trigger warning for christianity
So I used to write fanfiction, and in the fandoms I was in there was always a big emphasis on getting comments.
When I was younger my mom showed me and my siblings this kids book about not caring what others think of you. Now I think that's pretty common for children's media, but the interesting part is that the message was not: 'ignore the mean things people say about you', the message was: 'ignore everything everyone says about you, whether it's good or bad'. Now, with my newfound confusion about how I was meant to be feeling about comments, I went hunting for the book. It's called "" for anyone interested- but fair warning, I managed to find a pdf and turns out it's a Christian book, and I had gotten the message slightly wrong. Technically it was saying: 'you shouldn't care what others think of you because God's opinion is the only one that matters'. Well, I'm not sure if I agree with that 'real' message so much, but I do think I resonated with my earlier interpretation. Getting comments will not make me happy- instead, being content and proud of what I've created is what will make me happy. And so began my journey to ignore comments and clicks and any other form of online popularity, and instead focus on making art/choices that I myself enjoy and am proud of.
Also, this is true for every reflection I write on this site, but just in case you're a young and/or impressionable individual, I just wanna say that if something's working for you then don't feel pressured to change yourself or whatever lol. This is the system that works for me, but there's a whole 9 billion people on the planet and we all have our own systems.