I’ve made a lot of posts that have taken a considerable amount of my time to make, mostly video edits. I don’t think any of them (over 100 across 2 accounts) have ever gotten above ~50 upvotes. About a year ago, I made a post of a meme with the guy getting kicked out of the office saying “High effort and quality gifs”. It got over 500 upvotes. That made it seem like people actually want that. In response, I’ve spent many hours doing video edits, even creating !high_quality_gifs@lemmy.sdf.org (since the LW community is parked and never will receive posts), and making content for that community until I started to get burned out on my hobby. A large percentage of what I have posted has been OC on principle. I’ve learned that people just don’t care.
Why in the world should I keep making video edits when the entirety of the fun has been sapped out by people not caring? I could spend 8-10 hours on a project and people simply won’t care because it isn’t instantly digestible. Things like memes and 40-100 year old comic strips do incredibly well. It seems like the only 2 examples of high effort that get some engagement are SDF’s own !unix_surrealism@lemmy.sdf.org , and !custardfist@feddit.nl. Notable mention to some of the pics communities.
I guess what I’m really ranting about here is not that the things I make aren’t appreciated (because the very few comments are generally positive), but the fact that most people don’t even want it around or care.
I’m not sure I can keep up the grind anymore. The joy has been sapped out of my hobby. And for what? An instantaneous downvote with every post.
it’s not the hobby you enjoyed, it was the fake validation from internet randos
if your joy in life is dependent on social media likes, then you’re in for a bad time
Seeking recognition is very human thing to do, it’s part of what make us human a social animal. Most people can’t live in a vacuum and be okay. Besides, showing people what they made and what they create is a good way to gauge one ability and see what works and what not. Of course there’s some hobby that can be enjoyed alone without sharing, but for creative stuff? Not really.
another thing that makes us human is that yes, we absolutely do have some degree of control over what stresses us out. one of those things being what the world thinks about us, or whether they even care (spoiler alert: most don’t, especially on social media). i’m not telling anyone what to do or how to be. only what anyone can do
Nah, I legit enjoy it as a hobby. I did let things get to me trying to make stuff people would enjoy, there’s no question about that. Spend hours on something, enjoy making it, only for people to not care about the end result is disheartening. Imagine having fun making a painting for a year with the goal of making people happy only for no one to look at it.
it is possible to enjoy doing a thing and have that be enough, without being discouraged because “not enough other people care about it.” i know because i used to get stressed about the same shit. coming to terms with the fact that 99.9999% of people on the planet just don’t care about you or anything you do might be tough, but once you get to “well i don’t really care about 99.9999% of people on the planet either” it gets easier
Sorry but some hobbies aren’t about validation, they are still social hobbies that require feedback.
If someone’s hobby is being a standup comedian and they go to 10 shows and there are 10 people at each show and 1 person laughs, then that person is probably going to want to quit stand up comedy.
It may be that the person is just not a good comedian, but it doesn’t mean that their hobby wasn’t stand up comedy and making people laugh.
If you take the analogy further and say that at their shows, they do long form, story comedy and then they get that lack of response and yet another person comes in, tells a recycled “your mother” joke and a “that’s what she said” joke and suddenly every seat is filled and everyone is roaring, you could see how that could make someone cynical? It’s not that they don’t actually like comedy.
ok. i personally know more than one person who thinks they’re hilarious and don’t care that no one else thinks so. they’re enjoying themselves and that’s enough for them.
and before you start talking about money (“need” feedback) , if you’re doing something in order to get paid, now you’re moving from “hobby” to “job” territory, which is a completely different thing. my point stands
There’s a big difference between someone who is/thinks they’re funny, and someone who does comedy as a hobby.
true, comedy inherently requires an audience, but you’re trying to move away from the core point of trying to get people to care about you on social media. people in a comedy bar are there specifically to watch comedy. not everyone who’s online is here specifically to watch hand crafted videos, and lamenting over the fact that you’re not getting engagement/upvotes (especially on lemmy) is just stressing yourself out for no good reason
Am I the only person that thinks 50 upvotes on here is a decent amount? This place is a LOT smaller than the other place. I just feel like it’s quality over quantity on Lemmy.
No, that is really valid. It just kinda sucks to see something you spent hours on get that, when a 15 year old meme can pull 700.
I’m not one to really give advice on anything but the way Im thinking is to just do it for yourself. Don’t worry about upvotes and likes and shit. Give yourself an upvote and be happy about it my dude.
To be fair, the 700 upvote meme would’ve probably been 700 3.5 star ratings if that was an option
I decided to check out your posts on high quality gifs and they all seem to have the same problem. They are very difficult to follow. There are a number of reasons for this but more often than not, it is a combination of some or all of the problems.
- The font is way too small for mobile users
- Too verbose. No way I can read all that before transition.
- Transitions are too quick.
- Lack of font outline makes it hard to read at times.
I am not providing an opinion on the quality of the posts, only on their accessibility.
EDIT: Also, I had no idea the community existed. You might want to cross post some of your creations on the star trek meme communities to help others find you.
Thanks for this. The posts have been mostly me trying with no prior experience. I will certainly adjust things with this feedback. I haven’t posted there in some time, and I think I have gotten better overall, but you make a very valid criticism about accessibility.
For me, its because I don’t want to follow a link to watch a video, especially if I can’t even see a thumbnail of it. If it’s hosted locally and I can just watch it in my app, I will. I also can’t know if I need to get headphones or if I can watch without sound, so I don’t want to waste my time finding out. Videos are just a hassle imo
TL:DR
Also, you’re like a salesman blaming people for not buying what you’re selling.
The people have voted, they’re not interested in what you’re selling.
People aren’t required to buy what you’re selling. If you want them to buy, sell what they’re interested in.
Were the communities you posted into subscribed from some of the larger instances? I had the same experience with some of my memes comms until I advertised in there so some people would subscribe to it. If nobody from an instance is subscribed to it, no posts will appear in the
alltab.Make sure you post about your new comms in places like !newcommunities@lemmy.world or !fedigrow@lemm.ee
That might be the case with !high_quality_gifs@lemmy.sdf.org.
I did eventually (recently) post to the comms you mentioned. It did help, because someone other than me finally posted there and it was really refreshing.
Ye, if you hadn’t posted there early on, it would be the primary reason you weren’t seen. I got 20x engagement after I did with my comms
If you’re doing it [anything] for an audience more than you’re doing it for yourself, you’ll always be disappointed.
I’ve seen some of your posts, but not the videos. I’m sorry.
The reasons I haven’t looked at the videos have nothing to do with them. I’m just the kinda person who prefers text content on here.
In the end tho, you should make content because you enjoy it. Who cares what others think.
I hear you. I tried to get the ancient coins sub off the ground for months by posting elaborate pieces and links to relevant articles etc…
No engagement whatsoever. I could’ve “posted” this to a local file on my pc instead of Lemmy and it wouldn’t have made any difference.
Still not going back to Reddit though.
Maybe with that community, you could crosspost to !historyartifacts@lemmy.world and get some traction. I think there is overlap there.
But yeah. People are really quick to say “be the change you wish to see” without ever had the perspective of putting in the work.
I’m planning to make a “comeback” of sorts once I have better pictures to post. Until now it’s been cell phone pics, the next batch will be high res macro images with a sigma lens.
TLDR?
OP is conflating effort and quality. Seems they think just because they put effort into something it should be accepted as good quality, so they deserve worthless upvotes.
They aren’t getting that so it’s everybody else’s fault.
My few cents: keep doing what you like, for you first. Lemmy instances doesn’t get reddit like massive visits nor search engine ranking, just like peertube (SDF’s toobnix) vs youtube. Same problem as ever: federated free and open vs concentrated and locked with corporate sponsor.
Everyone’s different, but I come here for a quick casual reprieve from my day to day. Sometimes a more involved post or conversation will capture me, but the stars have to align. Right mood, right amount of free time (or lack of awareness of unfree time), right subject matter, presentation, etc.
I like the idea of engaging in a sophisticated way, but social media taking a back seat is how I need my life to be, usually.
That said, if you’re creating content, do it for the love of the game. You’re making a contribution to a movement separately from social media itself.
Start posting your content to a NOSTR client and if it’s good content then people will actually send you small amounts of bitcoin called sats. I use Primal as a client it is super fast onboarding. Move to the V4V (value for value) clients and turn those hard worked edita into some coin.
