passion and popularity
What chaps my ass about this entire argument is I only ever see people being chastised for caring about this kind of thing by people who get a ton of hits/are BNFs/borderline BNFs. It’s really easy for people like that to talk a lot of shit like ~just write because it’s fun~ because they’re not the ones creating into a void. It’s condescending as fuck. I think most of us are adults that at some point have gotten the “there will always be people more talented than you so don’t worry about it” talk as kids.
People also don’t understand that everyone comes to fandom from different life circumstances. In my case, I never got any encouragement whatsoever about my writing from my family, despite having done it my whole life. I got a constant drumbeat growing up that creative pursuits were all well and good in school but eventually I’d have to grow up and get a real job. The one time I ever showed my work to my fundie mom, she dismissed it as “pagan nonsense” because I was writing fantasy. It really sucks to pour your heart into something and have no one care or even actively deride you for it. I’ve had to fight literally my entire life just to get basic respect for being a creative person in the first place, outside of fandom. So obviously I’m going to view my experiences in fandom as someone that tends to not get very many hits, reviews or recs through that lens.
Hi. All my work on AO3 has, on average, 15-20 hits (mainly from the day it was uploaded) and the kudos is mainly from people I know. My tumblr fic has, until very recently, gotten less than 20 notes (Skyrim fic! It is like giving a fish a bicycle.)- this explosion of interest in my Varric alphabet has, frankly, shocked me, because I had no idea people would like it. I expected 5 notes, max. I am not a BNF. So I can tell you that no, I don’t do it for recognition. And if I tried, it’d just end in frustration because that kind of thinking makes you deeply unhappy and is poison to creativity.
Nobody needs to read my work (although you’re all very much appreciated!). If the internet didn’t exist I’d be telling these stories to my cat. Recognition is nice! It feels nice to get it! But it’s a side effect (if you’re lucky), not the end object.
“Doing it for the recognition” isn’t the same as “caring about recognition”, though, and all too often “just do it for the fun!!” is leveled at people who are simply expressing their insecurities, as if they were somehow bad fans or bad creators being insecure. It’s great if some folks are A-OK with getting very little exposure or feedback, but… not everyone is the same?? And yes, it’s condescending, and plain mean — especially for BNF types — to tell the latter sort not to care, to act like they’re ~missing the point of writing~ or whatever. I mean, sure as hell don’t attend my classes in order to befriend my instructors or even to get good grades, but if they ignore me in favor of the academic stars of the class and I end up at the bottom of the curve, “just do it for the education!!” is going to be spectacularly irrelevant and unhelpful.
I’ve even seen BNFs express the sentiment that anyone who is insecure about their work should just not participate in fandom. So much side-eye.
You make some good points! I did confuse ‘doing it for the recognition’ with ‘caring about recognition’- they are quite similar but, as you said, not exactly the same, and I apologise for not realising that. Honestly, I think that perhaps there’s just different kinds of people in fandom, and they expect different things from it, which really should have occurred to me before now. I only really replied to the original post to show that there are people who aren’t popular who still produce stuff just for the fun of it, but on reflection it was a bad idea and I didn’t really contribute anything.
I’m sorry! I won’t talk about this any more. I got the wrong end of the stick.
