentially do wrong will actually help them overcome their anxieties and lower their inhibitions to interact with fellow fans. If anything, they make it less likely because now there’s even more pressure to Do It Right and leave The Perfect Comment. Not to mention that a lot of these guides read less like well-meaning advice and more like ‘here are 500 rules on how to comment CORRECTLY.’

¹the obvious exception here are negative or downright offensive comments, of course.

___

I also want to express my skepticism about the comment fests I see from time to time here on tumblr (and hence my reluctance to participate in them). Again, I understand that the intention behind these events is a good one. But. If what creators really want is conversation, exchange, a sense of community—is the gamification of commenting really going to bring that about? Do writers—and I ask this with complete sincerity and genuine curiosity—really want to receive 5, 10, 20 one-word or emoji comments because someone needs to fulfill their "commenting quota" for the day? Is that the kind of interaction we want to encourage? Isn't one heartfelt, specific comment (doesn't even need to be a long one!) that actually engages with a text much more meaningful than one of those drive-by comments where it's often dubious whether the person leaving it has even read the story they're commenting on? On the other hand, I do understand that if the alternative is zero comments, any sort of recognition would feel gratifying.

I don't have a solution here, but I personally don't think that turning commenting into something that feels like a chore to be ticked off a to-do list is it. Participation in fandom should not feel like a job. And yes, believe me, I am well aware that I am writing all this as someone who has never exposed herself to the terrifying vulnerability of publishing a story on the internet where it can either be picked apart by strangers or, perhaps worse, simply be ignored. As I mentioned at the beginning, I don't presume to judge in the slightest how much or what kind of feedback authors should or should not want or expect. All I'm saying is that if the desired reader response doesn't materialize—which is a terrible thing and I feel for every author who goes through this—the reaction in turn cannot be to shame readers into interaction or even insult them as “worthless” to the community.

Finally. At the end of their (very good) post, the author writes the following:

The discussion I linked at the beginning of this post is what I think of as the fandom I miss, the fandom that's now harder and harder to access, the fandom that is dying.

Here's the thing, though. Discussions like the one the author refers to and yearns for are basically impossible to have these days. People keep asserting that they want community, but very few actually want to talk let alone listen to each other—at least not unless the conversation is exclusively about repeating and reaffirming views that coincide with their own and opinions that they already hold. “Discourse” has become a bad word. People go on and on about "curating their fandom experience," and more power to them if that's what makes them happy. But it's not without a certain irony that so many will lament a lack of communication and exchange of ideas, mourn dying fandoms, and complain about the barren wastelands of their tumblr dashboards, while at the same time bragging about blocking anyone and everyone who disagrees with them even slightly and on the most inconsequential of topics. They are welcome to do that of course, and let me be very clear, nobody needs to entertain assholes or put up with abusive behavior or offensive language, but curating every single critical or even just slightly differing opinion right out of your experience does not make for a diverse or healthy communication culture.

If locking yourself away in private discord servers and only staying inside your bubble of 100% like-minded people is all you want from your fandom experience then you're absolutely entitled to do so. But the bubbles keep getting smaller and smaller and so we shouldn't be surprised if, one day soon, the larger fandom community will indeed be well and truly dead.

This is all over the place, and I have no grand conclusion to offer, I'm simply working through my feelings here. I will stop now. To the three people who've made it this far: Thank you for either indulging me or politely ignoring me. Feel free to agree or disagree. Who knows? In the end, it may even turn into an actual conversation.