(no subject)
Hey, guys, indulge me in some petty fandom whining a moment, would you? Thanks.
A few years ago, I ran a fandom side blog on Tumblr that was reasonably popular. Or, well, at least reasonably well-liked. I never even got as far as eight hundred followers, I don't think, but I would get nice messages from time to time from followers that I did have telling me that mine was their favorite fandom blog(!), I brought them back into the fandom(!!) and I made them love my favorite character(!!!). I would get messages thanking me for nice things I'd said in my reblogs and tags, saying that some piece of analysis of mine had hit them just right or just telling me to keep up the good work. Heck, a couple years after I stopped running the blog, someone commented on my final post to thank me for having made it. People reblogged fics I wrote there with kind and even gushing comments.
And yet, and yet.
Most posts I made there to try to generate discussion and seek interaction with fellow fans fell flat. The posts where I offered fic got few responses, most often from the same dedicated handful of people. I don't want to downplay how much I enjoyed the responses I did get and I certainly don't want to seem like I didn't appreciate the usual suspects. I did and still do! But the low traffic compared to the size of the audience made me feel... Idk, decorative? Like I was there to be enjoyed but not really engaged with. And, I mean, that obviously wasn't entirely true since interaction did happen and people did go out of their way with those aforementioned kind messages.
What really drove it home for me, I think, was that I tried to get an annual character appreciation week going. I ran it one year and, predictably, didn't get a lot of activity going. The event tag was mostly just me. But it was fun-- I think that might've been the last time I was able to write a story a day for a week-- and I liked seeing the few works put up by other people. So, I did an interest check the next year, hoping I could generate more excitement if I tried to be more interactive with it than just posting a list of dates and prompts. One of my usual suspects, who was herself very active in the fandom on Tumblr, responded to suggest an entire appreciation month instead.
I told her that on the one hand, that sounded pretty cool and the character in question deserved it. On the other, it would be overwhelming for me personally. I said that she or someone else would be welcome to run a month-long event in lieu of a week-long one if they wanted to take on that task.
Now, two things were true: 1) I really did think it would be cool if someone took the initiative to run a character appreciation month. 2) I really, really didn't want someone to do that.
Even though it hadn't gotten a lot of attention, I'd enjoyed running the previous character appreciation week. I mean, hey, it did better than my previous attempt at running a fan week in a different fandom (that one was literally just me in the event tag, lol). And, well, I had the biggest active blog at the time with that character focus. My head wasn't inflated by that, don't get me wrong; I didn't think of myself as any kind of authority or whatever. I didn't expect anyone to defer to me. But I still had a deep attachment to the concept of an appreciation event for the character in question. And people had been so nice, telling me how my blog made them learn to appreciate that character when they hadn't before. For as much as I didn't really expect anyone to defer to me... I didn't really expect them to, like, usurp me either.
As you may have already guessed, I was usurped, lol. The other poster announce the appreciation month later that day. And I wanna be clear, it was a great event! A lot of people participated in one way or another. She was very proactive in generating attention and interest, posting daily discussion questions and even sending those questions directly to people in fandom. Some really good meta was posted in response. There were also fanworks posted, of course, though the discussions really stole teh show. It was so popular that she went on to create monthly appreciation events for other characters and relationships, run the same way. I had fun participating and even just browsing the tags.
And yet, and yet...
I honestly, truly wasn't bitter. I honestly, truly didn't begrudge anyone for the uptick in activity and especially discussion. But I was hurt. Just a little, just a sting. The enthusiasm with which people replied to the questions and sent fic prompts to the event runner made it all the more stark how few responses I'd gotten throughout my time running the blog. And the success of the event made my own previous effort seem all the more dismal. Running the blog was never as much fun after that, even though I still had fun running it. At every turn, I couldn't help feeling like I'd done something wrong and like it was too late to fix whatever it was.
I stopped running that blog four years ago, for unrelated reasons. The only other fandom side blog I've run since has been a prompts blog that gets few but consistent notes and almost no responses. That's pretty much what I expected out of that, though, so it doesn't hit the same way. The blog is currently on a hiatus, mostly to give me time to get some long-overdue maintenance done on the tags and posting layout. But I had an inkling the other day and today (well, yesterday now) posted an interest check for a fan week or a gift exchange.
Guess how many replies I've gotten.
C'mon, guess.
Did you guess... none? Because the answer is none.
And, yeah, it's been less than a day. I know. And, yeah, it's not like this blog is even as popular as my previous not-actually-that-popular one, which was in a less active fandom, to boot. I know. But come on.
I feel like I have some kind of anti-charisma, Idk.
A few years ago, I ran a fandom side blog on Tumblr that was reasonably popular. Or, well, at least reasonably well-liked. I never even got as far as eight hundred followers, I don't think, but I would get nice messages from time to time from followers that I did have telling me that mine was their favorite fandom blog(!), I brought them back into the fandom(!!) and I made them love my favorite character(!!!). I would get messages thanking me for nice things I'd said in my reblogs and tags, saying that some piece of analysis of mine had hit them just right or just telling me to keep up the good work. Heck, a couple years after I stopped running the blog, someone commented on my final post to thank me for having made it. People reblogged fics I wrote there with kind and even gushing comments.
And yet, and yet.
Most posts I made there to try to generate discussion and seek interaction with fellow fans fell flat. The posts where I offered fic got few responses, most often from the same dedicated handful of people. I don't want to downplay how much I enjoyed the responses I did get and I certainly don't want to seem like I didn't appreciate the usual suspects. I did and still do! But the low traffic compared to the size of the audience made me feel... Idk, decorative? Like I was there to be enjoyed but not really engaged with. And, I mean, that obviously wasn't entirely true since interaction did happen and people did go out of their way with those aforementioned kind messages.
What really drove it home for me, I think, was that I tried to get an annual character appreciation week going. I ran it one year and, predictably, didn't get a lot of activity going. The event tag was mostly just me. But it was fun-- I think that might've been the last time I was able to write a story a day for a week-- and I liked seeing the few works put up by other people. So, I did an interest check the next year, hoping I could generate more excitement if I tried to be more interactive with it than just posting a list of dates and prompts. One of my usual suspects, who was herself very active in the fandom on Tumblr, responded to suggest an entire appreciation month instead.
I told her that on the one hand, that sounded pretty cool and the character in question deserved it. On the other, it would be overwhelming for me personally. I said that she or someone else would be welcome to run a month-long event in lieu of a week-long one if they wanted to take on that task.
Now, two things were true: 1) I really did think it would be cool if someone took the initiative to run a character appreciation month. 2) I really, really didn't want someone to do that.
Even though it hadn't gotten a lot of attention, I'd enjoyed running the previous character appreciation week. I mean, hey, it did better than my previous attempt at running a fan week in a different fandom (that one was literally just me in the event tag, lol). And, well, I had the biggest active blog at the time with that character focus. My head wasn't inflated by that, don't get me wrong; I didn't think of myself as any kind of authority or whatever. I didn't expect anyone to defer to me. But I still had a deep attachment to the concept of an appreciation event for the character in question. And people had been so nice, telling me how my blog made them learn to appreciate that character when they hadn't before. For as much as I didn't really expect anyone to defer to me... I didn't really expect them to, like, usurp me either.
As you may have already guessed, I was usurped, lol. The other poster announce the appreciation month later that day. And I wanna be clear, it was a great event! A lot of people participated in one way or another. She was very proactive in generating attention and interest, posting daily discussion questions and even sending those questions directly to people in fandom. Some really good meta was posted in response. There were also fanworks posted, of course, though the discussions really stole teh show. It was so popular that she went on to create monthly appreciation events for other characters and relationships, run the same way. I had fun participating and even just browsing the tags.
And yet, and yet...
I honestly, truly wasn't bitter. I honestly, truly didn't begrudge anyone for the uptick in activity and especially discussion. But I was hurt. Just a little, just a sting. The enthusiasm with which people replied to the questions and sent fic prompts to the event runner made it all the more stark how few responses I'd gotten throughout my time running the blog. And the success of the event made my own previous effort seem all the more dismal. Running the blog was never as much fun after that, even though I still had fun running it. At every turn, I couldn't help feeling like I'd done something wrong and like it was too late to fix whatever it was.
I stopped running that blog four years ago, for unrelated reasons. The only other fandom side blog I've run since has been a prompts blog that gets few but consistent notes and almost no responses. That's pretty much what I expected out of that, though, so it doesn't hit the same way. The blog is currently on a hiatus, mostly to give me time to get some long-overdue maintenance done on the tags and posting layout. But I had an inkling the other day and today (well, yesterday now) posted an interest check for a fan week or a gift exchange.
Guess how many replies I've gotten.
C'mon, guess.
Did you guess... none? Because the answer is none.
And, yeah, it's been less than a day. I know. And, yeah, it's not like this blog is even as popular as my previous not-actually-that-popular one, which was in a less active fandom, to boot. I know. But come on.
I feel like I have some kind of anti-charisma, Idk.