#Being active in a fandom can be tricky to my brain hahah

[kocch]

I'm gonna tag byler because it's the only fandom where I'm active and sometime I am a (very average) fanwriter and fanartist for the ship... But I think it's a general discourse that involves fandom spaces and the evolution of fandom culture.

As a dean of fandoms (since I've been in fandom for so many years already), I am used to write comments to fics i like or share the art I enjoy and everything, maybe because I've been on both sides of enjoying/creating fan content, I'm always active at my best capacity... But I've noticed a shift in the past years, maybe due to how fast the net is, how big the fandom is for stranger things, etc, of everything becoming disposable and almost a given, and just the pace of it all is so fast that we're used to get content and just push a like button and moving forward... But artists spend hours doing that fan content, for their own enjoyment but also for engagement with the fanbase and all, to carve themselves a tiny space in the fandom and to share their love for said fandom/ship/show.

If you like a fanart, reblog it. Or if it's on instagram, like it and comment it. Write tags, even just a 'i love it it's so cool' one. Write some comment to the author, show you love it... Every single like counts, obviously, but there is nothing like getting a cute comment under a piece of work, no matter if it's as good as Caravaggio or just a simple sketch, if You Enjoy it then show it. It matters to artists.

Same with fanfictions, it happens so often to me that I read a fiction, see they have 200 kudos and only 2 comments... Kudos are amazing, notwithstanding that I think there is a lack of effort for comments that are longer than six words (I like it so much wow!)... I'm not saying everyone has to write a literature analysis under a fanfiction, but even just pointing out your favourite parts in a fic, some plot twist you liked, some lines that resonated with you, or the way the writer wrote a character... It makes the difference!

It tells a message to the artist, I appreciate the time you spent creating this content and sharing it with us. And it matters :')