(no subject)

[sideways]

"Likes are nice but the reality is that they mean nothing as they do not help broaden an audience like reblogs do."

I do sometimes wonder whether this particular subset of online creators sees any discrepancy at all between frequently complaining that they don't get enough feedback and frequently complaining that the feedback they get is wrong. 'They mean nothing'. Spare me.

Comments

[syntheid]

I don't know what's going on on the fic side, but on the art side I feel like people are so desperate not just for an audience but specifically followers that will buy things, that a like is 'worthless' because it doesn't expand your reach.

Thinking about it, some people were talking about rec lists going away, and it seems like reposting replaced that. But it's definitely weird on art twitter-- people complain you should retweet instead of liking, but I end up muting retweets from people or unfollowing entirely if most of their feed is just others' work.

Not sure I have a real point...

[sideways]

Hm, I hadn't been considering the marketing as an actual business aspect, and that's a fair point. But then it ends up being even more a case of crossed wires since I (and presumably most others) am not on social media sites to be advertised to, even if that's depressingly how the mediums tend to be used the second they gain enough users to be considered a market. Also what other business gets away with sulking about how its consumers aren't actively promoting their business enough, good grief.

I'd like to see rec posts come back in again, though. I like the "we're all creators together, making each other feel good as a community" vibe better than the "beleaguered creator wrestling their ungrateful fanbase" vibe.

[syntheid]

Yeah, I don't agree with trying to guilt people like that, I just get where it's coming from. I mean nobody's *wanting* to get advertised to anywhere, also, ahah. It's always something that gets inserted in as like a price for admission to get the actual entertainment we want. But really most businesses operate via social media marketing now, so like. All of them probably have similar thoughts, it's just more vital for each individual potential view for smaller businesses than for a corporation that's already well-established and individuals are run by people who take things personally (for better or worse). Like, really it all comes down to the entire world is now predominantly a late-stage capitalistic society, and it sucks.

I've got a few people that post rec posts on my list. fanart_recs has been going the whole time, too, there's probably similar stuff for fic somewhere?

[sideways]

Ahah, another fair point. I suppose it's because it feels like... thanks to ye olde forum upbringing I go in expecting us to all be milling around on equal footing at the party, and then someone suddenly shoves their Tupperware catalogue under my nose and starts pitching it at me and getting offended if I don't show interest. Like, come on man, it's a social event, what's this about.

But as you say, that's just the norm now. Blech blech.

[finch]

When I see someone whose art I like say something like that I usually unfollow, because they've just become a source of anxiety and the internet has plenty of other artists. XD

[sideways]

Oh aye, there have definitely been people I've had to unfollow because I just can't take the constant second-hand stress of watching them tie themselves in miserable knots over numbers. Just h'ain't worth it, for either of us.

[notasupervillain]

Ugh, though, one of the best things about Dreamwidth is no likes OR reblogs. You can't help me build a brand. All you can do is engage with me as a person. It's so good.

[sideways]

Yyyyop. I can sympathise with wanting exposure, but you hit the nail on the head with the brand thing - it shifts the whole relationship to creator vs consumer and completely dumps the community aspect in the process.

[notasupervillain]

Like, I feel like I'm building a community here - but not a brand. And I LOVE IT

But I understand that creators want money in exchange for time, which means expsure. It just sucks in how it distorts the process.

[weirderwest]

i tried to like this post because of course i did, but yeah this is such a. passive/aggressive and bizarre way to Demand your audience's time and attention and even their blog space. like. Please.

[sideways]

Ironically I do still miss being able to just silently thumbs up things. It's a good mechanism if people don't get weird about it!!

But yes. The demands are a big ol' barrel of yikes.

[dreamerinsilico]

Yeah, this has always bugged me, both for the hypocrisy you point out, and also like... my blog is my space, that I'm curating for my own enjoyment and the enjoyment of my followers. Not every piece of content I want to show appreciation to belongs on that space, and there's such an implied sense of entitlement/obligation in that "only reblogs count" attitude. No one *owes* someone real estate on their personal platform.

[sideways]

Yes! Exactly! There are plenty of things I've liked but not wanted to archive, and ultimately that's what my Tumblr blogs were: archives for no one's benefit but my own, even if sometimes other people found them to their liking as well.

The obligation factor really grinds my gears because you catch it a lot among fic writers with the attitude that comments are an automatic part of the contract when, no, unless someone did in fact ask you to write that fic then you are owed nothing. In fact, it's really quite kind of a complete stranger to take a moment out of their day to offer feedback on your unprompted busking in your corner of the busy internet streets. I think comment culture is lovely and should be encouraged, but the idea that it's owed is... uncomfortable.

[used_songs]

I'm always ridiculously excited when I get kudoes on AO3. Heck, I even like to look and see how many reads I have on different works.

[sideways]

Yes! And maybe it's just because I've always written fairly niche works for small fandoms, but it boggles me that people can so carelessly write off like... any number of real whole people reading and enjoying something they've done. Ten people is amazing. Fifty people is absolutely wild. A hundred people? One Hundred Real Live People Thought My Thing Was Pretty Okay??? Unfathomably cool.

[hokuton_punch]

Man, it's not that I don't get the feeling, but it always makes me want to reblog something less. ... or did when I was on Tumblr but haha I'm FREE, FREE I TELL YOU! *cough* Anyway - it really is a counterproductive strategy.

[sideways]

Free, free as the wind blows~

And it is! It sours the whole atmosphere. There are so many nicer, more productive ways to stir up exposure.

[dray]

One of my least favourite tactics, alongside the whole "if you don't reblog this you're a racist/homophobe/etc.etc. bad person" angle. On the one hand, I really appreciate when awareness is raised about topics I feel are important, but on the other I might not want to reblog them into the middle of my tumblr filled with pictures of cats, dragons, and stupid memes, you know?

Tumblr had a sort of disgruntled 'me against the world' feel to it, which I haven't often encountered on Dreamwidth, save in anonymous communities that stoke provocative behaviour. I appreciate that, even if it sacrifices some of the pace and ease of (ironically) quietly liking/voting up a post.

[sideways]

Uggghhhhhh the "not reblogging equals silence and silence equals tacit agreement and agreement equals scum of the earth" spiel was never Tumblr's shining high point.

I did buy into it for a time - the idea that I had a moral duty to help spread information - but then I ended up reblogging a couple of things that turned out to be (shock horror) not entirely truthful and that gave me pause. A short while after that I read a very insightful post on appropriated anger and that did me a world of good in rethinking how I wanted to approach 'social justice'. Watching the broader community descend further and further into forging outrage and hurt into social currency has been troubling in the extreme.

[dray]

I'd be curious to hear about that appropriated anger bit. I wound up doing a lot of scrolling past of things with social justice because I found tumblr wore down my spoons weirdly quickly (probably because of the outrage and hurt being slung around? Though I wasn't really self-aware of that for quite a while...)

I feel better about participating in groups IRL than on social media, in any case. When it's used as a tool to gather and chat in person, facebook et all are great. For armchair social justice... not so much.

[sideways]

I had to gone on a bit of a journey but - ahah! Found the sucker again:
http://queenieofaces.tumblr.com/post/80232081633/justice-anger-and-the-demand-for-perfection-why

In particular, this part:

"There’s also the matter of what I’m tentatively calling “appropriation of anger”; this is something that I see come up a lot with regards to race on tumblr. I can completely understand a PoC or mixed race person reacting with anger to someone posting something racist–however, when white “allies” react with the same kind of anger, I kind of side-eye them. (The same goes for men reacting to misogyny with anger, which I’ve been seeing a lot of recently.) There’s a difference between being frustrated because of injustice and being angry because you personally are being attacked, and I think tumblr’s blogging culture–in which anger offers legitimacy to whatever you’re saying–allows people to forget that distinction. My understanding of allyship is that a large part of it is doing all the education work that the group you’re supporting is too tired or too burned out or too upset or too whatever to do. So if you’re an ally reacting to something that doesn’t directly affect you with “Go die in a fire, you huge bigot,” you’re not really getting anything productive done or helping the people you’re supposedly supporting.

I think the reason why I see so many allies reacting with BURNING ANGER to affronts on the groups they’re supposedly supporting is that tumblr culture codes anger as the way the “in-group” reacts to the “oppressor,” and so allies think that if they react with the same amount of anger, they will be able to join the “in-group.” No, I’m sorry, if you’re not an ace of color, no matter how angry you get about someone saying ignorant things about aces of color, that won’t actually make you an ace of color. I can only speak for myself, but if you really want to be an ally for me (in whatever dimension), I’d much rather you compile a linkspam for the person so that I don’t have to than send death threats and call them a bigot. When you get angry about something that affects me and not you, you are making the issue about you and your anger, not the actual effect this issue is having on me."