Why so much salt?

[69Michi]

for every good BL comic, there are easily 1000 terrible ones

Interesting. What makes me wonder though why is it only BL? 🤔 I can say the same thing applies to pretty much every other genre with no exception. For every romance comic out there, I can easily find thousand bad/cringy ones. For every one good fantasy comic, there is an endless amount of bad one. Is it because BL is more "exclusive"? Just a question I have in the back of my mind.

But yeah, I'm kinda with you on how BL really do seem to take over Tapastic's front page. It's almost a running joke between me and my friends now, if you are going to do a romance comic, bring it to Webtoon if it's hetero relationship, if it's BL/GL, Tapastic will be your to thrive.

[Kura]

I think it's more of an issue cause the easily terrible ones still manage to hit trending and popular. I mean. I'm not gonna throw names out there, but yeah. There are some really trashy ones that pop up in popular that I don't understand why the hell they are there (I'm sorry I enjoy reading BL here and there, I mean I'm actually pretty happy to get it because before you had to settle with fanfics to find not hetero pairings, and I agree that there are also a lot of good ones and I have nothing against those ones being there, but oyyyyy craaaaaappp re the bad ones bad...)

Yeah, me and my friends also have a game, if the BL on the front page (popular and trending) is less than 50% we get a treat.

[UzukiCheverie]

I agree with you that it's not just BL that has this problem. But it's the BL comics that (again) pander to the least common denominator and still manage to make it to the front page over and over again. If it were any other genre I'd still be pissed, but it's a lot harder to hit that with any other genre because other genres tend to require more thought and work be put into them in order to become popular (ESPECIALLY fantasy/adventure.... comedy's a little easier to swing, but BL so far takes the cake for how easy it is to get it on the front page despite its plot/characters/etc. So much that the thumbnail can and often IS enough to get readers to hit Subscribe).

I swear I feel like I'm suffering from delusions because of it because I can never tell if the same BL comic has hit the Pop/Trending section more than once/on a regular basis - because with the content material and style of thumbnails (label and all) I literally can't tell them apart from each other. Call it an exaggeration but it's seriously what's going through my head and it's bugging the shit out me.

[Caelestie]

a got gl on my icon but people still expect my comic to be bl for some reason

[GoldenPlume]

A lot of creators are starting to just bypass the homepage all together. We type "dash" in our URL browser and it shortcuts us right to the Tapastic Dashboard. We've been doing this for the last two weeks and its been a real breath of fresh air. Sure we miss the "Spotlight" and the "Staff Picks" but you have to give up/trade away something for the convenience of a shortcut.

However, since doing so a lot of our own frustrations towards genre dominance and staff selections has dissipated, leaving us feeling more optimistic and hopeful that one day our series may be successful.

Maybe everyone just short-cutting the homepage will make everyone more happy as a whole. It seems like the forums have been a bit more negative lately and the forums are rarely negative.

[UzukiCheverie]

haha that's sorta weird?? GL is definitely in the minority compared to BL (although one of my FAVORITE Tapastic comics - Monster Pop - has GL in it, though it's not really advertised with GL labels and stuff).

Maybe everyone just short-cutting the homepage will make everyone more happy as a whole.

Man, that just seems like such a skeevy thing to do IMO I mean, I've been with Tapastic since they had their Prime program, way back when comics like Owl Turd, HJ Story, and Dane Men were just getting started. Back then the front page was just where you would always be. Skipping it would make me feel like I'm "cheating" lol But maybe that's weird xD Definitely don't blame people for doing this when the front page just isn't what it used to be :/

[Erena]

Hm, interesting conversation. My stories tend to have BL undertones, but I've never advertised it as BL, and there's no sexual content either. I feel like it often puts me into a situation where people either think my stories aren't gay enough, or too gay to their liking
Anyway, I think being too judgmental of BL will make you miss out on some of the great stories that are out there that focus on way more than just romance, while being too defensive prevents there from being real development in the genre (eh, I'm not sure if genre is the right word, but that's for another discussion)

[heraclus]

I'm waiting for the days of ''animal love'' genre to come out XD
only disney have stuff like this

[Lisha]

This is just an educated guess but I think it's your comic profile/icon that has two men? I might be wrong, though.

[Mari]

I feel like this topic is an echo chamber of some people going "But the algorithm favours BL so I cannot be succesful and thus I resent all BL and I know for a fact that there are thousands of comics tagged with BL and you can rest assured I've read through them all and confirmed that yes they are indeed trash" and some people going "deal with it and also that is true for every other genre" and then just rinse and repeat. A mod should imho just lock this thread up :x

[joannekwan]

They're women (or at least individuals who use feminine pronouns -20chars-)

[Caelestie]

wow thanks for calling two masculine women men!

[nessiefynn]

@Caelestie I think that's part of it, some people just misread your characters as male so they expect BL rather than GL.

[Caelestie]

that is why I put gl to begin with!

[KoreanTacos]

Yeah, but who's even reading stuff on a website in which reading might be beneficial?

[JKNNKL]

jijninjjnni drdeeded okokookm hbhn

[TheHerald]

To be honest, I do not really care whether or not whatever is trending on the popular tab. There will be those who love it and those who hate it, just like what is seen trending on Youtube. It is the same thing no matter what form of media it is. Futhermore, it is really just part of the whole business aspect. Remember how books like Twilight and Fifty Shades of Grey were dominating in the sales for the longest time? It is just the same as we see with the BL comics. If anything, that is just the natural way business competitions work. Creators by nature are always going to have to combat with one another for attention and profit. If anything, when I see certain comics dominating the popularity (BL and not BL), I see it as a challenge to up the quality of my work and learn from the popular artists. There will always be a mix of what we define as good and bad works getting popular.

So if someone asked me what side I am on, I would be in the "I don't care, let me get back to working on my comic," camp.

[Lisha]

You asked me why they kept expecting BL even with the GL tag, because they saw the icon and thought they were supposed to be males, I was mistaken for that too, since I judged it at first glance and thought it might be the case, so apologies, I didn't intend to be rude. Just pointing out what the cause of the problem might be.

dude you don't have to be so passive aggressive, they said it in the most polite way imaginable and even added a disclaimer that they might be wrong?

@Caelestie I think that's part of it, some people just misread your characters as male so they expect BL rather than GL.

Thank you!

Yes, I believe we're derailing. I am not going to discuss about this one further.

So if someone asked me what side I am on, I would be in the "I don't care, let me get back to working on my comic," camp.

If there are more people like this, we an certainly dismiss the salt.

[TheHerald]

If there are more people like this, we an certainly dismiss the salt.

Honestly I think a majority of people like that. But of course, the loudest voice in the room is the one that is heard. So the vocal minority on both sides are causing other people to notice. I mean, I haven't seen really any complaints from people until it is mentioned in a forum topic. Not to mention a majority of users do not really go on the website and just stick to the mobile app.

[HVOICE]

I wasn't in that forum, but I will admit I've said some shitty stuff before in other forum topics. Some artists get frustrated when it feels like the website is favoring other genres more than others.
If I ever said anything shitty about other comics, it was all sour grapes on my end, and I apologize if I ever offended anyone.