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?
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Date: 2020-05-01 11:32 pm (UTC)While I (particularly these days) very much make an effort to write fics I love and am excited about regardless of how I think they'll be received, of course I want people to read and love my fics, and I don't think there is anything wrong with a bit of self-promotion. I post headers and reblog them, I'll mention the fic if somebody asks for recs of that kind of content, and I might even post links to particular favorites if there was a self-reccing channel or community (more below on why I won't do it for a generally "reccing" channel/comm). But when people are constantly self-reccing every single fic they write, and when they exclusively rec their own fics, or rec their own fics disproportionately to other people's fics, that does put me off. To me, fandom is largely interactive and supportive, and if you are going to be reccing your own works, that's fine! But I think that should be going hand-in-hand with reccing other people's works and supporting others the way you (general you) are asking others to support you. I'm far less likely to read somebody's works if I notice that they self-rec a ton and rarely rec other people because, to me, that indicates a lack of support for other creators, and I'm not inclined to support creators who aren't also spending their time uplifting their community.
For example, if somebody asks me for recs of Vampire!Draco, I'll very likely include my own Vampire!Draco fic, but I would pair that rec with at least twice as many (and in this case, a lot more than that!) recs of fics by other people. I do think it's not a good look if somebody in that situation would only rec their own Vampire!Draco fic. To me, that feels almost selfish, as if it is more important to that person to potentially direct traffic to their own fic than to have to share that spotlight with other works.
Now, when it comes to reccing communities or channels, I personally do consider recs and self-recs different things. I think they're both great and have a time or place. I'm not saying one is better than the other, they're just not the same, and I don't think they should be considered the same and mixed all together. When a reccing channel essentially becomes majority self-recs, and when people use that channel as basically a feed for them to post all of their new works, it (for me) makes the channel useless. If I'm interested in knowing every time you (general you) post a work, I'll follow you on tumblr and subscribe to your AO3. When you rec a fic that you didn't write, it is generally a fic that particularly touched you in some way, it's a fic that goes above and beyond, and not every single fic will do that. Well, that same rule holds for self-recs--not every one of your fics is your best work. But a lot of people don't seem to make that distinction, and I get that! It's your work and you're obviously biased and you want people to read your stuff! But, again, that is why recs and self-recs are entirely different and I don't think should be lumped together. The person posting a self-rec has something to directly personally gain from it, whereas (generally speaking) a rec of somebody else's work is a far more selfless act, geared towards spreading love and positivity to others, with no direct benefit to yourself other than hopefully having more people to squee with over the fic. There's a time and place for self-promotion, and I don't think there's anything wrong with it but, frankly, I think it does reccing a disservice to claim that recs and self-recs are the same and should be treated as such.
My issue with self-reccing is that it feels like there has been a massive trend towards it at the expense of actually reccing other stories as well, and that people self-rec everything to the point where recs lose meaning.
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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.
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Date: 2020-05-02 10:24 am (UTC)I think my thoughts on self-reccing/self-promoting boil down to two main things, 1-frequency, and 2-tone and intention.
In terms of frequency, as you know I've unfollowed people because they self-rec and self-promote to the point that it feels spammy to me - we know you've written this fic, you've told us a lot, if I wanted to read it I would have! I totally think people should feel free to post headers etc on tumblr when they write a fic, should do tz reblogs etc - we should be proud of what we write! But there comes a point when seeing constant posts about it tests my patience. Sometimes this isn't the fault of the author - if multiple people keep talking about a fic in discord that isn't necessarily the author self-promoting too much, but it can still drive me a bit mad! This gets even worse if they only seem interested in promoting their own fics and those written by their friends - I stop trusting their recs because it seems like the only thing that matters is the author name.
It's a bit harder for me to express what I mean by tone and intention, because it's so vague, and maybe it's just my own issue. But I think what I mean is, for me there's a difference between posting 'hey, I wrote this fic, if you fancy reading it here's the link' and posting 'Hey, I wrote this fic, I think it's brilliant and you definitely need to read it, let me brag about my fic and how much people love it' (this one tends to be more of an issue in reblogs after the fic has gained some views). But then again there's nothing wrong with being proud of something you've written and saying that - I tend to be very self-deprecating (I blame my British upbringing) so expressing that I'm proud of something I've done is a struggle for me, but that shouldn't stop other people from being able to say that. So that's why it's so hard to explain what I mean by this bit, but I could give you examples of people who fall on the wrong side of the line (I won't here haha).
I was on the side of the discord should have a separate channel for self-recs and 'regular' recs, not because I don't think people should share their work and let other people know when they've written something, but because as Grace and Magpie have said, a self-rec naturally is different to a 'regular' rec. It's not that I don't *trust* self-recs, but I don't necessarily take them as any indication of the actual quality of the work, and they aren't going to make me read the fic. I'd still read fics from a self-rec channel, but because the summary grabbed me etc, not because it's been recced, if that makes sense. I also think it would be great for people who aren't confident enough or comfortable with self-reccing to have a space to kind of say 'look I wrote a thing' without the, idk, pressure? of saying they're reccing it. I've seen this work really well on other discords (a small one I was in even had a bot in a channel that automatically linked to anything new anyone in the discord posted). But obviously the drarry discord chose to go the other way, so 😂
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Date: 2020-05-02 11:59 am (UTC)I would have wanted to hear an opinion like this one some weeks ago... I actually agree with you, I don’t like when it becomes *only* self-reccing.
I tend to do like you, if someone asks for a fic with a topic I have written for I will likely rec my fics but along with other people’s works!!
I totally hadn’t thought about how biased it is to self-rec in a channel for recs, like mag said. And it’s interesting to think about. Thank you for sharing with me your thoughts, I found them enlightening!
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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!!
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Date: 2020-05-02 12:46 pm (UTC)I will now be waaay more careful and think about this obsessively 😂💗
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Date: 2020-05-02 01:03 pm (UTC)And obviously a lot of fandom thinks differently to the people on dreamwidth - something I've noticed on a whole bunch of different topics - so a lot of people (the majority? idk) out there will think a lot of self-promo is totally fine. It's just a shame that in a lot of fandom spaces we can't have conversations about these kind of things because people get offended or don't allow for disagreement and sensible discussion of different points of view, so it's hard to know what everyone in fandom really thinks - you just end up knowing what the loudest voices think.
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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.
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Date: 2020-05-02 06:18 pm (UTC)i self-rec mostly the podfics i do, because i work really, really hard on them and try to make them as good as i can
as for the writing, there are two different ways for me to write:
i write to make someone happy: those are my gift-fics for various reasons, and they are fluffy/porny, rather light reading i dare say
or
i write to see when a character breaks - this is were i do all the angst stuff, i string them alone with a bit of hope, but even for the reader there is a moment, when there is no turning back, when something has to give,
as for validation - i would like to see more concrit: things like: i thing this is not flowing right; have you considered this option; for me it was off here because..." well simple concrit
BUT
i am totally fine with others doing self-recs, and i made it a rule to comment on everything that i finished to the end
... not sure my comment fits to your question though, sorry?
no subject
Date: 2020-05-03 12:35 am (UTC)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!
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Date: 2020-05-11 08:20 pm (UTC)Also, I like concrit too but only from my betas so that I can become better at writing. From readers I'd prefer not to.
But it's interesting to see others' people experiences of fandom :) thanks for sharing yours!
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Date: 2020-05-11 08:21 pm (UTC)