General squee: Just some comments and thoughts
As I was putting together the most recent Mars_daily post, I scrolled back and realized that talkingtothesky and I have been running that for well over a year now! Yay us! While it's a thankless job, I have always valued the resource and am happy to keep it going.
There have been a number of excellent mutual inspiration things going on in the fandom recently, which got me thinking and prompted me to praise fannish inspiration. I also somehow started following the "Month of Meta" on dreamwidth, and this post on inspiration struck me as quite meaningful. I'm impressed with how articulate the author is on the subject, and particularly struck by the final paragraph:
"Finally, I want to talk about feedback and recs. Some people do not “create works”. Perhaps they see their role more passively as consumers, but, if you are leaving comments and making recs, you are still engaging and supporting creativity. You are engaged with the material, thinking about it, reframing it and inviting people to engage with you. Fans are not just consumers, we are creative collaborators, engaging the material beyond, enriching it, playing “catch the excitement.” This experience has enriched my life. I am not only more productive, but it has encouraged me to find my voice, to really be able to stand on my feet."
It made me think anew about my own feelings about the give and take of fandom, and the fact that I feel very strongly about our ability--nay, our great priviledge--of leaving feedback and commentary. I realize that not everyone needs to be engaged to that level, and that there is no compulsion for lurkers to stop lurking, but... in this venue we have the amazing opportunity to tell the creator how much we value their creation. While I love the fact that AO3 has the kudos feature, and that tumblr has the <3 option, I think an unfortunate side-effect of that easy shortcut is that people tend to leave a lesser amount of personal feedback, which has deeper meaning and connection.
This is just my longwinded way of saying hey guys, let's keep supporting each other here. This might be a side-effect of this busy time of the year, but there have been a lot of awesome posts that got very little love. And I'm not just saying that because I love getting comments, because I do, but I want everyone to get the comments!
There have been a number of excellent mutual inspiration things going on in the fandom recently, which got me thinking and prompted me to praise fannish inspiration. I also somehow started following the "Month of Meta" on dreamwidth, and this post on inspiration struck me as quite meaningful. I'm impressed with how articulate the author is on the subject, and particularly struck by the final paragraph:
"Finally, I want to talk about feedback and recs. Some people do not “create works”. Perhaps they see their role more passively as consumers, but, if you are leaving comments and making recs, you are still engaging and supporting creativity. You are engaged with the material, thinking about it, reframing it and inviting people to engage with you. Fans are not just consumers, we are creative collaborators, engaging the material beyond, enriching it, playing “catch the excitement.” This experience has enriched my life. I am not only more productive, but it has encouraged me to find my voice, to really be able to stand on my feet."
It made me think anew about my own feelings about the give and take of fandom, and the fact that I feel very strongly about our ability--nay, our great priviledge--of leaving feedback and commentary. I realize that not everyone needs to be engaged to that level, and that there is no compulsion for lurkers to stop lurking, but... in this venue we have the amazing opportunity to tell the creator how much we value their creation. While I love the fact that AO3 has the kudos feature, and that tumblr has the <3 option, I think an unfortunate side-effect of that easy shortcut is that people tend to leave a lesser amount of personal feedback, which has deeper meaning and connection.
This is just my longwinded way of saying hey guys, let's keep supporting each other here. This might be a side-effect of this busy time of the year, but there have been a lot of awesome posts that got very little love. And I'm not just saying that because I love getting comments, because I do, but I want everyone to get the comments!