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Warning: these thoughts are very preliminary and more coming from a place of instinct than well-formed thought. I am happy for anyone to push back against anything I say provided you do it respectfully.
Hannah and I were talking yesterday (in a very un-nuanced way) about how weird it is that within fandom circles, there are fewer and fewer people willing to engage in commenting/meta-writing/actual fannish conversation (or hell, even reblogging of art on Tumblr), but more and more people who think nothing of paying for online stuff? I am shocked that this ko-fi thing has taken off--I guess I'm old school enough that the thought of monetizing fandom is horrifying to me.
I mean, I guess there's an entire cohort of people who never used the internet before Facebook introduced the like button and so don't know the joy of full-on fannish engagement. And those same people are accepting the commodification of...everything.
It's just really, really weird to see. I know there was a gap in culture between the pre-internet 'zine-and-conventions fans and then the very first fans who were using the internet before the world wide web and then again my generation who started using it in the late 90s and came up on message boards and mailing lists and such. But the gap between those earlier generation of fans (and by generation, I'm very much talking about "when you got involved in fandom," not what age you are) and the current one seems like a chasm. I just don't recognize how they do fandom, and I am actually pretty sad that none of them seem to want to do it the way we do it (only, you know, with greater diversity, etc. I'm not pretending like the internet in 2001 was perfect. It was much whiter and richer, and lots of things about accessibility have changed for the better since then).
I've just always really loved that fandom is a gift economy and that the gifts go both ways. That I write fic because I want to share it with y'all, and y'all respond and engage with it, and we all have a great time together. A "content"-based view of fandom where you just ~consume~ is just so repugnant to me and I don't want anything to do with it, and I know we're not going back to a livejournal kind of fannish experience, but I'm just...really not looking forward to further changes in fandom. I don't see good developments coming down the road, and I can't figure out if this is me being all Old Man Yells at Clouds or if I'm right and things just aren't as fun anymore.
And yes, this is partially about me getting fewer comments when I write fic for a huge fandom than when I write for a Yuletide-sized fandom, but also it's about a general feeling that people just don't view fandom (or even the whole internet) as a place of two-way interaction anymore.
Hannah and I were talking yesterday (in a very un-nuanced way) about how weird it is that within fandom circles, there are fewer and fewer people willing to engage in commenting/meta-writing/actual fannish conversation (or hell, even reblogging of art on Tumblr), but more and more people who think nothing of paying for online stuff? I am shocked that this ko-fi thing has taken off--I guess I'm old school enough that the thought of monetizing fandom is horrifying to me.
I mean, I guess there's an entire cohort of people who never used the internet before Facebook introduced the like button and so don't know the joy of full-on fannish engagement. And those same people are accepting the commodification of...everything.
It's just really, really weird to see. I know there was a gap in culture between the pre-internet 'zine-and-conventions fans and then the very first fans who were using the internet before the world wide web and then again my generation who started using it in the late 90s and came up on message boards and mailing lists and such. But the gap between those earlier generation of fans (and by generation, I'm very much talking about "when you got involved in fandom," not what age you are) and the current one seems like a chasm. I just don't recognize how they do fandom, and I am actually pretty sad that none of them seem to want to do it the way we do it (only, you know, with greater diversity, etc. I'm not pretending like the internet in 2001 was perfect. It was much whiter and richer, and lots of things about accessibility have changed for the better since then).
I've just always really loved that fandom is a gift economy and that the gifts go both ways. That I write fic because I want to share it with y'all, and y'all respond and engage with it, and we all have a great time together. A "content"-based view of fandom where you just ~consume~ is just so repugnant to me and I don't want anything to do with it, and I know we're not going back to a livejournal kind of fannish experience, but I'm just...really not looking forward to further changes in fandom. I don't see good developments coming down the road, and I can't figure out if this is me being all Old Man Yells at Clouds or if I'm right and things just aren't as fun anymore.
And yes, this is partially about me getting fewer comments when I write fic for a huge fandom than when I write for a Yuletide-sized fandom, but also it's about a general feeling that people just don't view fandom (or even the whole internet) as a place of two-way interaction anymore.
no subject
Haha, I'm glad I was actually able to provide another perspective on the "consumption of fandom content". xD Not that I think I have a monopoly on the Only True Way To Read Fanfiction (tm) though, so how transferable my explanations might be to other people and why they do fandom the way they do it or not is questionable... ^^
The 3-4 hours were definitely at the upper end of the messages answering time spectrum. ^^ And they came about because the conversation had expanded to such a degree, because both parties were enjoying the exchange (plus the fact that I am just a slow writer when it comes to responding to other people's words for some reason). So I definitely don't regret them but rather just the world continuing to move while the conversation took place and lives being more and less busy at certain time points and new priorities arising and all such things leading to the necessity of dropping conversations even if they're enjoyable. ^^
Your thoughts on receiving a comment vs. receiving a kudos make sense, in a way that I have heard similar sentiments from a bunch of other writers. At the same time - I have to admit that I personally always held some confusion about it. X'D If you want to humour me because I'm curious: Does the "only actual words, no matter how few" really also apply to someone who posts a comment consisting of "Kudos!" under your story? Or the very same "I enjoyed this story a lot!" you mentioned under each of your stories (and perhaps even in only a matter of only an hour/day)? Because comments that can easily copy-pasted like this have always felt exactly like kudos to me. They give just the exact same information after all - a "great story" or "I liked it" or "you did great" or however exactly one wants to translate a kudos/like. So I could never understand why they appear to have such a much higher value for many authors. ^^° (Which is why I set the aspiration for me personally to mention at least one thing about the specific story I read and comment on in each of my comments I write, even if it's just a simple "'This is a sentence from the story' - I died lol XD" or similar.)
Also, you definitely don't have to feel obliged to answer, but since you mentioned the "solid norms to interact on LJ" and I was never on LJ, I'm also curious whether you could give an impression about what you're referring to? Were these norms really solid as in website-rules, or at least rules of different comms that were actively enforced by moderators? Or are you referring to something different?
(I don't want to end my response with a question because that sounds more demanding for an answer than I intend it to be but uuuhhhh how to nicely and effectively end posts, I feel like I'm out of practise ORZ)
no subject
I'd say there's a spectrum? So it goes kudos ---> only emojis ---> "I enjoyed this." ---> "Wow, this made me cry!" ---> all the more detailed/specific comments. I still appreciate an "I enjoyed this" more than a kudos, because someone took the actual time to type it. Knowing that they cared enough to do that makes a difference to me.
Otoh, some of the best comments I get are not very long, they just express emotion. Like this comment is quite short--three very short sentences. But it filled up my heart to bursting! That one comment made writing the whole thing worth it. I want to know that I made a reader feel something, that they connected with what I was doing. If they can convey that, no matter how few words they use, then I am thrilled.
Were these norms really solid as in website-rules, or at least rules of different comms that were actively enforced by moderators? Or are you referring to something different?
Well, there was some intense moderation on some comms, especially in fandoms that were prone to wank or ship wars. But mostly I just mean...people knew that they could enter a publicly-posted community conversation and join in, as long as they weren't jerks. I'm sure there were lots of lurkers (there always are), but if you had something to say, you could just say it without worrying that you were invading someone else's space, because the comms were designed to be for anyone who wanted to join them. (Or they were set to private, in which case you knew you weren't welcome.)
There were also a lot of the unspoken norms that are maintained here on DW--most people usually tell you how they found your journal entry if it's in your personal journal--not that they have to, just a lot of people know that that's polite. Or they drop you a line when they follow you so you'll have some idea why they decided to follow you. All that stuff is absolutely not required, but it's very different than, say, Tumblr--you just don't see people sending Tumblr messages saying, "I found your post via ___ and your blog looks great and I'm going to follow you!" There's just a difference between a friending culture (DW/LJ) and a follow culture (Tumblr/Twitter/etc.).