Case (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
case) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
fandomsecrets2015-01-04 03:55 pm
case) wrote in fandomsecrets2015-01-04 03:55 pm
[ SECRET POST #2923 ]
⌈ Secret Post #2923 ⌋
Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.
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Notes:
Secrets Left to Post: 03 pages, 065 secrets from Secret Submission Post #418.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.
no subject
(Anonymous) 2015-01-04 09:52 pm (UTC)(link)This is pretty much word for word exactly what happened to me. I burnt out horribly just trying to keep up, because that's the sort of pressurised fannish atmopshere Tumblr creates -- if you aren't churning something out 24/7 then people will move on to someone who does.
Moving to Tumblr was the worst thing I've ever done when it comes to fandom. It's basically left me turned off the whole idea of fandom, let alone of a mind to actually create anything anymore.
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And like you, at this point I kind of want to leave fandom altogether... even though I remember how fun it is when it's fun and still want to recapture the magic...
I've got some wips, so I'll probably at least try to finish those >_>
Maybe this'll be the final push towards original writing, but with the way original writing is going (i.e. having to do the online popularity dance) I probably don't have a future there either ._.
no subject
(Anonymous) 2015-01-04 10:25 pm (UTC)(link)It's definitely what caused my writer's block. Or my 'I am now terrified of writing anything at all because if it doesn't at least match the last number of notes/reblogs I gained then clearly I am a horrible failure as a human being and have Done Something Terribly Wrong' block.
When I was posting to LJ or one of the fic archive sites, three or four comments on a fic or a chapter would leave me flying high for a week. Now? Tumblr has so devalued the response to the work that I can't even quantify how many Likes it'd take for me to feel that way again. How many notes is the equivalent to a good review? 10? 100? 1000? When posts about fluffy chickens or basic gifsets get 10k+ notes, and when obnoxious BNFs parade out their likes/follower count like trophies the whole system is intensely devalued (and I say that both as an ex-creator and as someone who wonders about the value of their own likes on others' work).
I loathe competing that way. I loathe feeling like I am constantly falling behind and thus just not good enough to keep up. I loathe feeling as though the fandoms I care about and wanted to share and engage with likeminded people have now become nothing more than games of oneupmanship and "I can be a fan of this show/pairing better than you can, so anything you say is immediately invalid!"
So the only way I can think of to escape that atmosphere is to quit bothering with fandom altogether. After I quit my last one last year, I've had absolutely no interest in anything new because I know my avenue for engaging with it/enthusing over it is gone.
And before anyone says "Oh, fandom's always been like this!" I've been in fandom a very a long time and across many, many different platforms but Tumblr's environment is the first time I've felt like this. If I've managed to avoid it thus far, then maybe there's just something about Tumblr that brings out the worst of it.
no subject
And like you say, gifsets get tens of thousands of notes, so what's even the point...
I swear, I feel every single word you're saying T^T
I've also been in fandom a while - probably about 10 years. And while it's true that to some extent there's always been a "who has more comments/favs/LJ friends", I still think that in the LJ days because it took more effort to participate, people valued it more.
Tumblr is the first time in my fandom life where as time goes by in a fandom I get /less/ attention rather than more. Usually I'd start out a nobody, and slowly like-minded people would find my stuff and we'd go from there. Now? It's like I had my short days of fame, and now I'm a nobody, and that's it.