About Self-reccing
May. 2nd, 2020 12:54 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
marchnogirlSooo, they say "go big or go home" right? My first post and it's about a hot (? I think) topic in fandom but it's something I'm thinking about a lot lately.
We all know the first motivation to write should be inside of us, we should write the fics we want to write and to indulge ourselves and our tastes. Though, we cannot separate that from the fact that we do write for someone else too, we do look for the validation, and it is nice to know the fic we wrote for ourselves worked for someone else out there too.
That's why we self-rec, I reckon. At least, that's why I do it. I wrote something, I put effort into it, I hope people will want to read it and I try to make my fic visible. It looks, though, as if self-reccing isn't that well received in fandom-- as if it's something arrogant to do or as if people do it only to be praised.
And while I can understand these arguments on some occasions (over self-reccing can be extremely annoying), I was wondering if that applies generally to the trend of self-reccing.
What's your opinion about this topic?
We all know the first motivation to write should be inside of us, we should write the fics we want to write and to indulge ourselves and our tastes. Though, we cannot separate that from the fact that we do write for someone else too, we do look for the validation, and it is nice to know the fic we wrote for ourselves worked for someone else out there too.
That's why we self-rec, I reckon. At least, that's why I do it. I wrote something, I put effort into it, I hope people will want to read it and I try to make my fic visible. It looks, though, as if self-reccing isn't that well received in fandom-- as if it's something arrogant to do or as if people do it only to be praised.
And while I can understand these arguments on some occasions (over self-reccing can be extremely annoying), I was wondering if that applies generally to the trend of self-reccing.
What's your opinion about this topic?
no subject
Date: 2020-05-02 08:54 am (UTC)First of, I agree with Gracerene 100%. Like her, I've been seeing a trend towards self-reccing and not reccing other people's fics. 3 years ago, when I joined the fandom, people used to rec fics left, right and centre. Almost none of these people do it anymore (some have left the fandom/tumblr; others, like me, have simply stopped), but there haven't been any new people taking up the mantle, although there's tons new writers. For instance, I used to regularly create a post with my recs of whichever fest had been posting at the time. I don't see such posts now. Instead it's all self-reccing.
The channel in the discord for recs was actually used for reccing other people's works, initially. I muted it over a year ago when I realised it was now primarily used for self-recs. I have to be honest: I won't read a fic because of a self-rec. I don't consider an author being able to self-rec, with emphasis on the rec. Rec means recommending, it means you're saying this is *good*, and I don't believe the creator, who's very close to her work, can do that. She's biased. *I'm* biased about my own stuff. I was pleasantly surprised when the mods in the discord decided to allocate a few set days to rec other people's works.
I think the word "rec" is why some authors say they feel shy at self-reccing or they feel shame. I remember 2 years ago I timidly posted here about a fic wrote, and LQT and Birds made it clear that there's no shame to be feeling about saying you wrote a fic. And that's the crux: there's no shame in announcing you wrote a fic. There's no shame, and there shouldn't be, in saying that you wrote something, making a cute graphic to go with it, reblogging it a couple of times. Making a post on your private blog about it. That's perfectly fine.
But you're not "reccing" (hey this is good), you're announcing (hey I wrote something).
It's semantics perhaps, but words matter. In short, I'd say that my opinion boils down to:
--authors can't self-rec. They're biased, and their rec is biased.
--authors can self-promote. They can announce they wrote a story. Like Gracerene said, if someone says "I want to read Vampire!Draco fics", they can say, "hey here's mine!" There's no reason why they shouldn't do that.
--no one should feel shame about self-promoting, it's a big fandom and there's nothing wrong with an author trying to draw some attention to their work.
Finally, I believe that a lot of authors self-rec very insistently because they think/hope this will bring them a bigger readership and/or make their work popular (no, it won't. not on its own) when a better way to become popular is to actually support others: rec other people's works, leave comments widely (not just to your friends' fics), make friendships, lift other people up. It sounds very new-agey maybe, but spreading good karma works.
no subject
Date: 2020-05-02 12:04 pm (UTC)And the thing about semantic is actually important; words matter and the difference about o self promoting and reccing IS *something* and it opened my eyes. It’s a simple thing but for a non native speaker like me it’s like... oh damn how did I not think of that!!
It makes sense. And you’re right, about the channel for recs too.
I always try to rec other people’s works, but I can’t to the list kind of thing.., when I first joined the fandom I was so excited I tried to read every single of fic of every fest and in the end it burned me out because I felt compelled to read them, to contribuite, to support my fellow writers.
Lately I’m trying to take care of my tastes and find again the passion I had when I was only a reader, when I chose what to read simply based on summary and the tags, if they inspired me.
So I read less and rec less, but I always try to rec others along with my own fics if I can.
I do agree it’s an unsettling trend lately and that’s why I wanted to hear other thoughts, because now the scene Is dominated by a certain view and I was trying to find other perspectives.
Which you, grace and Rachel really gave me, thank you!!