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thebratqueenThere seems to be an inadvertent meme of sorts working its way through LJ recently where the default mode is for people to assume that, barring evidence to the contrary, nobody likes them. That this is being done on LJ of all places - a place where you can crack open your user information and find the actual statistics of how many people think that the words tripping off of your keyboard are fascinating enough that they'd like to read them via their friends page - actually kind of amazes me. Moreso since everyone I've seen doing this lately has a "friend of" list that averages 100 people.
Look - I get feeling down and depressed and needing a hug because, all evidence to the contrary, you feel like shit. Hugs for just that reason are what friends are for. I'm not saying don't do that. In point of fact I'm saying the opposite. Do come right out and ask people, as your friends, to give you a hug. Come ask me directly if you want to - it's what I'm here for (assuming, you know, I'm online ;) ). Fuck knows I do it - I write a story and I don't know if it works to people living outside of my head so I sling it at one of my beta readers (waves hi to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
wolfling and stakebait, amongst others) and beg them to tell me if it sucks. It's okay to ask, really.
But what I have to admit is driving me up a wall is when people assume that not hearing from people obviously means that said people don't like them.
Yes, sometimes no feedback is a hint. I've written enough stories in my various fandoms to get a feel for what the feedback response is like so if I post one story that gets X feedback and another story which gets less than X feedback or even no feedback I will wonder if the story was subquality (and again go and ask people I know to give me honest reviews). However no feedback is not always a hint.
There was a girl on LJ about a month or so ago who posted talking about the Friends feature, and specifically the friends-only feature, saying that she absolutely hated it because obviously the only reason why someone would make a friends-only post is to say something nasty about someone else (probably her) without that person seeing. It was an entire system, she said, geared towards making people paranoid about what was being said behind their backs.
Yeah or maybe it's just private. That could be a thing. You see what I'm saying? Don't assume that I'm going to use the friends-only feature because I'm an asshole who wants to talk shit about you. Maybe it's a post only certain people on my friends list would be interested in, maybe it's a post that I don't want linked around the internet because it contains private information about me, maybe it's a lot of stuff.
And moreover, claim your own ego. If you assume that people are doing friends-only posts to talk shit about you, or aren't feedbacking you because your stories suck, or don't comment on your LJ because they think you're not interesting - be aware that that's your assumption. Yeah, it might be true, but it also might not be true. You assumed the glass was half-empty.
And hey - entirely your right to do so. Assume all you want. But when you come back to me and I find out that you presupposed that I was being an asshole I'm going to be annoyed, because guess what - sometimes I'm busy, I can't read all stories, I don't care for that particular paring/genre/fandom, I'm not online all the time or when I am I can't talk to everyone else who's online at the same time or I'd never get anything done and I wasn't trying to fuck you over.
Yeah, some of this has to do with the recent kerfuffle of "Did someone who said they didn't like S/X directly insult all the S/X writers out there?" (although I'll admit to being amused at the Emily Litellaization of that debate into "Well if somebody told me they liked my story in spite of XYZ I'd be flattered" as has apparently happened since I logged on last night) (note tojennyo I'm not talking about your post, which I cited on metablog), but it's been other stuff too - posts people have been making that have nothing to do with fandom, or are just vaguely related to fandom, which then tack on a PS, typically in a small font, which says words to the effect of or maybe I (or my stories) just suck or whatever, expect to hear yours truly tearing her hair out because it A) really pisses me off when people put words in my mouth (not being shy of words myself, as you may be able to tell) B) pisses me off when the words in question are an insult and C) if you wanted some hugs and feedback just ask me.
Look, LJ is an amazingly easy place to avoid people if you want to. It's no effort for anybody to knock you off of their friends list. So if you've got 100+ people on your "friend of" list, chances are they like you. Occam's Razor - it's far more likely that they all like you and find you interesting than it is that over a hundred people find you mind-numblingly dull, think your stories suck, hate the pairing you write, hate the genre you write, hate everything you write, think you personally should leave the fandom and never come back and yet somehow can't spare two seconds to de-friend you. Particularly when the norm is for people to unfortuanately have to de-friend people that they like because their friends page is getting unwieldly.
There's a fine line between being modest and fishing for compliments. Modest means not getting a big ego. Not assuming, as one girl I know does, that everytime you enter a new fandom people will bow down before you because you are the famous Mary McSue who was so well known in (let's say) Smallville that naturally everyone in the Farscape fandom will be lining up to suck your cock before you even do your first post.
Obviously doing stuff like that is egocentric. However it's not better to go the opposite extreme and assume that what you write (again story or fandom-related) is such drek that we're all forming discussion groups behind your back to talk about how craptacular it, and you, are.
Just be you. Write what you write, post what you post, be whoever you want to be and trust me, the people who hang around with you are the people who like you. It's the internet, we've got billions of people to chose from here. We're not suffering for reading matter, or for people to try to be friends with. It's okay to assume that if we're hanging with you, we like you.
And, quite frankly, in the worst case senario where, yeah, somebody does mean you when they say they don't like a certain kind of fandom/story/pairing/genre/poster/your name here - so? I don't like everything. You don't like everything. Nobody likes everything. Can I take two seconds here to point out that it's okay to like yourself, post stuff that makes you happy since ultimately you're the final vote, and then the rest is extra?
I love feedback - and I'm lucky enough to get some great versions of it from people who read my stuff - but much as I love the people I've started to chat with b/c of my stories, I don't post my stories for them. I post them because they make me happy. If I get feedback, great. If not - well I had fun writing a story. That was the point. It wasn't the point to write that story so my feedbackers would be happy, or so the fandom would be happy, or so I would be named the grand goddess of fill-in-fandom-I-write-name-here. I wrote it because I wanted to write it. I don't hang my ego on whether I wrote it and people printed it out and hung it on their wall.
Plenty of people hate me. Hell, I got so hated by some members of the VampChron community (to wit: Anne herself and her cronies) that I was personally stalked and harrassed. SO FUCKING WHAT? I don't post for those people, I post for myself. I've got friends (both in the emotional and in the LJ sense) who like me and what I post so - yay! - I've got people to hang with. Those are all the votes that matter. It's okay if people hate me. It's okay if people hate you. Honestly, it's not the end of the world.
When you're fortunate enough to have friends (in both senses of the word) - be glad! Take it for what it is, which is a sign that people like you. Rejoice in it, be happy, do lean on those people in times of trouble, and stop assuming that they're only being nice to you because they're secretly assholes who hate your guts. Because, honestly? That's kind of impossible. No such thing as a nice asshole, after all, at least in the metaphorical sense ;)
Look - I get feeling down and depressed and needing a hug because, all evidence to the contrary, you feel like shit. Hugs for just that reason are what friends are for. I'm not saying don't do that. In point of fact I'm saying the opposite. Do come right out and ask people, as your friends, to give you a hug. Come ask me directly if you want to - it's what I'm here for (assuming, you know, I'm online ;) ). Fuck knows I do it - I write a story and I don't know if it works to people living outside of my head so I sling it at one of my beta readers (waves hi to
wolfling and stakebait, amongst others) and beg them to tell me if it sucks. It's okay to ask, really.But what I have to admit is driving me up a wall is when people assume that not hearing from people obviously means that said people don't like them.
Yes, sometimes no feedback is a hint. I've written enough stories in my various fandoms to get a feel for what the feedback response is like so if I post one story that gets X feedback and another story which gets less than X feedback or even no feedback I will wonder if the story was subquality (and again go and ask people I know to give me honest reviews). However no feedback is not always a hint.
There was a girl on LJ about a month or so ago who posted talking about the Friends feature, and specifically the friends-only feature, saying that she absolutely hated it because obviously the only reason why someone would make a friends-only post is to say something nasty about someone else (probably her) without that person seeing. It was an entire system, she said, geared towards making people paranoid about what was being said behind their backs.
Yeah or maybe it's just private. That could be a thing. You see what I'm saying? Don't assume that I'm going to use the friends-only feature because I'm an asshole who wants to talk shit about you. Maybe it's a post only certain people on my friends list would be interested in, maybe it's a post that I don't want linked around the internet because it contains private information about me, maybe it's a lot of stuff.
And moreover, claim your own ego. If you assume that people are doing friends-only posts to talk shit about you, or aren't feedbacking you because your stories suck, or don't comment on your LJ because they think you're not interesting - be aware that that's your assumption. Yeah, it might be true, but it also might not be true. You assumed the glass was half-empty.
And hey - entirely your right to do so. Assume all you want. But when you come back to me and I find out that you presupposed that I was being an asshole I'm going to be annoyed, because guess what - sometimes I'm busy, I can't read all stories, I don't care for that particular paring/genre/fandom, I'm not online all the time or when I am I can't talk to everyone else who's online at the same time or I'd never get anything done and I wasn't trying to fuck you over.
Yeah, some of this has to do with the recent kerfuffle of "Did someone who said they didn't like S/X directly insult all the S/X writers out there?" (although I'll admit to being amused at the Emily Litellaization of that debate into "Well if somebody told me they liked my story in spite of XYZ I'd be flattered" as has apparently happened since I logged on last night) (note to
jennyo I'm not talking about your post, which I cited on metablog), but it's been other stuff too - posts people have been making that have nothing to do with fandom, or are just vaguely related to fandom, which then tack on a PS, typically in a small font, which says words to the effect of or maybe I (or my stories) just suck or whatever, expect to hear yours truly tearing her hair out because it A) really pisses me off when people put words in my mouth (not being shy of words myself, as you may be able to tell) B) pisses me off when the words in question are an insult and C) if you wanted some hugs and feedback just ask me. Look, LJ is an amazingly easy place to avoid people if you want to. It's no effort for anybody to knock you off of their friends list. So if you've got 100+ people on your "friend of" list, chances are they like you. Occam's Razor - it's far more likely that they all like you and find you interesting than it is that over a hundred people find you mind-numblingly dull, think your stories suck, hate the pairing you write, hate the genre you write, hate everything you write, think you personally should leave the fandom and never come back and yet somehow can't spare two seconds to de-friend you. Particularly when the norm is for people to unfortuanately have to de-friend people that they like because their friends page is getting unwieldly.
There's a fine line between being modest and fishing for compliments. Modest means not getting a big ego. Not assuming, as one girl I know does, that everytime you enter a new fandom people will bow down before you because you are the famous Mary McSue who was so well known in (let's say) Smallville that naturally everyone in the Farscape fandom will be lining up to suck your cock before you even do your first post.
Obviously doing stuff like that is egocentric. However it's not better to go the opposite extreme and assume that what you write (again story or fandom-related) is such drek that we're all forming discussion groups behind your back to talk about how craptacular it, and you, are.
Just be you. Write what you write, post what you post, be whoever you want to be and trust me, the people who hang around with you are the people who like you. It's the internet, we've got billions of people to chose from here. We're not suffering for reading matter, or for people to try to be friends with. It's okay to assume that if we're hanging with you, we like you.
And, quite frankly, in the worst case senario where, yeah, somebody does mean you when they say they don't like a certain kind of fandom/story/pairing/genre/poster/your name here - so? I don't like everything. You don't like everything. Nobody likes everything. Can I take two seconds here to point out that it's okay to like yourself, post stuff that makes you happy since ultimately you're the final vote, and then the rest is extra?
I love feedback - and I'm lucky enough to get some great versions of it from people who read my stuff - but much as I love the people I've started to chat with b/c of my stories, I don't post my stories for them. I post them because they make me happy. If I get feedback, great. If not - well I had fun writing a story. That was the point. It wasn't the point to write that story so my feedbackers would be happy, or so the fandom would be happy, or so I would be named the grand goddess of fill-in-fandom-I-write-name-here. I wrote it because I wanted to write it. I don't hang my ego on whether I wrote it and people printed it out and hung it on their wall.
Plenty of people hate me. Hell, I got so hated by some members of the VampChron community (to wit: Anne herself and her cronies) that I was personally stalked and harrassed. SO FUCKING WHAT? I don't post for those people, I post for myself. I've got friends (both in the emotional and in the LJ sense) who like me and what I post so - yay! - I've got people to hang with. Those are all the votes that matter. It's okay if people hate me. It's okay if people hate you. Honestly, it's not the end of the world.
When you're fortunate enough to have friends (in both senses of the word) - be glad! Take it for what it is, which is a sign that people like you. Rejoice in it, be happy, do lean on those people in times of trouble, and stop assuming that they're only being nice to you because they're secretly assholes who hate your guts. Because, honestly? That's kind of impossible. No such thing as a nice asshole, after all, at least in the metaphorical sense ;)
