How do someone's words impact your view of their work?

[smokesalty]

I think a lot of us on these forums are very much getting our work out there through discussions and chatting with other people, but how important is how you conduct yourself?

I know for me, being on the forums and comics twitter for a bit, I kind of have an idea of people's personalities, interests and the type of comic they make. If I see someone whose interesting, gives good advice and is generally respectful, I tend to have a good opinion of them and their work for the most part! There are also people who I am wary of because maybe they tend to jump to conclusions or sound passive aggressive, ect (I will note that this is not dislike, more like something I keep in mind with interactions)

I feel like the way you present yourself online can impact how people see your work. Who knows, maybe people see my work a specific way because of the way I talk and act online.

I'm just kind of curious as to how y'all see this? Do you make a bit of a judgement on a piece of work based on interactions/words said by the author outside of the work?

I feel like an author's beliefs and values can really become evident in their work, especially when you see their words and actions from them directly, which is quite interesting.

[TheLemmaLlama]

I ... don't actually feel like it does, for the most part XD It's probably just me being overly confident in my ability to be objective, and subconsciously I'm totally influenced, but I can only talk about what I'm conscious of

I will have the urge to check out people's comics if they say something interesting about their comic, their vision or their writing style, but that's kind of independent from their personality or how they say it, and I mostly won't have the urge to check out someone's comic based on something interesting they said that's not related to their comic :'D

I'll probably check out someone's work if they give good writing advice, but I'll still drop it if it's not my thing, even if it's well-written in a more objective sense ^^;

How respectful/touchy a creator is mostly dictates how I interact with them (for instance, I might be kind of scared to comment on their pages if they seem particularly touchy o_o). Mostly though, respectfulness doesn't impact my view on their work (unless they're so even-tempered that they talk things out calmly even when literally everyone else is super up-in-arms about the discussion at hand). Touchiness might make me more interested or less interested in their work depending on what they get up in arms about and how unique their takes are (and admittedly, probably whether or not I agree with them :'D)

I guess this is more their influence on my interest though ... Then again, it's probably hard to judge how much of my opinion on a work I've already read is because of what I know about the creator. If I find something preachy and I've seen the creator preach about their story's message somewhere else, would I have not found it preachy if I didn't read anything the creator said out of universe? I'll never know, unless I erase my memories and read the work again :'D

On a completely unrelated note, I'm constantly worried about sounding either passive aggressive or sycophantic, depending on whether I disagree or agree with the person I'm talking to :'D edit:ohheccyoudidn'tlikethiscommenti'mtotallypassiveaggressivearen'tijustkiddingyoudon'thavetoanswerthatidon'treallywanttoputyouonthespotahhahahapanik

[scottlincoln689]

Humans are biologically wired to remember negative experiences three times more often than as equally positive ones... something I remind myself of all the time.

[NickRowler]

I think the phrase "Never meet your heroes" also applies to social media. It can bring out the worse in some people and it can also mess with people's heads if they get caught up in a bubble. I feel like it has been especially bad for my parent's generation which might not be able to notice that they have an unhealthy addiction or understand the impact of being "unfiltered" on social media.

I feel sometimes it is easy to separate the creator from their work. Minecraft is a good example of this, the creator is awful but the game is apolitical and I don't think he has creative control over it now. I'm not going to be angry at someone who still plays it or a kid who wants the toys.

However, I feel like their are some creators whose views sort of reshape the narrative and message. Some people have decided to reevaluate Harry Potter after a lot of the JK Rowling drama. In some cases it might have been a bit of a little over analyzing the material. Sometimes it's OK just to say you don't like something without nitpicking and implying the worse of every word said but I guess some people are like that. Maybe I don't 100% understand because I was only into Harry Potter when I was 11 and moved onto something else when I was 12. I know some people have built their whole identity around the series and maybe they are having a harder time coming to terms with it.

There are also somethings that I feel are impossible to remove the author. I used to recommend Little Bill as a PreK show done well, but not anymore because it is so tied to Bill Cosby. Fat Albert and the Cosby show were also effected by this. I can understand why someone would not want to watch these shows anymore because of what happened.

[Noorie]

If I already like/dislike something, knowing the author wouldn't change much, but if I'm thinking of starting reading something new and know about author's personality, then I can base my decision on that

[AlydaB]

I do, but I try to keep an open mind; I might be surprised.

Nonetheless, I think people's art is- to an extent- pretty indicative of the perspective, worldview, and mindset of the creator themself. Some stories are more self-revealing than others, but at the very least, they all share ideas the author found worth spending time to explore. We usually choose to write about what resonates with us, and if we're going to spend so much time in a fictional world by choice, it'll probably be one that's somewhat comfortable, meaningful, and/or interesting to us. Because of all that, I think you can tell stuff about the work by knowing the author, and vice versa.

One of my older brothers is a professional writer and reading his works only cements this idea for me because (though fictional stories) they're incredibly self-revealing and personal- like a window into his mind. I almost feel embarrassed to read his older books for this reason ^^;

His writing isn't at all surprising to those who know him. He's suffered a lot of trauma in his life, yet remains at heart a romantic idealist who adores cheesey hallmark romcoms. Thus, the first book he wrote at 19 is about insta-love between two star-crossed lovers who share a super deep emotional connection. The ending is tragic; the protagonist's love is shot in front of him and he wakes up to reality.

..And that leads me to wonder what my stories say about me lol

However, while you can make assumptions or educated guesses about a work based on what you know of its creator, I think it's best to keep an open mind anyways. Stuff isn't always what we think it'll be.

[IndigoShirtProd]

While I do try to keep an open mind, if you make an ass of yourself on a public platform, I may think twice about taking you seriously as a creator. Granted that's more about how I would feel about the person, but it can trickle into how I interact with one's work. If they have shown "a bad look," I would be apprehensive about picking up and consuming any content that they have made. Past that, I may be more skeptical and a little more critical of their work if I do choose to consume it. But at the end of the day, I do try to let the work speak for itself. I think that's the only way to be fair to the content and the creator.

[rajillustration]

I do and I don't, mostly because I think that twitter can really bring out the absolute worst in people, and for a lot of people when they're promoting their art, they're already tired, they don't want to do this, and you can tell in every word they post. (sometimes I think I fall into that category of just "I'm so tired, here's my stuff, I'm so sick and tired of this algorithm, it's slowly killing me")

And like to combat that I have rules that I enforce about my own language to keep my social media space positive, and every week I write down in my bullet journal "Don't post discourse." but like for reals I'm not like that intensely positive or negative when I'm not on social media. Same with the forum, like it's pretty chill now, but for a while this was just where people did hot takes about lukewarm subjects and argued about it. Yet you see the same people in other places and they're chill as gazpacho and have no memory that we ever had an argument.

Since social media is more and more pushing engagement about very negative and polarized topics, we're only going to see more and more people hoot and hollar about the anubis, and about subjects they know pretty much nothing about (like why is the internet an expert in everything? It's weird). Like overall we're gonna see a push to make people show their entire ass. And if they decided to show their entire ass, then ya, I won't read their stuff anymore. I'll unfollow them if they say something racist, homophobic, or intolerant of religion or culture. I have no time for people like that and I honestly don't know why they felt it was appropriate to say that stuff on their business account.

But as for celebrities...I don't have to talk to celebrities, so I don't really unfollow their works because straight up they only oversee their works. It's like how a lot of people still buy Tesla even though Elon Musk is unhinged in the worst way imaginable. He didn't make the car. He might buy twitter for some reason, but he sure never invented a car. Same with creative works--they oversee it, but at some point most large IPs have forced them out of the writing chair, hence why they have so much freakin time to post online and argue with zoomers.

[AmazementComics]

Looking through this thread, I’m reminded of what author Yehuda Berg once stated, “Words are singularly the most powerful force available to humanity… Words have energy and power with the ability to help, to heal, to hurt, to harm, to humiliate and to humble.”

The words we choose and how we use them can build others up or tear them down; bring the community together or rip it apart. Typically, if it comes down to a writer of a story, I usually assess the nature of their words. Were they provoked by a troll? When was it stated, and why did they decide to speak those words then?

And this is the problem I have with cancel culture. It’s essentially a second-order boycott against people who simply decline to join your boycott. I don’t agree that it's useful or beneficial to make a great show of one's boycott, intoning the required blandishments every time the boycotted individual is mentioned, as though they're some kind of cursed untouchable whose name is poison. So incredibly tedious.

My opinion on the words of artists and how it impacts my view of their work isn’t shallow. Seizing an artist’s platform is reasonable and appropriate if you find their behavior reprehensible. What’s not okay is lingering onto those emotions every time you stumble across their work.

[Awesomeness_Studios]

There’s currently multiple comics I refuse to read just cuz I had pretty bad interactions with/impressions of the creators. However, if the creator turns out to be annoying after I started reading the comic, it’s a bit harder for me to stop. You’d have to be REALLY a jerk to get me to stop I feel.

[RobertBMarks]

A lot of it depends on who the interaction is with. If the person is directly interacting with me in an abusive or bad faith fashion, then there's no world in which I'd be willing to support their work (nor do I think there is any reasonable expectation of one person supporting another under those circumstances in either direction). If they're just talking in general, it doesn't matter as much.

Outside of that, I don't think it really matters too much. If when somebody is talking about the craft they're just spouting nonsense and clearly don't know what they're talking about, then I think there's a very high likelihood that the quality of their prose will be poor. Beyond that...

Well, here's the thing: one of the hallmarks of a good writer is the ability to become a chameleon in a certain way - to set aside their own political and personal beliefs, and write a story with sympathetic characters who are their polar opposites. With the best writers, trying to figure out their politics through their fiction requires a deep dive, and odds are you won't get it right - you need to read their non-fiction opinion pieces to figure out where they actually stand. So, their expressed politics actually shouldn't impact the quality, or even necessarily the content, of their fiction. Their fiction stands on its own.

And, speaking as a late Gen Xer and a centrist (I'm old enough to remember watching Return of the Jedi in the theatre on its first release), there is an intolerance of the beliefs of others these days that I find quite heartbreaking, and just makes the world in general a worse place. People should be judged on their actions, not whether you agree or disagree with their politics. People's fiction should be judged based on whether it's good, not who the author thought should have won the last election.

But that's just me.

[EverydayWonderlander]

Oh jeez

I want to preface this; my opinions about comic artists' words outside of their work - I suppose it can be called the metatext - is mostly concerned with how they approach their communities. I don't really care about the creator's personality most times. As long as they're not a jerk, I'll usually pay them no mind and enjoy their story. However, I find it very difficult to enjoy a work when I know that the creator consistently makes off-color remarks or likes pretend they're Regina George.

There's a very popular comic right now; as far as I know it's extremely well-executed and very sweet. But comments the creator has made about other works in the same genre totally turned me off of their work. I think that approaching your peers in bad faith, especially if they're making similar work... Well, it feels very immature to me.

It's happened a few times where I got a "vibe" from a work, only to check in on the creator's page and see that I don't enjoy their internet persona. Usually, it's just an overly-personal way of interacting with the internet. Every once in a while I'll find a creator who is genuinely cruel online for no reason - which is very

Then again, I'm the kind of person who blocks someone for annoying me.

[sable40k]

For the most part, I would say that I know relatively little about authors and their personal lives, and I'm content with that. However, some do have personalities that become almost more important online than their actual works, or put so much of themselves into their work that it's hard not to notice. Like, for better or for worse, you KNOW what you're getting into when you crack open a David Cage game.

So yeah, some of that does color my impression of a work. At the same time... I'm really wary of putting too much stock into reputations, versus my own personal experience. Review bombing exists, along with professional resentments, personal frictions, etc.

Best case scenario: I read a work and make my own conclusions. Maybe it's good, maybe it's bad!

[powerplantanimations]

Shoot for me that's an interesting question.

Speaking personally, I try not to let someone's words impact my view on small creator's work. Due to this thing I have, I get agitated depending on the weather or if I get hungry or if I eat the wrong foods (mood swings). There's people who aren't willing to hear me out or not letting me explain myself to the point where I just have to bite my tongue. I worry that sometimes whenever that thing happens people will just unsubscribe from my work and write me off as this hateful person. I remember my biggest inspiration , someone I've been talking to for a while once, thinking I was this nobody when it was raining real bad and it was the worst feeling ever. We patched things up and he's a really cool guy now, but damn... from then on forward I give everyone the benefit of the doubt.

The only time I will say that I'll ignore someone's work is if a famous white comedian says nasty stuff about religion and would proceed to speak blasphemy. Then my brain would just... not want anything to do with them. Particularly British comedians. I remember my Mom wanting to watch a film with me, but it starred a British comedian that said some stuff. I was still like "uhhhh how bout something else?". One of the big reasons why I mostly listen to black and mexican comedians from the street is they tend to understand that messing around with someone's faith/spirituality is off-limits since it's a large reason why their family is even alive to this day.

If it's some rando on the internet or on the street then it doesn't really bother me or my view of their work. A lot of my friends who write comics here are atheists lol.

[Lady_T_Musings]

Ohh them words totally do. I wish I could say I was able to maintain an air that separates how someone talks to me or others that I've witnessed vs their work, but yeah Nah, if you put yourself out there with your work it's mighty hard not to relate you to it in some way so that attitude comes into play :V.

I'm not into blasting folks, so I will keep it in general, but there's an artist whose work I really like, but after chatting with them a bit they made a comment later on about not wanting to be associated with people who have "unhealthy interests" including an antagonistic character I like. I was honestly shocked at how hardcore I got judged for my fictional taste from a fellow artist with similar interests. Like really!?

Like It's fine if you don't like something I do, but you don't have to be a passive-aggressive butt about my fictional tastes and then make a roundabout post about how you don't wanna associate with me bc a fictional character I like says something about me as a person. TBH it's probably for the best, bc I don't have time for folks who snap judge over sillyness, but it still stung bc we shared a lot of common ground and I genuinely like their work. It now has a grey film over it and I don't even bother interacting, and it sucks but c'est la vie :V

On the other hand, If I get to know someone and get a good impression of them and we vibe, I can guarantee I will be 110% more interested in what they make and be way more vested in actively engaging with their work. Even if it isn't necessarily my taste. My Give-a-Dang meeter will extend to their work and I've found that more than a few times it's led me to get into stuff I didn't think I had an interest in

[Luminosophy]

I know for me, being on the forums and comics twitter for a bit, I kind of have an idea of people's personalities, interests and the type of comic they make. If I see someone whose interesting, gives good advice and is generally respectful, I tend to have a good opinion of them and their work for the most part! There are also people who I am wary of because maybe they tend to jump to conclusions or sound passive aggressive, ect (I will note that this is not dislike, more like something I keep in mind with interactions)

My brain associates their words with their writing style. I am likely to not be interested in the works of those who jump to conclusions, act passive aggressive etc because if they can't slow down at least try understand other world views, I can only assume they write themselves into every character.

[ratscout]

Hooooonestly, as a novelist, I can tell a lot about the way people live their lives, what sort of people they are, what political views they might have, and what philosophies they live by by what they write. And that's fine. You should be able to see some of what a person is in their work. I think that's why we're drawn to certain works in the first place. There's something inside the author's brain that we find so intriguing that we're willing to continue reading it. That's why I am personally such a huge fan of works where the author quite literally seems to bare their soul like in Evangelion. There's something so raw and honest about it that I can't help but love it, even if I'm disgusted by it at times. It's a story where I literally feel like I am in the author's brain and suffering the way he is and that is something special. But I can also tell a lot of what a person believes because I study human behavior for a living and I have the functions of behavior down pat LOL. I can tell you that the reinforcer for people making dumb tweets on twitter is 100% attention/clout seeking. XD

I think, what makes me avoid an author and their work is when they're putting something out into the world that is meant to scold and judge its audience rather than just express their genuine feelings about something personal. I suppose you can say the former is propaganda and not art, and the latter is art. So, I guess I make a judgement about whether the person is a good storyteller based on that, and whether I would want to hang out with them and be their friend, but I wouldn't judge them as like... a good or bad person or anything. I would probably just avoid the story if I were getting those vibes. That being said, if I can tell someone is from the opposite side of the political spectrum through their writing, it won't bother me unless they're telling me that I'm evil for being from the opposite side LOL and I will probably still be able to enjoy most of the story.

[smokesalty]

How dare they disrespect antagonists/villains here, they're iconic But fr, I never understood the judgement towards people for liking certain fictional characters!

I also agree that the way someone's attitude comes across shows in their work. I sometimes get curious with people I've had eeeehhhhh interactions with and when I check out their work it can really shows (especially with pretentiousness I've noticed )

But on the other hand, I feel like someone who has an attitude that I enjoy tends to have work that I also enjoy for the most part. I feel like it especially shows with people who are passionate about their work, and it really makes me want to support them

[TheLemmaLlama]

I think, what makes me avoid an author and their work is when they're putting something out into the world that is meant to scold and judge its audience rather than just express their genuine feelings about something personal. I suppose you can say the former is propaganda and not art, and the latter is art

I do think though that people are driven to make propaganda-y (propagandary?) works out of genuine passion - because they have genuine and intense personal feelings about whatever they're preaching about. Don't get me wrong; I like to avoid works that make me feel demonized as well; it's just that "scold and judge its audience" and "express their genuine feelings about something personal" aren't mutually exclusive (In fact, I feel like people who are afraid of expressing their genuine feelings on the page tend to write very neutral, inoffensive stuff that won't really get a reaction out of people, positive or negative :'D)

The problem isn't that they're not being genuine enough; it's that they can't see things from other people's point of view, so their portrayal of whoever they're judging and scolding is necessarily shallow ^^;

[Lady_T_Musings]

OMG YASSSS the tension, the closeness, straddling the nuances of passion, intense focus & inability to get the other out of your mind, obsession, like that shizz is a delicious to watch/read train wreck or not!

Mnnnhmnnnn

Oh, I'm all about a good passion project, especially one that perseveres, even if it isn't the most popular. Diligence gets mad respect.