Fandom Feedback Methods
I’m trying to get more familiar with the site as I’d like to start reccing more, responding to meta, and giving feedback. However, I’m really confused about one particular aspect, which is giving feedback.
I think feedback is essential for a healthy fandom. Otherwise all the creators are just flinging art into a void. And while there is something to be said for having the passion to create, it’s really a positive boost when someone says something nice about it. It’s even better when other people can see how much you loved it and want to read/see it as well.
I found this opinion on a blog post called The Complete Guide to Tumblr Etiquette: It’s common practice to express personal reactions in tags. If a user likes a post, he or she might tag it with "This is the greatest thing I've ever seen" or "I agree 100%." Other common tag comments include "All the feels" when something is sad or moving, "Smh" (Shaking My Head) when you cannot believe what you just read, and "Faith in humanity restored" for an uplifting post. Tags can only be seen on your reblogged version of the post and no where else.
But if I do that, doesn’t that mean the creator, the person I’m trying to give praise to, has no freaking idea that I even saw it?! Much less that I loved it, thought highly of it, and heaped praise on it.
There seems to be several public levels of communication that can happen. The “paper airplane” message (not sure if this is private or not), replys, reblogs, likes, and even that little box that pops up if you end the post with a question mark. While I can send people to You Tube for vid recs and A03 for fics. There is a lot of content that exists solely on this site and I’m just wondering how people (in general) prefer to receive public feedback for things such as fanart and gifsets?
Thanks in advance for any tips and pointers.















