"Thank You"?

[gnatkip]

I have a question. You post a fic / art / vid / other fan work, and in response, you receive a positive comment that includes the word "Thanks." Or "Thanks for sharing." I'm not talking about the recipients of gifts thanking you for crafting something expressly for them; I'm just talking about comments from people in general

Comments

[tripperfunster]

Thanks for posting this! *snerk*

Actually, when I really, really like something, I will often thank the artist/author for posting/sharing their stuff. If I reeeaaallly like their stuff, I may even thank them for just existing. :D

[nixwilliams]

*facepalm* that'll teach me for sitting on the comment for so long. my HILARIOUS JOKE has already been made.

GEE, THANKS.

[gnatkip]

It was a hilarious joke!

A++, would LOL again.

[gnatkip]

Hee! XD

Yes, that's me as well!

[nixwilliams]

thanks for this post.

XD

just briefly, i find it amusing that you pointed us to swtalmnd's post, when the first fandom secret today is anti everything there! i will read it more thoroughly and report back to you when i have the time.

i have no objections "thanks" in comments, so long as that's not the only word in the comment. i'd like to know WHY "thanks", too - because there's not a lot of that pairing? because they like my other writing? because it cheered them up?

[gnatkip]

Aw man, fandomsecrets. I went there after the Sad Famous Jensen secret, and I could not believe how fast it was able to suck MY VERY SOUL out through my eyeballs. Faster than f_w, even.

Ah, that is a very good point! I usually say something more descriptive first, like, I don't know, "Hilarious, thanks for sharing!" or "omfg hot, thanks for sharing", but I do remember leaving one recently that just said, "Great post, thanks for sharing" and maybe that left things kind of more ambiguous than was polite. :\ Oops.

THANX FER COMMENTING

[cathexys]

I stumbled upon the very same thing (and the prescriptive tone of the post!). I'm annoyed at the entire gift metaphor debates in fandom, but I still say thanks for sharing and don't find anything wrong with it...

[gnatkip]

I'm glad to hear that at least among my flist, I'm not alone in liking to say and hear thanks. I was starting to feel pretty sensitive about it, hoping I wasn't going around unwittingly weirding people out with it.

I almost said something about gift economy in the post, but yeah, I didn't really know where I was going with it. Something about how even if fandom should agree that there's something gift-ish in there somewhere, we seem to have trouble agreeing just what the gift IS.

[cathexys]

Well, when challenged, she kept on saying it made *her* uncomfortable because it took her line for responding to comment. That neither struck me as a good enough reason nor universal...

see prescriptive tone issues :)

[gnatkip]

"even if fandom should agree"

Er, by that I absolutely did not mean should as in "ought to agree", but as in "happens to agree".

[ratcreature]

What a weird take wrt tho the "thanks". I never felt awkward with that phrasing either way whether saying or responding (or rather, as you say, not more awkward thant usual). And I have never heard that complaint before, and I've seen some strange opinions (like people being annoyed with all positive fb... which really, wtf?) I mean, to have to reply to/thank for a thanks is really common, how is that awkward? I mean, there's set phrases even, like "you're welcome" for this very situation

[giandujakiss]

Yes, yes! The people who set weird parameters on fb are just ... bizarre and frankly I don't want their meticulous lists of preferences to inhibit people from feedbacking me! I'm much less picky!

[ratcreature]

Exactly. I've seen people post about how they felt unsure about responding or not "qualified" (that especially when it comes to art and vids), and so on, and I can't help but feel that this fear of doing fb "wrong" somehow is the fault of these feedback divas with really, really specific ideas about how they'd like their fb, when I'm not one of the people who only want the fb equivalent of the "decaf pumkin-spice soy milk latte without froth but with extra cinnamon sprinkles".

[gnatkip]

"I mean, there's set phrases even, like "you're welcome" for this very situation." Hahaha! Indeed.

I personally didn't find this particular post to be suppressive in that way, but yes, like you and giandujakiss said, I would really really prefer that other people's complaints about the quality of the comments they get did not have a negative impact on the comments I get. I like it when people talk to me me me.

[giandujakiss]

I never had a problem with getting "thanks" - and I say "thanks" in my comments all the time. It ... never occurred to me that it was problematic.

[gnatkip]

It never occurred to me either, and I've never noticed how often other people say it; I only know I say it a lot. I was afraid I was going to get paranoid about it, though, hence this post. So far none of the other commenters have had a problem with it either, so, whew.