Hey guys, this is another RANT rant where some parts may not make sense because I'm essentially going to be doing a brain dump about some things that have been on my mind essentially since Havoc won a Watty last year. It's obvious that my account has grown pretty exponentially in those 4 months. I've gained 2 thousand more followers, had a HUGE influx of new readers, and reached some pretty huge milestones in my stories.
The weird thing is that I haven't changed anything. I haven't published a new fic in over a year, I haven't changed fandoms or hopped on a bandwagon for a popular love interest/fandom, etc. I think most of it comes from the revival of the TMR fandom and TikTok. I'll just sit here and suddenly I'm already at 15.3k when I just reached 15k earlier this month???
It feels like this
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I've noticed that so much growth in such a short period of time has shaken things up quite a bit. There was no adjustment period; it's just been very rapid growth with no time for me to really absorb wtf is going on. And I've also noticed that people have started to treat me less and less like a person.
Let me explain. When you see an account on here with a few followers, you tend to see them as more down-to-earth and humble; they're like "one of you". But as an account grows either in reads, follower count, or both, you start to see less and less of a connection between their account/their work and them.
For example, if you see a book that doesn't have a lot of reads, you're more likely to talk to the author directly in your comments, like "You've done a great job with this!" or something of the sort. I can't tell you how many comments I've gotten on Different (my most popular book by far) where people talk about me as if I'm not even there. Someone was like "Ew please don't tell me she likes Teresa." Like ???? I'M RIGHT HERE!! So I responded, "Yes, 'she' does." People look at the read count and assume I won't see what they say, so they're more likely to say things they wouldn't normally say if they knew the author was reading their comments.
Another thing that comes with a large follower account is a new set of expectations. People start to see me as a role model, and while that makes me feel pretty honored that people see me in such a regard, it also is intimidating. I become afraid to be negative, make mistakes, or behave like I normally would because I feel like I have to maintain this image of who people expect me to be. That's why you'll usually see me acting more like myself in this book or my author's notes. My profile is usually where I tend to talk in a certain way because I'm hyperaware of the fact that everyone can see what I'm saying and that's where they go to decide whether they want to follow me or not.
