I've been sort of avoiding dropping in on this thread because god knows this community doesn't need me LMAO but I've been mulling over and thinking on this topic since I saw it yesterday, letting it sorta simmer on low until I could add the proper seasonings to my response, etc etc something something food references.
There's a very well-respected though largely unspoken rule in marketing, especially indie webcomic marketing: Don't. Split. The Fanbase. What this essentially means is that while spreading your work over multiple platforms may get you more viewership on paper, it also has the opposite effect in which it causes your community to divide rather than prosper. Now, this is in the sense of a comic creator posting their work to multiple platforms at once, but for a corporate company to just create 3 different Instagram/Twitter accounts? Seriously, what's the point to this? If I'm recalling correctly, Tapas already had another Instagram account at one point that, to no one's surprise, didn't have as big of a following as the main account. (which is why I said 3, that is not a typo.)
There is no logic in 'reaching a larger audience' if the secondary page will never have as many followers as the original. Literally any content creator can tell you that. Look at Youtube creators and their secondary channels, they never rise to the fame and recognition of the originals.
I've checked out the Tapastry Instagram, and lemme tell ya, with all the sincerity in my heart, it clearly has no direction whatsoever, unless the direction is 'continue to split up the Tapastic community into cute little biTe-siZed piEcEs'. (which will NOT actually do the community any favors, as it's been pointed out already).
So just share it! You have a following on Instagram and Twitter already, use it!! DON'T BE A COWARD, JUST
It's not like the other page won't be associated with Tapas' brand anyway so what's the problem here, what's the point in making yet another account? Again, literally all I'm seeing it as is another way to chop up the community even further. You guys have the following and the community support. Focus on it and use it to your advantage. Having two accounts, especially on the same platform, doesn't make you grow faster, it just-
IT'S NOT EASIER, IT'S JUST MORE WORK
We have a name for the creator community. It's called 'the creator community'. While it may be divided between Premium's and F2R's, if this is just a way to 'unite' the two as some attempt to convince people that there isn't an advantaged difference between them then Tapas isn't fooling anyone (or to sell the word 'Tapastry' as some kind of brand recognition??). Why not just create a hashtag for it or announce it from the main page? Without skewering up the community more between multiple accounts?
Idk, I don't know the specifics of it, obviously, I don't know what you guys have planned for this in the future, but that just raises even more questions which you shouldn't be doing btw. A community full of questions and doubts is not 'fun', it's not 'suspenseful', it's annoying and exhausting. If you haven't completed what you're planning yet then just wait. Rushing things will not get you results and neither will throwing things at the wall to see what sticks, as Tapas has done with so many other 'features' in the past. Y'all don't need to go all willy nilly announcing things to get the excitement and street cred because if it ends up not being worth the hype you've built up, you know what's gonna happen. Don't set yourselves up for that, just wait until you have a clear direction and end goal in mind that's achievable, realistic, and beneficial. Is it less 'hype' that way? Maybe, but it's less uncertainty and doubting, too. And there's far more hype in real announcements that come after months of work with real gratification vs. 'we're working on this' announcements that have no real clarification of what y'a'll are actually working on and what we're apparently supposed to be hyping for.
UH
sry this is just me being salty but 'joy' amounts to nothing fiscal for creators who spend their time and labor here as community members, F2R's and Premiums alike. This is just a very corporate-culty-American-Dream thing to say, along the same lines of "we're all a family here at McDonald's. I'm loving it."
Again, because it bears repeating - people already had ways to know when there were ongoing events, contests and opportunities. It's called your official website and your well-established Twitter and Instagram pages. What is the point of Tapastry and if it has no point, why is it being announced right now as if it does?
Now, this next bit I'll try to be brief with as it's a bit of a personal thing and I apologize for the audacity of it, but...
Listen, I don't claim to have any sort of friendship with Jens, frankly (and no offense Jens) it pisses me off sometimes how willing they are to blindly trust corporations like Tapas based on the number of times they've done it in the past. And this isn't in a 'fuck you, Jens' type way, we need to recognize that it's users like Jens that somehow still give these platforms the time of day after having their faith shaken so many times. While, again, their dedication has pissed me off at times, it's only because I've taken notice of every single time they've been quick to say "oh, okay, that explains everything!" in response to half-baked explanations and apologies that achieved nothing. I'm not in the business of seeing passionate and hardworking creators like Jens, regardless of whether or not I agree with them at times, get taken advantage of by a corporate company.
I get it, we're webcomic creators, we get the short end of the stick in a lot of ways. But that doesn't mean we should keep taking that short end every time it's handed to us with an extra millimeter added because we've had it bad for so long. We don't need to get all excited over the first sign of recognition or opportunity just because we've been so starved of it as creators for decades. I think we can be better than that lmao
This. This is what happens to creators who have their trust toyed with for years on end despite all the work and passion they bring to the table, often for free. This isn't 'all of a sudden' or 'coming from nowhere', if you've been paying attention to Jens' activity on this platform like I have, you'd have noticed that Jens - like many others - has bled for this community, even when they didn't have to (and probably shouldn't have). I don't blame Jens or doubt them for suddenly having concerns, this has been a long time coming. These kinds of responses hurt to see because I know exactly where they're coming from.
It can be hard to look at that sort of thing objectively because if you choose to post your work, which you've put your time, blood and tears into, onto a platform, that must mean you really trust the platform, and how can that trust and love be misguided when it's your work, something you love so much? But it's not the platform that makes the creators, it's the other way around.
Jens, I mean this when I say it - you have nothing to apologize for.
The fundamental issue of this topic and why it's raising so many 'unnecessary questions' lies in this one sentence, this one response that proves every doubt all the creators in here have had since questioning the original post:
This sentence right here is the proverbial salt to the wound.
Creators are already investing their time and passions into not only posting their work here, but taking part in community events, taking extra time out of their day (away from their comics!!) to be social and to be a proactive member of the community, and representing Tapas as its creators, vouching for it at every turn, putting their faith in it through every bump in the road. Literally all anyone's asking for is some more clarification, communication to tell them whether or not tthis is worth 'hyping over', maybe give a timeframe and reasons as to why creators should stick around for something that may not even be worth their patience in the first place.
If these announcements are worth hyping over, give us things to hype over. It's not going to kill you all to wait a few more weeks or however long you need to work on it in silence and announce it when it's ready. People will have far less questions and be way more excited that way.
In response to you, specifically, ratique - none of this is meant as any sort of jab towards you or your job here. Frankly I think it sucks that these questions have to be answered by you and the rest of the 'happiness' staff when you're not in charge of the development process or the ultimate decision. Seriously, I mean that. I have a lot of respect for you as a community member and artist, but I wanna make it clear that if you're going to play the role of in-between connecting the communication between Tapas and its community, the least Tapas could do is wait and give you more information to announce when it's ready so that you're not being hit with questions you can't fully answer, either due to a sincere lack of knowledge, or because you haven't been permitted to. I'm not going to pretend to know the full nuances of your job, or the trials and tribulations you all face managing this platform and speaking to its diverse community, but it's obvious that this idea wasn't ready to be announced yet, and you, as Tapas' forum advocate, should be equipped with the means to do your job properly by Tapas so that you don't have to take the heat from the community at every turn for their miscommunications. That's not fair to you, nor is it fair to the community at large.
inb4 this is just an attempt to slowly integrate a new platform name for the 3rd time
(again, not a typo. once upon a time this platform was known as ComicPanda. Then Tapastic. Now Tapas. #Tapastry2024.)