Dealing with equating views, likes, and subs to you’re self worth

I think the real reason why chasing numbers encourages us to be 'basic' is because 'basic' content - something that's aimed to get a quick laugh - is quicker and easier to produce. It's not because people can't appreciate deeper content with more thought put behind it.

I've often heard people say the thing they did for a quick laugh gets more traction than the thing they spent weeks and months on, pouring all their blood, sweat and tears into, but honestly, I think it's just the law of large numbers at work here. If we look at our lifetime output of content, most of it's going to be quick, basic stuff (especially if we've been chasing numbers), so of course the thing that gets traction is one of those 100 quick things you whipped up rather than that 1 thing you dedicated the entire past month to. So 'basic' content is also not very likely to be recognised; 1/100 isn't great odds

So why am I going on about this? I find what helps me to fight the urge to chase numbers is to think about my future prospects. I want to create something big one day, something with a lot of thought put into it and something that needs to be consumed as a whole to be fully appreciated. But if I kept spent all my time and energy on little things to get my daily fix of quick likes, I'm not going to have any left over to work on that big thing that I've always dreamt of finishing. Which leads me to value my progress meter on my big project rather than my follower count. It doesn't completely eliminate that craving for immediate engagement ofc, but I find it helps :]

Yeah, I agree. Working on projects you're more passionate about is def better than chasing popularity with small projects you don't care about.

My advice would be to just focus on the people who like your project. Or just focus on how much YOU like it. Besides if you get more views it doesn't guarantee that those people are invested. More subs is good but it doesn't show the quality of your work just because its popular.

I agree with you. I get too fixated on numbers, views, likes, and subs. It made us feel we were not good enough or our work was not interesting enough.
I used to see my worth in numbers, but I learned not to feel that way but have fun with my work as a half hobby and half work.

I normally tend to think likes and the like are unimportant (I appreciate all of them but not in the sense of mattering so much), since comments are the ones with soul XD So sub wise, I don't care about the number if I can get a few people to comment on my work relatively often. I wrote this story once that had this one commenter that used to write me long texts as comments on the chapters and their comments always made my day! Subs are good but they don't do much for me, since they're basically just reading and running xD and that's fine, I do it too sometimes, but what I'm trying to say is that comments feel more personal and have more value to me. (Comments with actual thought or just expressing something, not the 'next pls' kind of comment xD)

I think I only "care" about likes on instagram for my pics cause it means people are seeing them (?) and I've accepted instagram is that place you can't expect many comments, hm, but a recommendation I could give is to always love your work and people will come to you eventually!

Make an effort to upload stuff when you have the time and continue creating, there's no point on focusing on numbers, they are impersonal and are just... there (?) I actually don't really understand the fixation since I don't feel it but I think it's important for a person to rationalize that those numbers are people that just past by, so... One caring about these things is like walking down the street and seeing how many people wave at you (?)

It feels nice to be greeted, but it'll never be as satisfying as actually them approaching you and actually talking to you (comments), so I always appreciate people taking their time to give a comment

Fixation on numbers come from comparing yourself to others or even envy, so a good suggestion would be to sit down and reflect on 'why' do you care about the numbers and 'why' do you feel bad when you don't get enough and 'what is enough'. Wanting likes and views doesn't have an 'enough', if people let themselves fall into that trap, they will never be satisfied with themselves, it's actually really sad if you think about it.

In my case, the best way to go about this is to just see the numbers for what they are... Numbers. Whereas I humanize 'comments'. For me, the interaction with one person can surpass views any day, views and likes do nothing, but comments bring you closer to your audience so yeah, I really do treasure them!

Ah, though, it's not good to obsess over comments either, that is also a trap that can make you feel insufficient for not getting many comments either... So, the best thing to do is to work with the only objective being sharing your work and accepting whatever you receive and be thankful for it ^-^

Every like and view should be thanked in a down to earth manner, be grateful those people looked at your work and faved/liked, commented or subscribed, being thankful will in the long run make one appreciative for anything they get and will erase any insecurities cause you're appreciating everything while you keep working on your content ^-^

Hope this helped someone here somehow ;D

It´s really hard to give advice about it because it´s a personal choice how to deal with feedback
in genreal, real life / internet whatever.
I don´t read comments, I don´t read reviews in magazines and I don´t look at likes or views
but that´s a personal decision and I think it makes my life easier.
I play in bands and sometimes my bandmates talk about some nasty comments on
advertisement or youtube. For me it´s kind of amusing because I didn´t read it directly
and it doesn´t touch me, it would maybe get to me more when I was younger or make
me angry, I don´t know. I think it´s better to focus on getting better at the thing you are
doing and avoid everything that will just cost you energy. Likes don´t give you anything
when you think about it, it just makes you addicted to more likes

A really good piece of advice I was given by a pretty successful Tapas novellist was:

"Focus on milestones you can control. Don't aim for a thousand subs, aim for a hundred episodes, or to complete five chapters."

And the funny thing was, shortly after creating a hundred episodes, I hit a thousand subs! Their advice was exactly what I needed at the time; to be patient and just keep going.

Here's my list of alternative achievements that you can use instead of subscriber count:

• Created a cover, banner and blurb
• Got a review from a more experienced creator and took the criticism politely and professionally.
• Created 10 pages or episodes (also celebrate 25, 50, 100 etc. 200 is about as much as a typical manga volume, so definitely celebrate that!)
• Completed a chapter or storyarc.
• Updated consistently for a month, 3 months, 6 months, a year etc.
• Promoted your work on the forums and discord
• Made promotional art or a promo banner
• Promoted your work on social media like Tiktok
• Made a "mutual" friend whose work you read and they read yours.

Definitely agree with all the advice above! I will share some things here, hope I won't come off as parroting the other answers–just a few things I've learned based on experience so far.

I guess it's inevitable for us to see a certain amount of self-worth in how people perceive our works–we toiled for it and it's natural to want appreciation in return. My take is, it's alright to be discouraged every now and then. Realizing we're too emotionally invested in the numbers is a good first step.

Whenever I fall into these thoughts, one thing that helped me pull through was to remember why I'm doing it in the first place. Sure, it gives me extra joy whenever someone picks up my work and enjoys it, but creating itself is what fundamentally makes me happy.

Like the advice above, aim for what you can reach; numbers don't always equate the quality of something; and remember to enjoy your own work: you create for yourself, too.

This is something I often struggle with, too. It's sometimes hard to keep working on something when you feel like nobody cares or that your work isn't worthy of being seen. I try to not let it get to me, but it's difficult, especially when it's hard to define what's "enough". At what point will I be happy with the numbers? The goal post always moves and it's easy to simply never feel good enough!
It's kind of comforting to know that a lot of other people struggle with this.

I deal with this a lot, especially when I look at webcomics with a similar plot, structure, and genre to mine. Something that always help is reminding myself that most people spend years and make multiple webcomics to get the following that they do. Often the immediate success we see are luck, or also results of a lot of experience that we don’t see.

I also try to ignore the statistic and just take a look at my comic itself and ask whether it’s where i want it to be. Compare it to other comics and see what they’re better than me at and try to emulate that. Watch videos about story writing and art and see if my webcomic is at the level I want it to be. As others have point out, stats isn’t always an indication of quality, just an indication of mainstream popularity. It’s ultimately more important that I’m setting the bar for myself.

Lastly, getting critiques and encouragements from other creators and regular readers, even if it’s biased, has been very encouraging.

The thing is, you want a popular comic on social media?

Literally the last two comic strips I remember seeing on my social media feed is Haus of Decline and The Red Dot. You guys familiar with any of those? Haus of Decline involves dicks and asses in pretty much every strip. The Red Dot has a talking butt plug. This is the kind of shit that gets likes and views on social media. Grotesque stuff, shock humor, "you can't do that on TV!" kind of stuff that appears on your phone.

Do you honestly, genuinely believe those likes and retweets would make you feel like you've earned more self-worth from this world?

I know people who make popular NSFW content and actually, yes, a lot of them do, in fact, feel happy with the attention their work gets.

They're making something designed to entertain and get attention and it's achieving that purpose. They're making something that they personally enjoy and finding others who enjoy it. I can't judge them really, because even if my own work tends towards more of a family friendly vibe, I have the same motivation and my work is just as self-indulgent as anyone else's. I'm not better than those people for the fact that my self indulgence in my work is making something really weeby with giant swords where the queer and autistic characters get to be badass anime characters with colourful hair instead of something sexy or bawdy.

Getting over feeling like I should be ashamed of the silly, sexy or sentimental elements in my work and just embracing it was actually a really big step for me that hugely increased the popularity of what I was making and how much I enjoyed making it, because all my past work felt kind of insincere and like it hated itself or was holding back really saying anything behind self-effacing humour or mockery of the tropes I actually really did want to play straight but felt too embarrassed and scared of ridicule. After coming out as gay in my late twenties, I realised that I was holding so much of myself back out of a feeling of shame, and I'm just like "screw it! I want to enjoy myself! Other people are enjoying themselves and expressing all their silly feelings or sexy fantasies, and I'm gonna stop just looking at them enviously and do it myself!"

So yeah, I do want to be a popular creator and I'm more than happy to make the weebiest, most colourful and gayest comic I want to make, since that seems to line up with my goal, and I don't care if people who aren't my audience think that's "cringe", 'cause I'm living my best life, and I think those people making comics about butt-plug jokes, while they're not for me, are probably having an absolute ball and love doing it. They're not ashamed of who they are, and that's a really powerful thing for a creator to be.

That's certainly implying I have a way more extreme opinion in contrast to yours. I'm a total advocate for you do everything and anything you want in your comics!

The biggest difference between what we're talking about is effort. I'm not saying drawing sexual stuff makes you a disgusting artist, I'm saying half-assed crudely drawn dick jokes are what works on social media, not the wildly and outrageous comic your pour your heart and soul into.

Look, I don't want to upset or cause any bad blood or anything on these forums. I'm just frustrated by social media lately. Like, these are still comics that I read, and I respect the creators, but it's basically the toxicity generated that social media keeps pushing to the top. It's the readers, it's what they WANT. Quality artists make degenerate content, and when they try to move past it and do something genuinely greater, it just doesn't work. It's how content kills art. Social media just attributes to the anxieties and shortcomings of us all I guess, and it just makes me angry sometimes.

Interesting...

So, if you don't mind my asking, is the reason you yourself make a gag comic with short strips and simple art because you believe if you tried to make a long form story comic it would not get attention, or because that's the kind of content you're passionate about creating?
I'm just intrigued because you seem to be angry about social media forcing creators to make simple art and gags, but on Tapas, it's pretty widely known that gag comics are actually generally less popular and successful than story-focused comics these days.

I suppose I never actually thought about the audience reception if I made a longform story comic. Which I've come up with ideas for, even drew up a prequel comic for it (And another page into the next chapter that I'm just working on whenever), just to see if I could do it. Even then, is it a good idea to come up with a massive storyline and all these chapters and just launch it onto tapas or webtoon and just kind of hope that it gains traction when you're a ground zero nobody? It seems like it would be better to build your viewership and portfolio beforehand. And, honestly, as far as gag comics on tapas go, my numbers aren't BAD, considering I'm a guy who literally started making comics 4 months ago. I think the format just looks good when I read them on my phone. At least, that's how I equate my self-worth.

Okay, so you feel that making simple gag comics is good for:

• Platform suitability
• Visibility for the creator (since it can be easily digested and shared even without context).
• Low risk of putting a lot in to not get much out.

These are all solid reasons for your choice, so that leads me to ask... What makes you feel that it's unseemly for more established or highly skilled artists to choose the same sort of style and format for the same reasons as you did? Do you believe it's beneath them to do simple art when they're capable of more? Or perhaps that it's unfair to artists who can't draw fancier or higher risk comics to have artists who could encroaching on their space? Or do you think somebody who is capable of fancier work would only draw something simple and frivolous under pressure?

I think artists are cool and algorithms are just really really stupid.

You shouldn't be concerned with how many subscribers you have. You should focus on how active your current subscribers are. Me and my friends have been on this platform for 5 years and only have over 280 subscribers. And at first I was very disheartened by how slow our channel was growing. But wasn't realizing how much my current subscribers appreciate our content. It’s like a YouTube channel. You shouldn't be making a youtube channel to make money, or become famous. You should make a channel about something you have real passion for. And when you do this, you will attract like minded people who share your passion.

I used to post episodes of our first full blown comics series and get upset when it barely got 30 views. But now I can't wait to post an episode of any series and see what the handful of people who interact with my content have to comment about (assuming there is something worth saying).

Final point: you want quality over quantity. Quantity will only happen if you focus solely on quality. Interact with your subscribers, Give them shout outs on your social media if they have it, let them know you appreciate them and who knows? They may put in a good word for you on on social media or any other platform they do have. Those are the the kinds of people you want at your corner, I don’t care if it’s 5 or 45 people, your loyal subs will eagerly await every upload you make.

Most people here are looking for the same thing and we’re all creatives. Stop beating yourselves up over your numbers. Instead be excited that you are building a community. 100 doesn't feel big if you compare it to 1,000,000. But 100 is amazing. That's 100 people who are excited and share your passion. And you brought them together and made that happen.

Keep making amazing content and good luck.

Yeah, this thread comes at the right time for me lol. I was kinda depressed today seeing my numbers on Tapas/webtoon and social media, because I'm not really good at promotion. Every time I always ask myself: "Am I just not good enough for this?".

In the end, though, I'm aware that the key to get "better" is putting effort and time into things (as well as having luck lol).

I struggle with this too. Here are some of the things that helped me:

1. Stop trying to grow on 25 different platforms at the same time and focus on the ones that work better for you. I'm terrible at TikTok. I'm terrible at Twitter. I'm not that great at Instagram either, but out of the three, it's the one that works best for me. So I just focus on Instagram and leave the other two for whenever I feel like posting.

2. Hide numbers if possible. I know that Instagram lets you hide the number of likes on other people's posts, and that has helped me immensely.

3. Put that number obsession to good use. This was a big one for me. I used to stress A LOT about my comic not being as "popular" as others. Then I decided to get a closer look at the other popular works in the Mystery category. And guess what I found?
   -Most of the top comics were published before 2019. Meaning that they had way more time to become as popular as they are. Tapas also used to be a very different platform back then, with more focus on indie stuff rather than premium/translated comics.
   -A good number of the top authors either had released a previous comic OR had a popular Youtube channel, an Instagram account with lots of followers or a solid Twitter presence. I had none of those.
   -ALL comics, no matter how popular, have WAY less views and likes on their latest episodes compared to the first one. This affects all creators, not just less popular ones.

Last but not least was... taking a closer look at the audience of the platform I was on. It is no mystery that the Tapas audience is mostly made of young girls who are into manga styled romance.
My comic is not a manga, it's not a romance and it's not aimed at a young audience. And if my Instagram stats are of any indication, a good half of my audience is actually made of adult males. So, all things considered, can I really consider those "low" numbers a sign of failure? Hell, no. If anything, I'd dare to argue that I'm actually doing pretty damn great against all odds!

Knowing the platform, the kind of audience you're dealing with and the kind of content that is expected from said platform is a big thing to stop stressing about numbers. My comic may never become "big" on Tapas, but now that I realized that my target audience and the main audience of the site are so different... I'm actually quite at peace with the numbers I have and I cherish each new subscriber even more than before