I have been thinking abt this. It could be that people are seeking that community feel of excitedly *discussing* with others rather than just leaving a singular reaction, and that's not something people always feel comfortable doing in comment sections.
Reposted from
🌲🏳️🌈MTO 🔞
I think a big fandom shift in interacting with stuff has gone from people commenting under the created thing whether it be fic or art to people linking it in private discord groups where the person who made it will never see any positive comments left on the thing they made.
Comments
People don't often use it for back-and-forth convo (in my experience), unlike discord where people yap back and forth endlessly.
EXAMPLE, on discord, an endless conversation is front and center, whereas on AO3 the comments are kinda buried.
I feel like I've commented more on bsky because they're so visible. 👍
I've only been on Bluesky for about a month, but I agree! Maybe it's bc it feels smaller and less intimidating?
I post a lot of art specifically with an idea I wanna talk about 😅
I've heard a lot of people feel (1) very shy about commenting, and (2) very intimidated by established artists, so that probably contributes to lack of convos.
So, yeah 😅 probably lots of reasons why people end up feeling safer in private discussions on discord, unfortunately. It leaves a lot of artists/writers feeling alone.