Why Creative Success Destroys People

[gunhilltrain]

I just saw this, so I have to think more about it. One thought: here, we are paid nothing and only have to deal with a few thousand viewers at a time. Most of us are using pen names, not our own. But maybe that's not so bad. We can afford to mess up sometimes, and still come back again. If somebody likes what we're doing, they owe us nothing and don't even really know us - so it's probably genuine? We have a certain amount of freedom that way, perhaps.

 

[Britva415]

A lot of us like repeating that "audience comes last" bit around here.

And, while in the video the message is "that's bullshit," here it does make sense because none of us are commercializing what we're putting on Lit. There are other measures of success here, and so for some of us, that is bullshit, but for a lot of us, it's totally not.

 

[Bamagan]

There was a Peanuts special called Snoopy Come Home, more than 50 years ago now. At the end, Snoopy hands out letters to Charlie Brown and the others, demanding that they return items that he'd given them when he expected to be moving away permanently. His letter to Charlie basically said, since he hadn't given him anything, nothing was owed.
That basically sums up my feelings on the audience here and on similar sites. Nothing exchanged. That's less true for some authors, obviously, who enjoy and encourage engagement with their readers. To each their own.

 

[iwatchus]

That basically sums up my feelings on the audience here and on similar sites. Nothing exchanged.

I understand your point, but they gave us their time. And by publishing our stories, we are asking for that time. And time is absolutely the most precious resource any f us has.

Part of me thinks that the site owes them an easier way to find stories they will like. As a longtime reader here, that was my biggest complaint.

 

[NotWise]

I was taken by his closing comment that it's community rather than commercial success that makes creative efforts worthwhile.

You might complain about Literotica in a lot of different ways, but the site seems pretty committed to helping us build community. That is mostly in the form of a community of readers who appreciate our work. AH is obviously a tool for building a community of other authors. AH has worked for some of us, and it has failed for others. Mostly I feel like it could be better, I just don't know how to make it so.

 

[Bamagan]

I understand your point, but they gave us their time. And by publishing our stories, we are asking for that time. And time is absolutely the most precious resource any f us has.

Part of me thinks that the site owes them an easier way to find stories they will like. As a longtime reader here, that was my biggest complaint.

Gotta say I disagree. They're not giving us their time when they read our stories. They may be choosing to spend their time on the thing we spent (even more) time making, and perhaps that's complimentary, but that's not really a transaction or even a gift. We don't get their time, or ours back. Yes, perhaps it makes the time spent feel more worthwhile if you know people appreciate what you did with it. But for me, I spent the time doing something I enjoyed, and if someone else enjoys it too, that's a bonus for both of us.