Reply To: Ratings/Likes

[klaatu48]

I’m sorry to hear about the mean comments — I can understand why that might shake you a bit.

For here, I can also understand why the experience of shouting into a metaphorical cavern and not getting a reply would also be disheartening, but there’s always a chance someone with similar experiences will find your stuff down the line and feel better about themselves because of it. I’ve had a few instances where people contacted me long after I wrote something and mentioned their ‘favorite’ story being one I thought nobody cared about.

It’s a personal call, of course, but I hope you at least felt welcome here (despite the lack of response). Especially because of the amount of quickie and Ai stories, it’s nice to have contributors who take time with their work. (And this isn’t limited to this site — Instagram is full of artists who have lamented how a 5-minute doodles of theirs has gotten thousands of likes, while their personal favorite piece has only gotten, like, five.)

My own creativity lives and breathes based on crowd response and comments, so I feel where you’re coming from. Just know that whether you have an audience of 5 or 5 million, your work is worthwhile.