{"id":158082,"date":"2015-04-21T15:01:03","date_gmt":"2015-04-21T15:01:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/2015\/04\/21\/voltisubito-hoo-boy-here-comes-some-serious-2\/"},"modified":"2015-04-21T15:01:03","modified_gmt":"2015-04-21T15:01:03","slug":"voltisubito-hoo-boy-here-comes-some-serious-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/2015\/04\/21\/voltisubito-hoo-boy-here-comes-some-serious-2\/","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"

voltisubito<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n

hoo boy, here comes some serious talk about fandom mentality.<\/p>\n

I feel like there\u2019s a huge failing on readers\u2019 parts to communicate to fic authors how much they appreciate their works or how much it affects them, unless the fic is \u201cfandom famous\u201d for some reason. sometimes it gets translated into demands (which are awful literally do not demand updates from an author ever). <\/p>\n

more often than not, it gets translated into silence, and coming from a writer, the silence is probably the worst. you never know if they like it, you never know what the reader actually thinks about it. or even if they read it at all. and it\u2019s\u2026 heartwrenching, and nervewracking and you start constantly questioning yourself and wondering if you\u2019re actually good enough or if you belong. and you start comparing yourself. to the people who are popular, to the people with huge followings, to the people who get questions and art and compliments up the wazoo. and you start wondering if you should have bothered writing at all. in some cases you start begging. and in some cases, you do worse.<\/p>\n

and it\u2019s terrible. a writer shouldn\u2019t have to beg. a writer shouldn\u2019t have to only get attention when they\u2019re frustrated or upset. a writer shouldn\u2019t have to doubt themselves every time they pick up a pen or open their laptop. a writer should never feel so unimportant that they consider deleting their work\u2013and do. and then be subjected to questions of why they deleted it.<\/p>\n

(which, by the way, is kind of a rude thing to do. it\u2019s their content, and they can do with it whatever makes them comfortable. and more than that\u2013why wait until it\u2019s gone to just suddenly unleash your appreciation for it?)<\/p>\n

if, at this point, you are thinking, \u201cwell, writers shouldn\u2019t write for attention anyway! writers should be writing for themselves!\u201d then you are missing a Very Huge Point about the intricacies of and emotions behind creating art. of course art comes from the self, but art is meant to be shared. with people. like you. art is created for people to talk back to, to engage with, to live alongside\u2013and yes, that in turn bolsters the creator\u2019s own securities and motivation. it\u2019s also a sad testament to the fact that we as a people have come to condemn the notion that anyone,
\nespecially content creators, should want attention at all.<\/p>\n

and that\u2019s toxic, and an awful mentality to have. (it\u2019s also atrocious marketing. but, that\u2019s another discussion for another time.)<\/p>\n

what I\u2019m trying to say here is this: a lot of this could be prevented by one simple thing. if you read a fic you like, *speak up about it.* make some kind of sign. about whether you like somebody\u2019s work, or whether it excites you. reblog it to share with other people, gush in the tags, leave a comment\/review if it\u2019s on ao3 or ffn. (authors read tags as much as artists do, trust me.) kudos and likes are fine too, but like with any other kind of art, they\u2019re very invisible. be vocal, y’all. spread the love.<\/p>\n

and above all, *tell the author directly.* send them an ask, write a comment, tag them in an appreciation post. I can\u2019t stress that enough. you\u2019d be making someone\u2019s day, relieving some securities, visible or not, instead of being complacent in this system, this mass way of thinking, that only popular writers deserve attention, that it has to be earned through working yourself raw instead of asked for. it causes these cliques and hierarchies and ultimately people start or keep maintaining this idea that people who are at the top deserve to be at the top, and people who get ignored deserve to be ignored. (which I have, in fact, heard people say, and that\u2019s\u2026 I don\u2019t even have a word for that.)<\/p>\n

I just. something has to give, you guys. we have to stop doing this. we have to stop letting this happen. we have to be kind to our writers before they disappear.<\/p>\n

and yes, you can reblog this post. in fact, I\u2019d highly encourage it.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

voltisubito: hoo boy, here comes some serious talk about fandom mentality. I feel like there\u2019s a huge failing on readers\u2019 parts to communicate to fic authors how much they appreciate their works or how much it affects them, unless the fic is \u201cfandom famous\u201d for some reason. sometimes it gets translated into demands (which are … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[17759,17761,17765,17760,17757,17762,17758,17763,17764,4612],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/158082"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=158082"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/158082\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=158082"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=158082"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=158082"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}