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
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
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