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cimoreneIt's a funny experience to interrogate something about your personality or temperament as the direct result of a viral "relatable" post.
What (very often) happens to me is that a post in the "Relatable Sentiment" genre comes around like, say, "Kudos just aren't as good as comments but I'm still grateful for them because they're better than nothing," and then there will either a ton of emphatic agreement or worse, a string of eloquent and elaborate agreements.
Usually it's as I read through the agreements that I'll eventually start to wonder about what causes my preference and how rare it actually is (because I'm sure that Relatable posts by no means are composed only of near-universal experiences; by the nature of social networks, people who don't relate are far more likely to ignore them than to engage with them to disagree, not least because contradiction is always prone to being read as unwontedly argumentative or even angry and aggressive in text-only interaction).
(There are also lots of "Unpopular Opinion Time"-genre posts that contain what will strike many, or at least plenty, of people as an opinion that isn't at all controversial or unpopular, so the OPs in that case are likely influenced by memorable examples of the opposite opinion that they've experienced as more universal or popular than it is.)
Especially because positivity is so much more socially acceptable to express publicly, and because in many cases someone being a little more positive than they actually feel is a calculated choice that could be regarded as social engineering (philosophies like 'you catch more flies with honey') - and combined with the fact that one thing I can always be sure of is that I'm significantly less positive (critical, pessimistic, etc, but I certainly got chastised not to be so "negative" all the way back to early childhood) than most other people - it's difficult to guess just how genuine the positivity level is, or how dominant a positive opinion really is, and how much is due to exaggeration (and other people with more critical thoughts refraining from engaging).
What (very often) happens to me is that a post in the "Relatable Sentiment" genre comes around like, say, "Kudos just aren't as good as comments but I'm still grateful for them because they're better than nothing," and then there will either a ton of emphatic agreement or worse, a string of eloquent and elaborate agreements.
Usually it's as I read through the agreements that I'll eventually start to wonder about what causes my preference and how rare it actually is (because I'm sure that Relatable posts by no means are composed only of near-universal experiences; by the nature of social networks, people who don't relate are far more likely to ignore them than to engage with them to disagree, not least because contradiction is always prone to being read as unwontedly argumentative or even angry and aggressive in text-only interaction).
(There are also lots of "Unpopular Opinion Time"-genre posts that contain what will strike many, or at least plenty, of people as an opinion that isn't at all controversial or unpopular, so the OPs in that case are likely influenced by memorable examples of the opposite opinion that they've experienced as more universal or popular than it is.)
Especially because positivity is so much more socially acceptable to express publicly, and because in many cases someone being a little more positive than they actually feel is a calculated choice that could be regarded as social engineering (philosophies like 'you catch more flies with honey') - and combined with the fact that one thing I can always be sure of is that I'm significantly less positive (critical, pessimistic, etc, but I certainly got chastised not to be so "negative" all the way back to early childhood) than most other people - it's difficult to guess just how genuine the positivity level is, or how dominant a positive opinion really is, and how much is due to exaggeration (and other people with more critical thoughts refraining from engaging).
(no subject)
Date: 23 Jun 2019 01:22 pm (UTC)I'm gonna chime in and say that this is highly cultural and context-dependent. The only space where I can definitely say this is true is Anglophone internet that is heavily informed by United States American attitudes and rhetoric, and where negativity is often relegated to anonymous spaces -- I've actually talked a lot about this with some of my friends who are more like you -- observant, critical, cautious -- and how the optimism that is forced on them is exhausting and makes it harder for them to process their emotions.
But as for myself, I've spent my whole life trying to get out of spaces that use "recreational negativity" as a bonding method because being immersed in negative attitudes, by virtue of having a brain with broken interest-regulation, I will get stuck with negative intrusive thoughts from the backround negativity radiation. Finnish culture does not take kindly to people being happy about things, if you're not able to say anything negative or at least critical about your circumstances, you're seen as either a liar or delusional.
(no subject)
Date: 23 Jun 2019 06:10 pm (UTC)But I wasn't really thinking about physical interactions at all, just the internet, and primarily the western media-fandom portion of it that is my native internet biome. The levels of positivity current in some extremely public spaces in online media fandom are so... one might say 'toxically positive' that they require customer service -style emotional labor just to participate from everybody doing them (needless to say, none of whom are typically getting paid).
This is a big problem in female-oriented spaces in much of the US IMO and similarly, in areas with this culture, just leads what I as a child (moved to the South at age 7) always referred to as "fake nice", a performance of positivity and friendliness that both the performer and the beneficiary are mutually aware is not true, and it's always creeped me out (since I encountered it after moving there that is; presumably if I'd been raised there from infancy I might be comfortable with it, though my parents' conflicting culture would probably still have an effect to the contrary). Talking about the phenomenon of gossip and talking behind people's backs is one of the most common things to do in these sorts of (physical) social spaces largely because the culture makes talking behind people's backs literally unavoidable, but everyone always feels a bit bad about it to degrees at the same time.
(no subject)
Date: 24 Jun 2019 03:04 am (UTC)I still kind of feel like "the internet is for complaining" is more true than not, but that's prolly b/c I don't use services that don't allow for anonymity and fully autonomous interactions within the platform, so I get to see people let out the negativity they hide otherwise without social repercussions.
(no subject)
Date: 23 Jun 2019 06:54 pm (UTC)but
look if the only way to express appreciation for a fanwork was to leave a comment, probably everyone would get more comments than we do now, but no one would get nearly as many more comments as we currently get kudos
that's the point of this one-click appreciation delivery system
to make it easier to express our appreciation, so that more people do
is a single kudos as good as a single comment? no, not usually. depends on the comment. the more thought it's clear the commenter put in, the better the comment gets with respect to the kudos. but the more thought the commenter needs to put in to make the comment, the less likely it is they'll make the comment at all. one click is a lot easier than choosing one emoji, never mind a favorite line or an exploration of the thematic contrast of two bits or—
which is better, a single thoughtful comment, or x kudos for whatever value of x > 1? who the hell even knows?
(no subject)
Date: 23 Jun 2019 09:14 pm (UTC)I seem to be in somewhat of a minority in that I don't really see any difference between a kudos and a comment that essentially means "kudos" - stuff like "I liked/loved this", "Thanks for posting/sharing", "Wow this was great/fun"... if it doesn't have any message or informational content that's specific to the situation in question, it isn't a bigger compliment than a kudos (just a bit of performative unnecessary labor on the commenter's part). I wouldn't rather get a comment like that than a kudos, because I usually suspect the commenter would have left a kudos if they hadn't been guilted by anti-kudos propaganda into believing they're the consolation prize of feedback.
(no subject)
Date: 23 Jun 2019 09:24 pm (UTC)this is invariably on multi-chapter fics I kudosed before the latest chapter, or on rereads that guess what.
(except for the single-emoji comments, which I sometimes post two seconds after kudosing, because the simple button click isn't quite communicative enough.)
(no subject)
Date: 23 Jun 2019 09:58 pm (UTC)An emoji is usually fun, since those convey a bit extra and often make me laugh.
(no subject)
Date: 23 Jun 2019 10:09 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 24 Jun 2019 12:39 pm (UTC)Although the very best feedback is honestly recs - it's like overhead praise because it's not directed at you, it's one reader talking to another reader about your story. That's the high grade hit right there.
(no subject)
Date: 25 Jun 2019 07:07 am (UTC)Sometimes a comment leads to a conversation, of course, and those are often the most exciting because you can make new friends and acquaintances, but it's not really the feedback itself that has added the in benefit in that case.