fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #2287 ]

⌈ Secret Post #2287 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 04 pages, 084 secrets from Secret Submission Post #327.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 1 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

01. http://i.imgur.com/uCVExR7.jpg

Ugh, yeah, I know I get a little sad when something I draw doesn't get a lot of notes. I think that has to do with the fact that all my fandoms are small, though

I have this problem sometimes with fics. :P

same here!

You are not the only one. I am guilty of that too sometimes. But then artists don't live in a bubble. They want their art to be seen and acknowledge. Anyone who says they don't are either lying or Emily Dickinson. And if they are Emily Dickinson, you better stake her. Since she is most likely to be a vampire with her being close to two hundred years by now.

Well, I dunno, it'd be hard to get a statistic on people like that. If they don't put their art out there how is anyone to know they're doing any?

(no subject)

(Anonymous) - 2013-04-08 05:25 (UTC) - Expand

this is me with gifs and I hate when poor versions of my gifs made by other people get more reblogs

Or when people ripping gifsets from weheartit or some other similar stealing site and repost the gifset as unanimated low quality jpegs and that gets more notes

This happens to a lot of people I think. Just remember why you're drawing in the first place and don't fall into the no-passion pit of needing to draw for the notes/comments/reblogs.

I totally know how you feel, OP.

Granted, I prefer/tend to draw lesser known/obscure characters, so I damned myself there. No regrets! lmao.

I know it's hard sometimes, but PLEASE don't get caught up in the Numbers Game of it all, or else your art -be it fandom-related works or original concepts/stories- may/will suffer because of it. I speak from experience.

Do it because it's something you love to do as a fan. That fannish passion will show in the care/love you put into it, and perhaps people, over time, will gravitate towards it.

I feel like most people are guilty of this. Whenever I write fic or do a blog post, I remind myself I'm doing this for myself, but then I worry about page views/comments.

I get it OP. I write for the fun of it, and it's not like I expect a bazillion notes or comments on my stuff...but I'm not going to lie: views feel nice. Praise feels nice. Having no notes on something doesn't feel quite as nice.

I hear you. When I first saw how many comments I got for making Phineas and Ferb art, I was constantly thinking "Don't be fooled! They only like it for the characters!".

Turns out I was right. Still though, it was fun while it lasted.

This might not work for you, OP, but maybe you could try waiting for a little while before posting your fanwork?

If you give yourself more separation between the intrinsic reward of drawing and the extrinsic reward of public recognition, it can make it easier to enjoy those +faves, reblogs, or comments without getting completely hung up on them.

This is a really good idea! I think I'll try it for myself, too.

I'm one of those that the longer they wait the less likely they are to post their art. I have to post it immediately.

And then I get a note or two and something far worse gets a hundred. It really makes me doubt my skill.

(Anonymous) - 2013-04-08 22:24 (UTC) - Expand

I made fanart because I loved the characters and the shows, and I posted fanart because I really wanted fandom friends to gush about stuff with!
But then eventually I got over 6000 notes on one of my drawing sets and I realized I didn't even make a single friend off of it (I don't know if 6000 is considered all that much in the Tumblr world, but just statistically speaking, 0 out of 6000 is a pretty big gap.) Attention like that feels so impersonal and distant that it doesn't even feel like attention; I don't see the allure of having so many notes if none of them even brings forth any interaction.
I haven't felt the inclination to post on Tumblr since...

this is exactly why i don't use tumblr.

my favorite part of drawing something (or writing it) is talking with someone over it... (or the characters in it/etc)

ive gotten to the point where i dont even post my art anywhere...just share it with my fandom buddy. :b so much more rewarding than faceless people clicking a +1 button.

I know your pain, anon. They don't even look at the artist's blog, they just mindlessly reblog the pretty. I have a lot of complaints about dA but at least there is a marginal interaction.

I guess it depends which fandom on tumblr, because some artist in my fandom interact with each other and people leave critiques and funny captions... and it's really fun.

Though I guess you, at the artist, have to initiate it. You can't just put something out and expect people to talk to you, you have to ask them a question or some kind of opening for conversation to get the ball rolling. If it's a decent sized fandom you can create a little network of friends.

This is how it's done in the two fandoms I'm part of on tumblr.

This is why I only translate things for smaller fandoms. :/

...yeah, I'm just bitter that I was pretty much the first to translate something for a large anime fandom and found later that someone else's later translation of the same thing had gotten way more recognition. And theirs wasn't a very accurate translation at that.

/csb

I think I went through this phase. Then I started drawing things for friends or myself and the amount of things I actually put online dropped and I stopped caring about how popular I was online as long as my friends liked what I'd done.

This actually a well-studied psychological phenomenon relating to extrinsic vs intrinsic motivation (and operant conditioning). I don't have the exact references off-hand but we definitely studied this throughout my psych degree. I think it's called the Overjustification effect or something.

It's certainly not a strange thing to happen. It's quite common.

Wow, thank you for posting that. It's good to know how those feelings are officially defined.

That's perfectly understandable, but don't let stuff like that discourage you! Some great stuff doesn't get much attention. Some of my favorite fics and art don't have many comments but it is still really good, like finding a gem when you didn't expect it.

Keep going and doing it for the fun of it because I'm sure there are others who appreciate what you do!