“Why did you like that art without reblogging it!? That really stifles artists and-”
I added it to my queue and/or reblogged it to a sideblog, you dingus. I see a good twenty pictures that I like every five minutes - so which is better for your art: spamming it amidst a couple dozen other posts that my followers are already fed up of, or reblogging it later or to another blog amidst less posts? Also consider: people have more than one main blog, two or three likes and one reblog could all be the same person (as could three reblogs and one like). Maybe they’re a fellow artist and they have a sideblog for other people’s art because they don’t want to reblog it to their main and bury their own art.
I know that getting thirty likes and one reblog initially is a huge let down - and you have every right to talk about how exposure, and by extension reblogs, is good for artists - but people have more than one reason for liking without immediately reblogging, so don’t let it get you down or make you angry at somebody, especially when you don’t even know why that specific blog hasn’t reblogged it yet.
Ultimately, if they don’t want to reblog it at all, it’s their blog, they don’t have to. Likes don’t mean “I acknowledge this” - they mean “I like this”, “I appreciate this”, “You’re doing good work”, “I wanna scroll through my likes and see this again”, “I reblogged this elsewhere or added it to a queue”, “It’s not my style/not something that I’m comfortable with having on my blog, but I still want to express my appreciation” - try to think of them positively instead of getting down about them. Sharing isn’t the only conclusion of enjoying something - you’re on this godforsaken website, you know that none of us share every single thing that we enjoy. At least they’re trying to convey their enjoyment to you instead of just scrolling by.
The bane of any creative type is focusing too much on numbers or on the reaction of others - it’s great to be able to profit from your work, to get appreciation, to succeed in that way - but don’t let that, or the lack of that, take away from the pure and intrinsic enjoyment of creating itself. Those likes are thirty people who loved your work, with a myriad of reasons for not immediately reblogging, give them and yourself the benefit of the doubt, passive aggressively reblog a post about how helpful reblogs are, but don’t guilt trip people, insult people, or put yourself down over the lack of reblogs - remember how fun it was to create the work, how inspired you felt, and the fact that the art wouldn’t exist at all without you and your brilliance.
Remember fanfiction? Remember how rare it actually is/was for people to share that, and more often than not you’d just get a star, heart, kudos, whatever? That appreciation wasn’t considered to be effectively nothing, inadequate acknowledgement where a share should be, it was considered proof that somebody enjoyed the work. Even likes boost your relevance in search results on here, and if people have their likes visible then others can still find the art through their likes.
Again, to clarify, this is about how you shouldn’t get angry at individual people or let disappointment get the better of you, not that you shouldn’t want reblogs and not that you shouldn’t talk about how useful reblogs are. It’s about how so many people look on the dark side of this, they think like “they didn’t deem it worthy of a reblog” instead of “they liked what I made! and there are positives to that!” because that kind of glass half empty mindset is detrimental to you, and it can create and fester a kind of bitterness between the artist and those who love their work. Don’t guilt trip people or tell them that they have no adequate reason not to do as you please and reblog the post, don’t see appreciation without exposure as a crime worse than simply scrolling by, and look after yourself.
That said, if you see nice art, it really helps artists if you reblog it - I like making sideblogs dedicated to specific styles or themes so that I can populate the queues of those and reblog most of the great art that I see without burying it under a hundred posts within the hour. Furry vore art just gets a like though - I love the shading, the colour choice, and that detail is scarily good, I just… y'know… it’s not you, it’s me.
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