Writers aren’t underappreciated, you guys are just entitled; a thread

So this is a drawing I just made. It’s not bad for my skill level, but objectively it sucks and no would give it any attention if i posted it as is unless they’re my friend and/or took pity on me. And that’s fine, because I can’t expect others to praise something that’s not good.

Chances are, you probably don’t see many artworks like these on your timeline anyway, because twitter is designed to share what’s already popular. Even ignoring “Top Tweets” and other algorithmic bs, you only see things that the people you follow retweet, and that’s already a

huge filter on the type of content that you see. Maybe you do go into hashtags to look up content (lbr, art) for your faves, and you do see things that you straight up just don’t like, and you don’t interact with those.

So why should people appreciate fics they don’t like?

Ao3 is more democratic in that it doesn’t play favourites with the way it presents fics. You get everything that matches your search requirements and you get absolutely nothing that doesn’t, and everything is formatted in exactly the same way no matter your stats.

Maybe this gives some people the illusion that if you see everything equally it has to get equal love? Which is dumb as fuck because the fact is that some fics Will be more popular than others and if your fic isn’t one of them, then tough luck, write something better.

And of course it’s frustrating if you pour your heart into something and you’re proud of it and then it doesn’t get any feedback. It sucks!! I’ve been there!!! But what are you going to do about it? Writers have started “promoting” on twitter to try and get more engagement,

Making pretty little graphics and hashtags to grab twitter’s visual attention, which is fine, go ahead and do it if you want to! But if you then judge your success solely by the number of likes and RT’s you got then you’re a fish judging YOURSELF on your ability to climb a tree.

“But neyan, even then, I still only get so few hits and so few kudos compared to my hits!!” Well then, sorry to say but again, you either need to write better or stop caring about numbers, because no one owes your fic any kudos or comments just because it exists.

I think people forget or straight up don’t know that the vast majority of people consuming fancontent aren’t active fandom-goers. They’re not your oomfies and mooties who like and comment your bangers, they’re regular people who type “[ship] fanfiction” into google and click

the first result, read a few of those, and then leave. They don’t see your “appreciate writers!!” tweets and they don’t care about who wrote it, they don’t make Ao3 accounts and probably won’t click kudos because the vast majority of people Never interact with online content.

This isn’t just for fandom, this does for everything on the internet—visitor interaction on just about any website is extremely low, because most people are lazy and don’t want to click buttons because they don’t care. Ao3 seems perhaps meaner in that sense in that the hits

counter is public whereas on twitter it isn’t—but I will bet you that if any artist goes into their Tweet Activity tab and sees how many impressions aka “views” it got compared to the number of engagemets, likes and RT’s, the ratios would end up looking much worse than most fics.

And speaking of artists, writers love putting themselves in the fandom victim role but ignore that they never deal with as many reposts and thefts or never get as much negative attention if they supposedly “mess up” (Columbo and Wengweng’s harassment campaigns come to mind), and

also that fanart is extremely short-lived and rarely leaves a wide impact. We all know that one author or that one fic or that one series of fics that everyone in the fandom knows, that everyone talks about when they update, that largely influence how everyone else reads and

writes those characters, and we all know those fics that were published months or even years ago that are still at the top of the “Sort by Kudos” list and that people still recommend because they liked it that much and they still think and talk about it years later.

And fanart? Do you remember or talk about all the pictures you liked even a week ago? Fanfiction has an incredible longevity and impact on people’s perceptions but fanart is simply consumed en masse by most people, who might be more likely to give a quick like and RT, but most

art doesn’t live much longer than a few days At Best, and that’s a struggle that fanfiction doesn’t have. “Fanart is easier to consume and fanfic takes time to get into” is objectively true, and this has perks AND drawbacks for BOTH sides! That’s why there’s different platforms!!

If you ever saw someone post just fanart on Ao3, you also know that that barely ever gets any hits, let alone kudos or comments, so why do writers think that they should compete with artists on a purely visual hype-driven platform like twitter when fic is the antithesis of that?

“But neyan!!” you cry again, “but artists still get a lot more money from commissions than writers!!!” So, if you want to care about /financial/ success with fandom (which you don’t have to, you can just have fun without money, destroy capitalistic thinking, you know the drill),

generally, more fanartists want to pursue art as their primary occupation in life than fanfic writers want to become professional authors. It makes sense that if you already want to make your living making art then you’ll start doing so more readily even if you’re still studying

or simply not in a position to get by doing fully original art, or however it is you want to make your living in the long-term. Personally, the vast majority of fanfic writers I know have other career goals and don’t necessarily want or need to do commissions other than some

extra cash on the side. That said, who decided that you can’t make money with writing commissions? Plenty of writers have them, plenty of writers have commissions that aren’t underpriced and plenty of them publish their fics as fanfiction books and they make Bank with it.

Just because it’s rarer and less visible doesn’t mean that it’s impossible. “But no one would buy MY writing!” Have you tried? “Yes, and still no one bought it!” Then get better. Hell, you don’t even have to be a Great author, you just have to be decent enough, hit a few popular

tropes, update/publish consistently so people know who you are, and people will buy your commissions and give you kudos. If you want your big pp stats and money then put in the effort & learn from the plenty of people who have them, or stop caring.

Either way, stop whining.