A Treatise on Equestria Daily Comments · 8:04am Feb 29th, 2012
I'm not much for blogging, as I can usually keep my thoughts to myself until the appropriate time, when I'm in conversation with whomever it concerns. However, I've no intention or interest in getting into an argument with those this complaint concerns over something so trivial as what concerns them. It's then that I vent a little here, where it will hopefully be cathartic, rather than draining me any further.
I speak, of course, of the comments in Equestia Daily.
I don't pretend to have a huge following over there. In fact, I can only name one specific fan who I know catches updates of my story there. But the fact is, it's a community hub, and it's where I feel a fan work must go first to "get noticed." I don't mean to disparage FimFiction, by the way. On the contrary, I much prefer FimFiction's interface, its management options, almost everything about it over EqD. The problem stems from EqD being, at its heart, a blog, which seems a poor medium for the task its taken on, namely a disseminator of news and community, but also being the most popular outlet for it.
Specifically, the comments are mind-bogglingly inane.
To be honest, I don't go there unless it's related to my story. For news aggregators, I much prefer the reddit MLP page for news and fan works. For all its flaws, the subreddit just doesn't make me feel angry or dumber after visiting. When I add a new chapter to my fic at EqD, and request it be featured in the next daily story updates post, I will check both the story page and the updates page a couple times, to see if any comments have been left for me. A few times, I've received extremely encouraging and helpful feedback. Those times are a vast minority.
Most of the comments on my story page are from when it was first posted. I only had a handful of chapters at the time, but even so, it became depressingly clear that most of the comments had been made before the poster had even read my story. Why? What's the point? They were all just knee-jerk reactions to the fact it was a WH40K/MLP crossover. I can understand the impulse to leave a comment if you really enjoyed or disliked something, even if the comment itself isn't particularly useful or original. I always try to make mine useful and original, but I understand the people who randomly say "THIS IS AWESOME!" and such. What I'll never get, is commenting on my expectations for a story, or give the author vague suggestions for it, knowing only the most basic premise. It's more than a little silly.
Then there are the update pages, for when several existing stories are lumped together to announce their new chapters at once. Two kinds of comments inhabit this wasteland of otherwise perfectly good content. The first is the user who feels compelled to announce that none of the stories updating are ones that they are reading or looking forward to. Seriously. Their entire comment is an admission that their comment has no bearing on the topic at hand. If anything, you're letting the relevant authors know that you're actively not reading their story. At the very least, it's annoying, if not insulting. Just don't say anything. Do you have to weigh in on everything? Is it that hard just to keep your mouth shut when you truly have nothing to say? The other is the reader who bemoans that so many of the stories have the "grimdark" tag. It's mostly a similar problem: there's grimdark, and you don't like it, and everyone needs to know. Some take it further and express their exasperation or disbelief that someone might dare impose grimdarkness upon their beloved equines. As though they can't fathom that an adult fan might want to explore adult themes involving the characters or setting they've become invested in. If you don't like grimdark fics, that's perfectly fine. That's why we label them: so you can GTFO and let us enjoy what we enjoy without you.
If I sound like I'm being self-important, pompous, or some other synonym for douchebag, that's probably accurate. With this blog entry, I have become the very thing I decry, the very kind of moron that makes no constructive points, and drags the whole system down into vapid irrelevance. Except I am aware of my sin, and I hope I never do it again. My sample size is admittedly pretty small, so maybe it's not as widespread as it seems to me. Or it means that it's tragically consistent. The saddest part is that if I tried to argue this point where it really matters, I'd be ignored, agreed with by those few who already agree with me, or get dragged into a flame war with the troglodytes who offend me.
Slash rant.
I personally hit up EQD multiple times a day because I trust them to pick out the best of the fan content. This maybe niaeve, but there is just too much for me to dig through on my own. I just ignore the comments section because it has no baring on why I am there.