Pointless? · 9:39am Sep 9th, 2023
It's really hard to separate things that are pointless and things that aren't. I see so many stories here on FimFiction and I get frustrated at how some of them are neglected and others are lavished with praise. (I'm not speaking of my own, I honestly think I'm getting more attention than I ever thought possible.)
Assumptions come a lot with writing, I think. Assuming someone is reading. Assuming someone cares. Etc. Honestly, I'll read most stuff that doesn't have comments simply because I think that really hurts the author. To post and not get any feedback. Those dislikes hurt a lot too, especially if they are just given with no explanation as to why they are given. To be perfectly transparent, I am guilty of this as well, though it's mostly on terribly questionable material with... less than appropriate subjects.
Oh... this was supposed to be BD 9... but then I thought, maybe writing these is just as pointless. The story is going well so I don't really have to say anything in these. Maybe I'll just write down my thoughts.
Unfortunately, my thoughts generally come from a very negative place. (Pessimism FTW)
I'm all over the place, aren't I? It's pretty crazy when you like something so much you avoid most things pertaining to it cause all they do is make you mad. I haven't even been able to watch season 9 because every clip I see gets me so angry.
Welp, that's fun. Love y'all.
I think it boils down to fairly specific questions that creative people, considering that the whole situation doesn't affect their livelihood, need to ask themselves at some point.
Are they entertainers to be loved and praised?
Or are they creators who put their voice out there because they want to speak about something?
It is about them, or is it about the reader and feedback? Who is really on a journey here? For whom people do stuff? (I would love the real answer to these questions to be balanced: everyone is on the journey here)
And if they create because they are just compelled to it, does lack of attention really matter? We often overpraise positive attention from others, after all, but craving it is in our nature.
And these questions are not limited to flmfiction and writing overall, of course. I would love to read up on it sometime
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I don't think any of us would be here if we didn't wish for feedback. It's not even praise per se, it's improvement.
If one wishes to get better that will never happen alone.
I'm all for being philosophical and waxing poetic, but this whole "I write cause I like to man, I dont care if people care," mentality really bothers me. Then why are we here? Specifically on Fim, posting for others to see? Y'know?
I am a commenter, an author, and active in a couple of group as both op and commenter. I hope this will help you somewhat.
I never delete comments, never block someone(as long as it wasn't a spam bot), nor did I ever deleted my own comments(except author's note). That's the rule I lived by. In order to minimized my chance at strucking in an echo chamber as possible.
For me, it doesn't matter if it was positive or negative. As long as I got a response, that's all what matter to me.
Granted, while I prefered to give off something as constructive as possible, be it a breakdown of what I think, or just unfiltered emotional rant (that hopefully the author will be able to make sense of it). There was exceptions when I just make comments for the sake of agitating people and nothing else.
the exception is when I was a content creator myself. The replies of a group thread asking about story idea. I will targeted negative comments that were not in the scope of the thread specifically because they already agitated and likely will make more replies. I'm going to milk them dry.
For this site, I only used this kind of response in the HiE group.
I know that group hate when someone mentioned possibly of war with equestria and become even more angrier even more when someone say the ponies could win.
So when someone make a post that definitely gonna get downvoted to oblivion, I also make my comment too.
"Hey op, you know that this group hate xxx and very petty. You are wasting your time arguing with these guys."
And waited for my comment to get a couple of downvotes.
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A good attitude to have, I wish more would share your mentality.
I used to give feedback, but then I also see authors who either go gaga over overt (sometimes unearned) praise, or fly off the handle at legitimate (if poorly constructed) criticism. So, I'll give a thumbs-up if I like it. If I really like it, it goes into my Starred folder. But I've given up on really critiquing, for reasons stated above. Anyway, my two bits worth.
I get you, while I’m not an author, most of the time I write comments I want to see someone respond, be it others from laughing at it, or just the confirmation that the author at least saw what I wrote down (mostly my YT comments).
That was also the reason I want to write stories, I sometimes accidentally create a plausible idea that I personally enjoy, and I want to write it, but for some reason most of the time I find writing the idea itself isn’t fun, maybe because I rewrite the first 300-500 words I wrote down, just after I reread them and realize that it’s weird, incorrect, or just plain bad, and this leads to me slowly doing less and less work on the project.
The only stories I ever finished was a school assigned project, I forgot what it was about, but I remember that I decided it to be a somewhat loosely connected Bluey fanfic, and now that I think about, I probably forgot to describe any of the characters.
Now I feel like I’m making this all about me, hopefully not. If I am, this proves that I want to share stuff in comments to get reactions.
The problem with others responding to my comments, is that they are similar to compete rambles, rather than an organized attempt at an actual point, unless the point is brief, like in my “Starlight has a good backstory implemented badly” comments. That’s all I had to say. But, since I like Literacy I decided to try and support my comments with evidence, and now that I
That’s over I have decided that long comments should only be left to either Authors, or when I must have some evidence to back-up a claim.
To address the dislike without commenting problem, I personally just don’t dislike, Or at least I don’t think I do, my memory sucks. Usually if I’m reading something I don’t like, I just leave, and that’s it. My guess is that seeing so many trolls and annoying people on YT has conditioned me to either respond in full, or to just leave. Now I’m not saying that every story I don’t like was made by a troll or is annoying. Just saying that the ones YouTube got helped me not to ‘attack’ possibly innocent peoples.
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A very fair point. As an author one should stay measured and not take things too far. It's unfortunate that poor examples have forced your hand in such a way, but I understand. I tend not to do the same on YouTube because of the same reasons.
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Lol we both mentioned YouTube. Disliking is a difficult concept because there are so many reasons one can do so and sometimes they can't be fixed.
For example shipfics where someone just doesn't like the pairing. Indicating that in a comment though would go a long way for the author I think, because then it has nothing to do with the authors skill or style and everything to do with the readers personal preference which is fine. Hey you don't like FlutterxDash? That's cool. Maybe the dislike button is just... Unhelpful because of how easy it is.
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Thanks for understanding. And yes, it applies to YouTube, as well. Though, most of my comments there are either completely tongue-in-cheek, or made up, altogether. YT's comment system has been broken for a long, long time.
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Exactly. The Like/Dislike feedback is, by design, arbitrary. A weighted system is much more granular. But who – in the modern Internet era – is going to spend time on doing that, right? I like the 1–5 Star system, personally: Poor (1 Star), Fair (2 Stars), Average (3 Stars), Good (4 Stars), and Excellent (5 Stars). You can even do half-Star increments. And trolls tend not to spend as much time when there are more than just a binary choice.
Here's the reality that one must accept when posting material of any kind for others to see or read. Be it art or writing or performance or anything that falls between. You MUST have a level of personal armor. Do it for YOU. If others like it, YAY if they don't, hope the criticism is at least useful. Lots of times it is not. I know that sounds easy to say, but it is HARD to put into practice but it is necessary. Trust me, I have had work torn to pieces by 'professionals' and it is a whole boat of no fun. But it can be a learning experience. That's why places like this are so important. They give you a chance to try and sometimes you get great feedback and sometimes you make friends or even contacts to other avenues! The point is, it does hurt when it feels like you are not being noticed or when something you think is great is neglected, but that's the life of an artist. You have to be tough and ready to always move forward.
This can get to be a swampy subject.
In my experience, as far as what drives the process is concerned, there are a few things happening at the same time, and some of them seemingly contradictory to one another.
First of all there is THE THING, that is, the realization of THE THING, that it will reach some threshold of the vision which gave rise to it.
Next and independently there is the presence of an audience or readership. Here, it is not so much about being praised as it is being read. Some praise can have deleterious effects (e.g. "imposter syndrome"); on the other hand, the work can go further when it reaches other people, because creativity is not a solitary act.
Third is the effort of developing oneself as a "creative". For me, being a "creative" just means following through to the completion of a process on one's own rules. Paradoxically, this tends to bring us into solitude, which is the psychological importance of the endeavor for people (just like "responsibility"--completing a process on established rules--brings us into richer stations of community).
Then there is humility. How do we bear working sincerely for years only to place third, or to not place at all, or to never make the feature box on a My Little Pony website? How can we take something being so personally meaningful for us, being so relative in the scheme of things? At the very least, given all our Suffering, can we be happy for the success of another writer, quite different from us?
Going by these criteria, "engagement" may have several qualitative values. It might be:
1. Constructive;
2. Therapeutic:
3. Insightful;
4. Sobering.
Of course, it may have negative values, as well, being:
1. Distracting;
2. Hurtful;
3. Dismaying;
4. Discouraging.
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Is it cool if I call you Bedman Mole? (Lol jk... kind of) What a perfect perfect assessment. Sincerely blown away.
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Very true. As a much older adult I am more concerned for the younger people who might be discouraged by a lack of interaction and completely stop writing.
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I work at a middle school. It's a time in life when young people first encounter the project of "making" a personality. On a social-emotional level, our job is to help the students grow into their best selves, e.g. that they can love themselves without input coming in from the outside. It's a very similar psychology to engaging with new-ish authors.
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I'd say most new-ish things.
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I got blasted on YouTube by some randy cause I said Scribbler's oc was attractive. It's crazy how mad people who don't know you can get.
your in good company.