>>56256531>Why were you so concerned with what was being popular?Because newcomers to the thread who are flirting with becoming writers are concerned with what is popular.
You can't sustain a community on only the old members. I know that my shit will never be popular and I am (and have no alternative but to be) satisfied with being appreciated by a tiny minority, but I went in expecting that, doing it for the sake of doing it.
But it's really hard to nurture a newbie who is going to come in, try his best, be overwhelmed with the sensation of being constructively critiqued (rather than blindly affirmed like zoomers expect), and feel completely overshadowed/barking up the wrong tree once he looks at and compares to the stories that people are Patreon funding.
I'm completely lost though what this superiority concept you keep referencing that I don't remember ever seeing. Maybe my mental crud filter is tight enough to catch and discard it all. But as far as abrasive personality goes, I'll dare to hold up a mirror for a moment:
You keep beating this negativity drum,
>Why were you so concerned>Why did you needand I'm guessing, also
>How does any of that stop you>The miserable nostalgia whiningIt's like I'm hearing one of those pita moms who raise kids that buy BetterHelp when they grow up because every statement she speaks is laced with contempt and/or thinly veiled accusation.
New writers don't want to join that. They need to feel like they're setting at the big boys' table and getting to see how the table works on writing problems and most importantly see how those writers are fulfilled by these interactions no matter how well their work performs on the archives after being published. That is the cure for "concerned with what's popular" and that is what /vpwt/ lost when half of the writers left at about the same time, creating empty space that became an echo chamber.
And I'm no innocent, but I try to target the work before I suspect the author.
