I think there are a variety of things at work. Tumblr/FB/Twitter culture creeping in to AO3. Here on LJ pretty much everyone is a creator or IDK knows the "rules" about how to behave, basically. Yes, I know some people wish we could offer concrit more rather than only positive!squee! but that's still not what most of those AO3 comments are like. They are mostly just saying something nasty, very entitled or selfish. You don't like character X bottoming? Awesome. But IDGAF unless I wrote it for you.
I pretty much never critique publicly. I mean, I didn't like something? So what. The fic is done. Unless it's a close friend or someone I know I can approach, and it's a really big thing, I just let it go. As your example says, we do this for free. It's a hobby for most of us. I just feel that's very different than published works. Once you're making money off people, I think I have the right to say, "50 Shades of Grey was very poorly written." As a fanfic, I'd have just backed out.
I just got a lovely gem--and it's not wrong, per se. It's just that the fic is tagged so the person can't have been surprised by the content. Aw, pedophilia and rape, how cute. Gross p.o.s. Funny enough, it is the fic I've written with the most hits and second most kudos of everything I've ever done. Piece of shit indeed. :P
God yes, that whole Twitter/tumblr thing really does affect communciation a lot! I know it has really, really changed me.
On the bright side-a few days ago I squeed with a few girls rewatching Hannibal, tweeting fannish comments and tumblr gifs, making lots of cannibal slash jokes-on my RL twitter.
I gained new followers, lost no one and people generally joined in, had fun or ignored me. And that was it.
So the bright side to all this is perhaps that fandom isn't a weird, little niche any longer.
And the downside is: fandom isn't a weird, little niche any longer.
It's no longer "just us" :/
Yeah, well, obviously people are easy as long as the sex in fanfics is vanilla and all but not so much when it deviates from the norm, then reactions get more extreme. I have one kinky RPF fic which readers either seem to hate or love. Not much in between.
I always love your writing! I love and truly envy you for being consistently being able to write.
50SOG! Yes that is really its own topic I need to rant about! Esp. since like 400 friends on my FB feed think they can have opinions about that!
I pretty much never critique publicly. I mean, I didn't like something? So what. The fic is done. Unless it's a close friend or someone I know I can approach, and it's a really big thing, I just let it go. As your example says, we do this for free. It's a hobby for most of us. I just feel that's very different than published works. Once you're making money off people, I think I have the right to say, "50 Shades of Grey was very poorly written." As a fanfic, I'd have just backed out.
I just got a lovely gem--and it's not wrong, per se. It's just that the fic is tagged so the person can't have been surprised by the content. Aw, pedophilia and rape, how cute. Gross p.o.s. Funny enough, it is the fic I've written with the most hits and second most kudos of everything I've ever done. Piece of shit indeed. :P
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On the bright side-a few days ago I squeed with a few girls rewatching Hannibal, tweeting fannish comments and tumblr gifs, making lots of cannibal slash jokes-on my RL twitter.
I gained new followers, lost no one and people generally joined in, had fun or ignored me. And that was it.
So the bright side to all this is perhaps that fandom isn't a weird, little niche any longer.
And the downside is: fandom isn't a weird, little niche any longer.
It's no longer "just us" :/
Yeah, well, obviously people are easy as long as the sex in fanfics is vanilla and all but not so much when it deviates from the norm, then reactions get more extreme. I have one kinky RPF fic which readers either seem to hate or love. Not much in between.
I always love your writing! I love and truly envy you for being consistently being able to write.
50SOG! Yes that is really its own topic I need to rant about! Esp. since like 400 friends on my FB feed think they can have opinions about that!
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