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orbitkatart
Feb '21
1

I wanted to express my disdain for the whole sub for sub system and hopefully get some of you to think about this topic a little more. Feel free to give me your two cents because this is mine.

First off let me say I completely support supporting other artists through subbing or liking or whatever methods there are on whatever social media platform you're on. IF it's in the context of not expecting anything in return. Which is to say:

:sparkles:Sub for sub is not real support.:sparkles:
It is a shallow and worthless agreement that provides no actual support to artists.

In the end, the goal for artists is to obtain a non-artist audience because they are the ones who are more likely to consume your art/product. When it comes to artists supporting other artists, things get weird. Artists tend to have the fragilest of egos and when there are two fragile egos in the mix both asking for validation from each other for the same type of content, that is where things get dicey.

You should know by now that numbers are worthless. You could have thousands of followers and then get zero interaction from any of them. If you're not getting interaction what's the point? This is what happens with sub for sub. You sub to this person and then they sub to you, but you don't actually care that much for their art and neither do they for your art. Then you never speak to each other again. Who wants that?!

Having a large follower count doesn't necessarily lead to organic growth down the road. Especially if your content is lacking. Numbers don't magically improve your content.

Instead, what you should be doing is supporting artists because you actually like their art/content and not because you're expecting something in return. If they like your stuff then great! if they don't then whatever, they don't! You can't please everyone and you're going to have to accept that!

We all know the algorithm is sh**t and maybe you're not getting much organic growth. But sometimes it's not the algorithm at fault.

I think many artists need to take a step back and really evaluate themselves and what they have to offer as an artist:
:sparkles: Do you need to improve on anatomy?
:sparkles: Does your art look too similar to other artists?
:sparkles: Are you only doing fanart and nothing unique?
:sparkles: In the case of webcomics or novels, do you need to improve your grammar, your sentence structure, your character building, and/or your overall story?

I am not trying to put any artist down here but you seriously need to be realistic about where you are in your art journey or you're going to be seriously hurt down the road. If you need to improve on your art, don't take that as an insult, no one is born an artist and no one is perfect. Not even artists you look up to.

I am also not saying anyone is a bad artist. In fact there no bad artists, only learning artists. But again, if you can't be real with yourself and refuse to see why people aren't interested in your art, then you're going to hit a brick wall. And no amount of sub for sub is going to save you.

I personally have a lot of growing to do as an artist and I recognize where I need to grow. I don't look for empty validation in a sub that doesn't care about my art.
Have meaningful conversations with people and other artists and make those meaningful connections. That will get you a dedicated supporter instead of a pity sub. Making a personal connection makes people want to follow your art journey no matter how early you are in that journey.

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There are 57 replies with an estimated read time of 16 minutes.

Nen
Feb '21

Excellently worded tbh, couldn't have put this any better. If it was reddit I'd throw a platinum at you.

I especially love this sentence. as a former teacher, this is so incredibly put

Too many artists view ability as a binary and not as what it really is which is a never ending scale upon which we all as learners of art /writing are moving at our own paces and into our own specialties.

If nothing else, everyone should at least take this quote and hold it close to their chest. Thinking twice before getting into a sub 4 sub relationship with someone

DiegoPalacios
Feb '21

As an advertising graduate, gotta second this.

The numbers are just a measure unit, but if ones tamper them artificially with practices like sub for sub, you are not getting the real results of your story's performance.

Followers mean nothing if there is no engagement.

Engaged people are the ones who recommend your story with other readers, make fanart, buy merch and post comments and theories......

Sub for sub is basically lying to yourself about your audience, and that can only harm you on the long term.

Hope this advice helps!

DasIstWunderblyat
Feb '21

I like this.

Also, how can you be proud that your story is "well-received" and "high-quality" because it has big subscribers number, while those comes from people who are just being courteous and expecting you to pay back the favor. Why can you be complacent with such fakeness?

While some people can gain loyal active readers by sub-for-sub, I think I don't like the concept itself. It is like how some people can find true love by arranged marriage, but the system itself is shitty. Good that you can gain loyal readers, but I think most of us will rot in someone else's library.

It is inevitable, but when people (including me) are obsessed or tying their series' worth with numbers it's all goes down. They can go as far as sacrificing quality or integrity.

I think there must be a reminder that, it is probably fine not to be a behemoth with millions of subscribers. It does not affect how good or bad your story is (in fact I have seen questionable quality and shit story in Premium and popular series). It cannot be a parameter on how well-liked your story is.

I know all the glitter of internet fame and glistening same-y looking series promoted in the front page has blinded us, making us to desire more of the glory. But in the end of the day, why we cannot just tell a story that people enjoy?

Nen
Feb '21

Powerful, we stan a creator with confidence in their work

rajillustration
Feb '21

I don't really see what sub for sub has to do with the quality of art--that's kind of assuming everyone with low numbers can't draw, which isn't always aligned. Yes, better art makes better chances for higher numbers. But, it does not guarantee it. Being an artist is not the same career as being a social media giant, those are two separate jobs.

But yes, sub for sub has always been just busywork and it makes no sense to do it on a forum as small as this. You'd get maaaybe 100 followers. Maybe? So even if your only goal is numbers--you won't get it from sub for sub. Most people on there are first timers, who start a comic, make 4 or 5 updates, and then never use their account again because the next semester of High School started and they got distracted. It's not how networking works, you need to actually form connections.

Nowadays I just mute the promotions category and I don't have to see those posts anymore.

Nen
Feb '21

It makes no sense to do it period tbh, there is no value even in a gigantic forum cause you're not converting real readers

PapaDomAdvanced Gorilla
Feb '21

Sub for sub is not real support?
Imagine my shock...

rajillustration
Feb '21
Nen

Oh, I wasn't inferring that haha. It's better to just...promote the normal way. On twitter or insta and the normal places readers are.

Tanako
Feb '21

Whats even funnier is that after this post, there is going to be another Sub for Sub post,

skicoak
Feb '21
rajillustration

Not singling you out @rajillustration, your quote was just closest to link to...

The larger issue is the site has tied various opportunities and monetized goals to subscriber counts. I'm not a fan of sub to sub but it's more of a side effect of the site mechanics than anything.

orbitkatart
Feb '21
Nen

I've been thinking about this topic for the last few days and the more I thought about it, the more heated I became and I had to get it all out. Partially as a rant to others and partially as a way to tell this to myself because I often need to remind myself of some of these points especially when I get down in the dumps..
It is in fact also on reddit on r/unpopularopinion because I want to see more opinions on this haha

ar-ninetysix
Feb '21

..Yeah, we know this already. We made several threads ranting about it before, and it doesn't stop people from making new sub-for-sub topics so like..?? Whatever lol

Real talk, I'm kinda over this. No one's really adding anything to the conversation, and everybody's just regurgitating the same sentiment over and over. We get it. Sub-for-sub is hollow, the numbers aren't real, the subs are barely readers, but hey, numbers go brrrr..

Could someone please instead recommend how to improve your online presence so that your comic or novel looks more appealing?? The whole process of posting episodes of a comic or novel goes deeper than just hitting upload and post, and I really wish people would actually try to help instead of just complaining and advising against a trend that doesn't work.

Nen
Feb '21
skicoak

I think you've made a solid point but tbh a part of me is thinking that while it's incentivised to get higher sub counts. Sub for Sub is so inefficient and people still do it which to me seems more an issue of ego than anything else

boondogggle
Feb '21

I hate it when I get offered a sub for sub and agree because I'm bad at saying no, but I don't even like their comic, so then I'm subbed to a comic until the end of time that I never even read. ._.

orbitkatart
Feb '21
DasIstWunderblyat

I know all the glitter of internet fame and glistening same-y looking series promoted in the front page has blinded us, making us to desire more of the glory. But in the end of the day, why we cannot just tell a story that people enjoy?

Absolutely this. Unfortunately it is the very nature of social media and content aggregator sites/apps that promote a frantic obsession with just the numbers themselves.

Shouldn't we be creating for the sake of creating? And because we love doing it?

Nen
Feb '21
1
ar-ninetysix

You know there are tons of resources out there to help with this that you can read. I think at least one mod6 has posted a thread on this and frankly there are countless twitter threads2, tumblr threads, youtube videos and legally freely available and not so legally available books explaining design and brand management. Fuck Steak-umm runs an account that basically does that on twitter and so does the Fall Guys brand manager Oliver Age 24. We should probably be harder on a persistent situation than worry about something that we can find millions of solutions to

thedude3445
Feb '21

I think it's worthwhile. I've found a few nice comics that I would never have read just because they were in my reading list from sub-for-subs, such as @mcarrowolga's stories. Yeah, the vast majority I will probably never end up reading, but I'll never read the vast majority of stuff in my reading list regardless, so that's probably OK.