The secret life of the Internets

[owlmoose]

Tumblr is very often proving the be the source of all truth. Here's the one that came across my dash today:



Original post here, by miaman

How many times have I been on both sides of this screen? Only almost every day since I joined my first online community. I do try to comment and to put myself out there, so the second frame speaks to me a little bit more, but really only a little. There are definitely days where I'm too intimidated to comment, too convinced that no one really cares what I have to say, even though I know, know that it isn't really true. (probably)

Yesterday night, I was going through the Jay Smooth back catalog again, as you do, and one of the videos I watched was The Little Hater, his video about creativity and how we stifle it in ourselves, the little voice in all our heads that tells us that we aren't good enough, so why bother? One of the things that helps him, and helps all of us, beat the Little Hater is building connections. Which is what fandom and online community should all be about, right?

Just thoughts; I've talked about this many times and rarely come to any conclusions. But it's a conversation I'd like to keep having.

Comments

[haruka]

Thanks for the link, I'd never seen that video before, and he pretty much described what's been happening with my writing.

[owlmoose]

You're welcome! Jay Smooth is pretty much my hero. He gets a lot of things really right, and this is one of them.

[(Anonymous)]

I think what happens is akin to the bystander effect ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bystander_effect ). The general advice for that situation is to identify and select specific people to ask for help. Different situation, of course, especially since most fanfic writers have beta readers who they have specifically asked, but I do think it helps to explain that sense of making a speech to a big, echo-y cavern.

[penrynsdreams.livejournal.com]

Erm, that was me.

[owlmoose]

Interesting comparison, and I agree, that's definitely at least a piece of the solution.

I actually don't have a Dragon Age beta yet, and many of my old FF betas aren't around as much as they used to be. Probably I should work on that.

[regann]

Thank you for the Jay Smooth video. I've never seen that one and it's so apt at the moment. This month I have suffered from such debilitating anxiety related tob my fic that I've come close to deleting everything. Sometimes it feels like I'm pouring my heart and time into these stories and no one cares. I've actually been in tears about it most of the night. I just wish I knew what to do to shut up my "little hater" up.

[owlmoose]

*hugs* I'm sorry it's been so rough. Getting into a new fandom is hard. I'm struggling with that myself a bit right now, no longer having the community that I'm used to (I have a couple of cross-over people, but not many), and feeling impatient sometimes with how slow it's been to build new connections. Then I remind myself that it took many months and a collaboration before I really started meeting people in Final Fantasy, and it helps -- doesn't shut the Little Hater up entirely, but at least I get a break from her for awhile.

I hope you find something that works for you.