The positive effects of popular fan art

[snowgall]

As I'm sure is obvious, I'm totally in love with Alekina's recent Drarry art. But I think is important to point out that popular art (and fic) is good for the fandom. In this case, I even have the evidence to prove it.

My LJ blog is relatively new, and in general doesn't get a whole lot of traffic. According to Google analytics, most days I'm lucky to get more than 15 pageviews. (When I post my "Best of the Year" lists, the traffic bumps up maybe as high as 120 pageviews for a day, but that's about it.) But when I recently posted a list of "Dark Mark Removal fics" to appease the demand that came from the art, Alekina reblogged the link to tumblr. And Holy Cow. I got nearly 400 pageviews on that post in a day and a half. And it's still by far the most popular thing I ever posted.

And the point is, I recced four fics in that post, and I'm pretty sure they all benefited from it.

Only one of the four fics I recced is on AO3 (Becoming Us), so that's the only one I can easily track. It had been posted to AO3 for about 4 months (129 days) before my rec went up. In that time it had earned 87 kudos, which is an average of 0.67 kudos a day. My rec (and Alekina's tumblr boost) went up Feb 16. In the 11 days since then "Becoming Us" has earned an additional 20 kudos, for an average of 1.8 kudos per day. Basically its kudo rate tripled.

Now, maybe it would have earned those kudos anyway--it's a good story after all--but I think the timing makes it pretty clear that the boost from Alekina had something to do with it. And I like to think that the three other fics I recced also got more love and readership as well.

So maybe that's just an effect on a handful of fics, but I don't think it's limited to that. Alekina has posted to their personal blog many examples of fans writing to say that that artwork caused them to search for more Drarry fics, or get back into the fandom, or create newly inspired Drarry art, and even people who don't normally ship Drarry are into it.

So when a piece of art gets super popular it's good for everyone in the fandom. It creates new fans, jumpstarts interest in overlooked fics, inspires authors to write, and inspires artists to draw. I don't think that celebrating that means we're putting other artists down. I think it means that we're excited about our invigorated fandom and are eager for artists and writers to keep creating new works.

Comments

[birdsofshore]

Lovely (and fascinating) post!

[snowgall]

Thank you :) I know that when I saw the hits I was getting on that Dark Mark recs post I was completely stunned!

[vaysh]

I am all over this post because you know: STATS!!! Thank you for putting it together, and also thank you for the recs. :)

To add another statistic: hd_remix has gained about 20 new members since we announced the 'That Picture' Flash Fest on LJ and on tumblr. It has always been a small comm, and I am just thrilled that more people get to read the H/D Remix fest.

[snowgall]

That's awesome about more members for hd-remix. I have a feeling that we could easily come up with a lot more examples of positive fandom effects--different people have probably noticed different things.

I'm super excited that remix has started posting. I think it has the same sort of boosting effect. I know I frequently go and read the original stories that are being remixed before I read the remix version, and I've discovered a lot of really great fics I hadn't seen before that way.

And I think remix is the perfect host for the flash fest too. Thank you so much for putting it together so quickly.

[this-bloody-cat.livejournal.com]

Gosh, stats! :D I love stats (and this was a very interesting post!)

[snowgall]

Thanks! And it's funny, because I didn't really think this was a very stats-heavy post :) I really wish I could have had data from some of the other fics as well, but one was posted to ff.net and the other two to fests and they don't have a kudos system like AO3. I could look at comments gained (if any), but in general I think people leave comments much more rarely, especially on older fics. Even "Becoming Us" only gained one comment in the relevant time frame, so you can't really tell as much from that.

[this-bloody-cat.livejournal.com]

I know! I wish all other sites had a system like Ao3, where you could easily check on your work's stats -- OTOH, I might waste too much time just staring at numbers if they did, so perhaps it's best they don't. Anyway! Yes, sadly comments are not as representative -- I have this idea (and zero evidence to support it, but when has that ever stopped me before?) that people won't comment on the stories they liked but 'shouldn't have' (for whatever reason), or on the stories that don't really fit the image they want to project of themselves, but they'll leave kudos anyway.

[snowgall]

Oh yeah, I totally believe this. And I admit I've been guilty of this myself on occasion. Where I enjoyed a fic that I kinda felt wrong for enjoying (and I'm usually pretty broad-minded about such things, but still) I will hesitate to leave a comment. One time I even logged out of AO3 so I could leave an anonymous kudos rather than attach my name to it.

I feel really bad about that now. I don't do this anymore...except I do it sometimes if I want to leave 'double' kudos: one anon and one with my name. Which is probably against the rules :) But I only do this when I think a fic isn't getting the love it deserves.

So now I've just admitted to bad behavior. I was just trying to say I agreed with you, not out myself as a deviant :)

[this-bloody-cat.livejournal.com]

Hahaha! Oh dear <3 I've done the double-kudos thing as well, but no one needs to know ;)

[capitu]

I love stats! I wish I was better at them. lol

[snowgall]

I'm so happy that so many people are telling me they love stats! I might have thought that people would run screaming from them :)

But really, I'm not so great at hard-core stats myself. I just do simple things like counts and averages and percentages and such. But it's enough to make a point like the one I was trying to make. I wouldn't want to scare people off with complex stats even if I knew what I was doing :)