Fuck That Shit I'm Out, Tumblr Edition

[rynling]

I'm leaving Tumblr for a few weeks because almost none of my mutuals left "likes" on my fic for the Zelgan Big Bang. I know this is a classic fan tantrum scenario, but bear with me.

It's like, Remember those ten months you spent getting to know people, exchanging asks and reblogs with them, leaving tons of likes and kudos and comments on their work, supporting them in their personal lives and responding to their rambling headcanons via long chains of private messages... And then they wouldn't even touch their fingers to the screens of their phones for a fraction of section to "like" a novella you wrote that was almost tailor-made to their interests?

I'm generally not a bitter person, and I tend to get over things quickly, but I very much want to remember the way I'm feeling right now – the sheer sense of incredulous "what the fuck, guys." I had big dreams about doing cool things with the people I met through fandom, so it's important to remind myself that they're not real friends, and that I would be better served by directing my creative energy elsewhere. Basically, I need to re-establish a sense of perspective.

In the meantime, I've been having some really good experiences with commissioning artists. When gift economies fail, there is always capitalism to fall back on.

Comments

[lobeliar]

Ahh, sorry to hear that. (That no one checked out your fic, not that you're taking a tumblr hiatus.)

[rynling]

Thank you! I feel like such a brat, and it's good to have moral support.

[renegadefolkhero]

I feel this. Sometimes it's hard to tell if people genuinely don't care or if they don't realize how one values certain gestures, Tumblr in particular presents a lot of variables as far as how people use features, how often they check the dash, and so on, but it sucks to invest time and emotional energy trying to connect with people and then find it's one-sided and they cannot be bothered to reciprocate.

Even if writing fic is fun, sharing it with fandom is not necessarily rewarding. I think statistics--be it likes, reblogs, kudos, whatever--make that more evident, because the work gets boiled down to, "I spent X time on this and the return was [10 followers clicking a button]." It can feel like a lot of effort is being met with crickets.

For me it goes back to the fanfic problem: its utility outside one's personal satisfaction is limited. So even if I greatly enjoy writing a fanfic or learn from it, if I post it to AO3/Tumblr with the intention of socializing with others and there's little/no response it's like, well, okay, that's that. Whereas with original fiction I have different options and expectations, I'm never in that particular headspace.

[rynling]

At MAGFest this past weekend, I sat down with three writer/editor friends, one of whom is male and two of whom are female. Somehow the topic of fanfic came up, and the dude, who vastly outranks all of us and has (probably) never written fic in his life, was like, "I think fan fiction is a great way for young female creative types to find a supportive community." Us three ladies just sort of looked at each other and shook our heads.

Personally, I feel that getting paid for your work is hugely important. Even if no one reads it, you still got paid, and you can still use the publishing credit as leverage. I also think the experience of working with a professional editor is invaluable, even if that editor sucks at their job.

It seems that a lot of people (especially in academia? for some reason??) tend to write about fandom communities as if they're some sort of beautiful and transformative cultural force, but to my knowledge no one has really written about why so many people "grow out" of fandom. Thank you for all your comments and reflections on Tumblr fandom - it's good to know that I'm not alone.

[rynling]

Although here I am bitching about academics, and someone recently wrote a dissertation about the darker side of fandom:

http://orca.cf.ac.uk/54414/

And it's more than three hundred pages long, goddamn.