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 03:25 pm (UTC)I think I have a different perspective here because I have not noticed a trend of self-reccing at all. I rarely use Tumblr or Discord, and it sounds like that's mainly where this has been happening? I would be extremely surprised if someone posted a self-rec on DW, unless it was a special case like (as Grace said) someone asking for fics on a specific theme and you tell them you've written one, or being tagged in a meme asking people to talk about their favorite fic that they've written.
And even in those special cases, people can be quite reluctant to rec themselves! We have this annual meme
I do think reccing (of other people's work) is less common on DW than it used to be, though it does still exist. I think nowadays it's something people are more likely to do only occasionally, while in the past there were more people who were dedicated to posting recs all the time, and that was the main thing they were known for. (Back in the dinosaur times when fandom was mostly on mailing lists, many people had whole web sites dedicated just to recs! That continued into the 2000s for a while, but it seems to be basically gone now.)
Anyway, it's fascinating to me how fandom culture can vary depending on platform and time period, so thanks for bringing this up! Everyone's thoughts were an interesting read.
no subject
Date: 2020-05-11 08:18 pm (UTC)I did hear about the snowflake challenge but still not really clear what's it about :) I'll dig into it! Thanks for adding me and replying btw, it was really interesting to hear your pov too!