I’ve avoided making posts like this on this blog because I try to keep this a friendly and fun environment, but I’m going to be like. Really real with you for a minute here.
You are sending this ask acknowledging that there is a person on the other side of the screen, telling the author that you don’t know what that anon intended. So why do so many IF authors get asks that: disrespect their boundaries, disrespect their work, disrespect their characters, disrespect their friends, disrespect them as real living human beings… it works both ways. Why are you sending extremely rude messages to someone you have never met, that you don’t know anything about, and yet who’s free content you are consuming? Would you go up to another person, in real life and act the way you do when you’re on anon in some stranger’s inbox? I think not, because it’s not fucking acceptable.
Despite what you may think, authors are also in fact real, living people behind the text, and we have every right to not want people to read our content when they are being disrespectful and rude like this. Especially when people come into our inboxes being racist, homophobic, lesbophobic, transphobic, and just genuinely fucking awful. Yes, while that’s not what happened here, it is a frequent occurrence.
We want you all to engage with our stories, we like receiving asks, we like interacting with you, we like sharing our content! That is why we are authors, that is why we are writing our stories. But it is truly exhausting when people are constantly sending extremely negative and rude messages daily, to multiple blogs, demanding content and feeling entitled to an author’s writing and characters. And doing it anonymously! And then throwing a fit when an author sets a boundary.
That’s not to say we don’t appreciate feedback and criticism - we want that from our readers. That’s why we have these blogs, why we are letting you all come with us as we figure our stories out and write our demos in real time. But there is a difference between valid criticism, and just being mean. Saying “xx character is unrealistically written” is painful to get as criticism, but it can be true and a necessary thing for an author to hear. However, saying “xx character is unrealistically written because poly people aren’t valid” is just shit. Wanting to change a certain character because you, personally, do not like it, is not constructive feedback, in any way.
I have been very lucky with my readers so far, and I adore you all. But constantly seeing my fellow authors, my friends, getting sent nasty, degrading messages daily makes me not want to be a part of this anymore. Genuinely, why would I want to share my story with people that clearly don’t even consider me worthy of basic respect?
This may seem like an extreme reaction to some of you, but this has been building up over the course of months. If you follow a lot of IF authors, you have probably seen it. I’ve only been involved in this space since August of this year, when I posted my demo, and in just that short period of time I have seen people send the most obscene stuff to authors, who again, are complete strangers. Real people, that you don’t know, that you are interacting with, and sending absolutely outrageous stuff to. And in my honest opinion, many authors have been far too forgiving when it comes to some of these messages.
Authors are allowed to set boundaries. If you have a problem with that, then I really think you need to step away from the computer and do some genuine introspection and figure out why it bothers you so much that someone tells you ‘no’.
I think at the core of this issue is that we, as people, just want you to remember that these are our stories that we are choosing to share with you. Of course, as I said, we are open to feedback and criticisms, that’s why we’re here! That’s why so many of us have open inboxes and have anon enabled, but damn. The entitlement! Sometimes these messages we get may not have any malicious intent behind them, but we can’t know that, and it wears you down, man. The next time you find yourself in an author’s inbox, getting ready to send an anonymous message, really take a minute to consider how this message might come across.
If these things are issues for you, then maybe you should write your own story, or read someone else’s, or maybe you should just unfollow and move on to the many other great interactive medias out there.
