It's not about comments, it's about community. I'm lying here at 1:36 in the morning and I can't sleep and that keeps going around and around in my head. It's not comments, it's community. I dunno if this is an epiphany or I'm an insomniac and I'm not making any sense.
But I've been running this blog for three and a half years now and seeing the things that spark joy in authors, and seeing the insecurities, and seeing people saying, "I need comments, I want comments, I have to have comments, if I don't have comments then I just feel like I need to give up" -- and I try and understand as best as I can but I don't think I actually get there. And I think the reason why that is, is because I've always had some form of community.
When I joined my last fandom, I knew a couple of people who were interested in it on tumblr, but I threw my first fic out there not knowing what I'd get. The fandom was still small at the time, and...the show was on hiatus, and there wasn't a lot of fic going on AO3, and so...when I put my fic out there, I actually got a response and it was pretty cool. And because I got online in the 90's, when people commented to me, I commented back in a conversational tone, and because the fandom was full of people of a similar age to me
-- who also got on the internet in the 90's -- they also responded in a conversational tone. And next thing you know, we're making friends, we're following each other on tumblr, we're having a grand ol' time.
And so...for me, when I go into a stats spiral, it's more about comparing myself against myself, and "why am I not doing better with this story than this other story", and "why do people like that story? That was just a joke. This one that's serious, nobody is paying attention to and why is that"? But it's not so much about people and the comments or the lack of comments, it's more about me and, you know, trying to understand my own writing and you know, what works and what doesn't and relying on other people won't tell me that and I know that.
And then I remembered the one time when I actually was upset that I didn't get comments. And it was...I had organized this fandom event type of thing -- not really an event -- I was doing this thing, and anyone who wanted to participate or support me or encourage me was welcome to do so. I wanted to do a thing. I did...I, um, called it a ficathon, it was a March Madness kind of thing, where 64 prompts went in, and 1 prompt came out. And I was writing 64 fics at the same time and people were voting on them and it was great. And when we got to the final fic, and I wrote it and posted it on AO3, after -- I dunno, a month? -- of fanfare -- I was getting 50 votes a day on these things, so like people were reading. I didn't get comments. I barely had hits or kudos and it was a huge let down. And it wasn't about the comments, even though I remember I wrote some kind of post and put it on tumblr that I was upset and whatever, and I remember writing about comments and kudos and hits.
But that wasn't why I was upset. I was upset because I had created a thing for my community and it felt like my community ignored it. It wasn't the case and everything was fine, and you know, I had posted it on a Tuesday afternoon or something stupid and nobody saw it. It was, you know. I...probably overreacted, I dunno. But that was how I was feeling at the time. It was an intense disappointment for me.
But it wasn't about the numbers, it was about the relationship and the community.
And when I read some of the asks that I get or the tags on posts -- oh my god, the tags on posts -- when I see these things so often, it feels like what people want isn't a comment, it's a connection. They want people to talk to about their writing. They want people to talk to about stories or about the canon, the characters they love, they want to have a conversation. And for whatever reason, the way social media is set up, we expect that conversation to happen in a certain way or we don't realize it can happen in a different way, and...I dunno. AO3 isn't even social media. But it looks like it in a lot of ways. And so I think...I dunno, people look for community in their comment section. And it's hard to build a community there.
If you have friends on tumblr, or twitter, or discord, or wherever else, if you have relationships with people outside of your fic, at least for me, the comments are less necessary but also, the comments come because -- I mean, god knows, I was not the best writer in my fandom by a long stretch -- but I knew a lot of people. And I liked them and they liked me, and I think that really helped make people want to read my stories. Because again, it's that community piece. I'm looking for connections with them and they're looking for connections too. And if they know me as a person, and they see a story with my name on it, they might think, "Oh, I really like Pi! I'm going to click in and see what her story's about."
And so, it's...it comes down to community. Like am I crazy here? Am I wrong? I mean, obviously this isn't the case for everybody, not everyone is looking for this community, but...yeah. That's...just...it feels like it comes down to that. For me. That's the piece that's missing. That's the piece that people crave, the thing they're looking for. It's not about the comments, it's not about the numbers, it's about connections and relationships. And that's the part that's missing.
