I’m an animation student just wrapping up co-op and what stuck with me, the director of hilda told us, do not engage with the fandoms. She told us to not do everything you’re saying indie creators do and we went into talking about examples and how it’s just not worth it for your own mental health but it’s also not professional, it doesn’t look good

i love interacting with people who enjoy my stuff, but i try SO HARD to show im not some guy to worship and im just some guy, along with letting them know that HEY, i am NOT your friend
absolutely hate when people are parasocial towards me cause of my videos😭

I HATE when creators constantly interact with the fan base, it always ends up with non-canon things being brought up and decided canon and people always end up getting harassed for disagreeing or having head-canons that contradict what the creator says

I was just THINKING about this omg!!! I was like everyone talks about parasocial fans but no one talks about parasocial creators !!! It's honestly getting more common

As someone who's started publicly singing and songwriting on tiktok and has overall been creating for over 10 years, the WORST thing you could possibly do is argue with people who dislike your or your craft publicly. People online are the most despicable beings who too easily get parasocial, and the only way to combat that is to stop yourself from engaging in it. I honestly think more creators should set boundaries for themselves about getting online, because getting too involved in what people say good or bad about your or your art will lead them into getting too involved with you.

if I ever become a bigger indie creator on my own original series, I most likely will not interact with the fans let alone make a official community discord. I might do what Toby Fox when it come to his creation, just drop info about progress and what to expect. I could make a page about the characters, but will not go into full details in a Q&A.

I don't mind people liking my work and interacting my stuff, but I might have to give a heavy boundaries for others. I don't like the idea of parasocial people being toxic with creators. I'm not someone to worship, I'm a person that like to create stuff.

Man one of my biggest fears is unhealthy parasocial relationships. Like the idea of a legion people with Annie Wilkes levels of attachment to something I potentially make terrifies me beyond compare and with my general lack of social media I feel like I’d be so bad at handling anything lol. There’s probably ways to go about it right but I’m okay with the worlds I make being put out just for me.

blaming COVID for everything the internet has become right now is totally valid tbh. that whole thing is what inverted the roles of real life and the internet. before, the internet was an escape from real life. now, real life is an escape from the internet

This is the first video about parasocial stuff from the creators side I’ve seen, and it highlights how this issues isn’t just one dimensional as people may think, cool video from an interesting perspective

This actually sums up a lot of what Thomas Astruc is doing wrong, for an example I’ve experienced. People were really captivated by Miraculous Ladybug, but Astruc takes even the mildest good-faith criticisms or the most innocent questions and is very dismissive of them. “YOU don’t understand my art, therefore YOU can’t criticize it.”

Don’t be like Thomas Astruc. Be like Toby Fox. Bro basically only ever communicates with the fandom in newsletters and to share development tidbits pertaining to recent Deltarune chapters. Your life will be so much better for it.

Best rule is: interact but do not talk about the thing you are working on. Give yourself an NDA to not talk about plot or characters at all, not even for interviews.

Hey Siri
🤖: Yes king?
Call all my friends
🤖: ERROR: no friend detected
I mean my pawns
🤖: Understood king. Calling 8 billions people…
Checkmate.

I really understand why indie creators take comments on their work very personally and I know I would do the same in their shoes.
It’s hard to judge but at the same time it’s annoying to have the creator of a work instantly shoot down theories and au’s people make because they truly love the creators work.

This is so true. 😭 I do think indie creators do need a pr team or some internet training. I feel bad for them but it does comes to a certain point that you need strict boundaries for your own sanity. Maybe they should limit their interactions with fans to like panels and for those just want to talk about ocs, keep it strictly to a few posts and not engage with comments for a while.

Man, all I know is that I'd interact with my future series' fanbase from either a distance or mad far from them. Prolly would step in to check some bigots but that's about it

If the Steven Universe fandom taught me anything: Remember that whenever people don't understand your stories at first, don't like your canon OC ships, got the wrong idea from your plot, etc. that is basically their fanon view of your canon material. At the end of the day, you are literally the creator and your story, ships, messages, etc. is the canon version of it and you get to choose whether something is canon or not. What the fandom does or interprets doesn't affect canon unless you let it get to you. The exceptions in which you do need to listen to fans is when, for example, if something in your work is rightfully criticized for major writing issues such as accidentally enabling harmful stereotypes, portraying a topic in poor taste, etc. and will need to be rewritten or addressed properly.

I'm just gonna put this out there right here and right now because I'm trying to be an indie creator and an animator and I don't wanna end up like Gooseworx or CoryXKenshin.
- My viewers aren't my friends
- I don't owe anyone anything (that being making a ship canon, finishing a video or episode more frequently, etc.)
- If I make a joke about a ship or like a post of ship art or just anything non canon, no that doesn't fkn mean it's canon now it just means I like it. I didn't write what I didn't write.
- I will never confirm things outside of my story. If I didn't write it while the story was running, it didn't belong.
- I'm just a guy. Please don't put me on any type of pedestal.

And I might just pull a Toby Fox and like literally never post about my story unless I randomly feel like it

Honestly every time I see a indie creator get way too into their fanbase it ends up toxic towards criticism (TADC, Helluvaverse, Miraculous) and create a cycle of toxic positivity and toxic negativity.

Finally someone said it thank you bro. Ts genuinely pmo. Like what do you mean you blame everything on the fandom when you are THROWING GASOLINE ON THE FIRE-

7:45 THIS IS SO REAL. When I was watching indie shows, I thought: "how could we know??" just because we saw like two hints and it just felt like the creator was putting their own headcanons on something that they could have confirmed clearly in the show because it's literally their show