#because many. MANY younger fans in fandom spaces haven't reached the point in fandom where they just block & ignore things they find Wrong

[toss-a-coin-to-your-stan-account]

tiktok "toxic yaoi enjoyers" when the ship is actually toxic and problematic and involves continuous mistreatment and manipulation and isn't just a healthy relationship where they have mean banter sometimes

not my tiktok feed going from "BILLFORD!!! TOXIC OLD MAN YAOI😍😍😍😍😍" to "yeah i like billford but ONLY pre-portal billford and i'm not like THOSE fans who like [insert toxic/"""problematic""" thing bill did to ford] bc that's WRONG and and if you like it you're BAD" girl what do you think the "toxic" in toxic old man yaoi MEANT

[thatswhatsushesaid]

all my irreverence and shitposting aside I am genuinely alarmed by two trends I'm noticing in the mdzs fandom, tho this can obviously apply to other fandom spaces too:

younger fans (under age ~24) in general (as in I know this won't apply to everyone, don't @ me) seem to struggle with critical analyses of the canon if the analyses in question are longer than a handful of paragraphs. I understand the value of being succinct where possible since that helps with clearly communicating an idea to an audience. but there is a significant difference between presenting a succinct explanation of a complex idea, and presenting a shallow misrepresentation of a complex idea because you haven't taken the time to carefully read the source material and then think about it before drafting your response.

there's a big problem (again, predominately among younger fans, or at least those who publicly display their age on their profiles) in certain corners of this fandom with conflating a fan's sympathetic reading of the antagonist characters (e.g., jin guangyao and jiang cheng) with that fan's real world attitudes around such issues as violence against women and children, sex crimes in general, and class consciousness.

like. case in point, I just erased over half of this post because I anticipated that many people would skim over 60% of the content and jump straight to the angry keymashing. but it's worrying to me that this is most prevalent among younger fans because you guys are the ones who are up and coming in fandom spaces. you're the ones who are going to be driving these conversations. isn't it important to you to be sure that you are understanding what someone else is actually saying to you before you decide to tell them why they're wrong?

genuine request: can we collectively agree that no one in the mdzs fandom actually thinks rape, murder, corpse desecration, or child abuse is okay? can we collectively agree that, when a jgy or jc 'stan' attempts to contextualize jgy or jc's actions within the source material (or dares to draw a narrative parallel between jgy or jc and wwx), what we are not doing is trying to diminish the seriousness of rape, murder, corpse desecration, or child abuse in the real world?

if we can just reach some kind of mutual agreement on this point specifically, maybe we can move on from kicking this fierce corpse of a horse and start talking about, idk. the novel.

[longlivefeedback]

It's lethargy. That's why people don't comment. They cant be bothered and won't be. The sooner we address this in fandom, and the entitlement people believe they have over fanworks and fan-creators, the sooner we can get rid of the problem. People need to be aware of the fact that fan-creators work hard on their creations and are looking for acknowledgement. Interaction. Validation.

I disagree.

There are many reasons on why people don't comment (link to post on AO3). Lethargy is also a valid reason. Just like Writers are not robots, churning out fic after fic on command, Readers are not robots either.

What are you really asking for here, Anon? I get that it is super frustrating to feel unseen, like your work and your effort is not enough, that you're being passed over or unacknowledged. My heart goes out to you and I want to give you a hug because that shit hurts and it is lonely. A fair chunk, if not all of us, already experience this in real life with our jobs and friends and families. I really really wouldn't recommend putting yourself through this with a hobby.

You seem to want acknowledgement, interaction, and validation. It sounds like you would be happier if you found a community instead of just receiving a bunch of comments.

I don't know how long you've been in fandom and what kind of fandom spaces you've experienced, but if we are speaking just about posting on AO3/FFN, I can tell you that "people not commenting enough" is not a new issue. This blog started because two writers acknowledged this as an issue and tried to do something about it. Heck. It's not even a phenomenon that is limited to writers. How many of us haven't seen those tumblr posts going around where artists point out how their likes-to-reblogs ratio are depressingly low? 500 likes, but only 50 reblogs. Can you imagine getting 500 kudos and 50 comments?

Yet it's still not enough. It's never going to be enough, is it? Be honest with yourself. We're all greedy bitches here and we're never going to be satisfied with 5 or 50 or 500 comments. Not really. Not if that's all you're getting out of writing and posting.

External validation.

Instant gratification.

Numbers that acknowledge your worth. As if your work only matters when you can point to numbers that show that you have a big enough audience, and some number of people telling you how well you did.

As for interaction? What if you got comments, but all the comments criticized your work, pointed out the flaws in your writing, nitpicked on plot holes? It's interaction. These readers are not lethargic. Would you prefer that kind of "validation"?

You talk about entitlement and ignorance, presumably on the part of readers, and people who don't themselves write. This, my friend, sounds like an issue with culture and etiquette. I'm going to sidestep the issue of today's social media and online etiquette norms. That's too big of an issue for one poor tumblr blog to tackle.

Instead, let's talk about what we can do about this.

1. Talk to the people in your community. Don't like how someone gushes over a fic to you but didn't leave a comment on the work? Encourage them to.

2. Pay it forward. How did you get into commenting? What did the "fandom olds" tell you to do to show appreciation for fanworks? Can you do the same to educate and influence younger fans?

3. Run a comment exchange or comment challenge among yourselves. Need help writing a comment? Check out our comment builder, @dawnfelagund's 101 Comment Starters, install the AO3 rekudos converter, or look at all the different ways you can comment (i.e. emojis, gifs, copy+pasting your favourite bits, copy+pasting a conversation you had with a friend about your favourite scene, etc.) and try them out!

4. Show them how to comment on mobile.

5. Go all out. Why stop at an exchange? Let's make it official! Reach out to the fandom! How about a comment bang? Comment secret santa? Comment...zine??? (🤔 This may require more thought...) But basically! The idea is that even if you're not a writer/artist, you can still participate in fan weeks and fan events but with...comments! Is it a week celebrating [shipname]? Read and comment on fics about [shipname]!

Anyone else have any more ideas to help fandom culture and fight Lethargy?