>>3684706Most of the time when another photographer is "nice" to me online they're really secretly hoping I will go and look at their content and follow/favorite their work too. It feels as inauthentic as it does feel organic.
As for being dicks, people get really strangely picky about their standards for photos. I think the above points are due to a simple thing: people who are capital P Photographers spend a lot of time looking at their own work, developing it and being self-critical of it, so a lot of their feelings about their own work and their taste gets projected on to other people when they look at their stuff. Plus, they're more likely to see failings in the work of others when they have those perceived failings themselves.
Honestly, I think when most people share their work they're not even looking for feedback and I don't even see the problem with that. Being obsessed with trying to be "better" makes you take for granted what you're doing, which is really unfortunate if you're just a hobbyist trying to enjoy themselves.
