Okay; after a week of voting (and accidentally blowing up on @/thebibliosphere's blog), we have a total of 226 votes, with 83% saying that they did not have a readmore, and 16% saying that they did. "Having your tumblr post stolen" is already a pretty niche community compared to how most people use tumblr (shoutout to the lurkers who only ever reblog!!!), and honestly I was mostly intending on keeping this data gathering scheme somewhat within our own niche fandom space for the sake of gathering information to benefit us. Still, there's no crying over spilt milk/it doesn't matter all that much anyway/we roll with good fortune/etc etc.
Before blowing up, we (dp x dc blog readers and dp x dc bloggers vaguely in my tumblr circle) had about approximately 2/3rds had no readmore and 1/3 had a readmore stats, which is a pretty heavy standard compared to the more standardized results we have now from people outside our fandom space. My previous theory was based on the idea that the bots scraping our posts simply could not open readmores, but my current theory is simply that posts with readmores are less popular, and ergo less likely to get to the top of the tag, which is something I had basically always known in the back of my head and considered as a possibility when writing. I didn't think it would be practical knowledge outside of post formatting, but whatever. You live and you learn.
Here's what I am thinking is (probably) true.
We're all fairly certain that the people who are stealing these works are going directly into the tags and grabbing the stuff that tumblr algorithmically decided to be at the top of the tag. This is based off of popularity metrics (likes, reblogs, etc.)
Based on this, several of these tiktok posters likely have tumblr accounts. If they are opening readmores, that's a lot of post to scroll on, and at a certain point, those posts otherwise start yelling at you to not be able to read it without one. It's possible that not all of them do, and most of the posts taken were likely small enough not to trigger the tumblr filter that demands an account to read, but if this process has even a little human oversight, that gives people a lot of leeway on copying text into their junky AI voice generator.
This is, at least for us, (sorry other communities caught in the wake of this post) a problem based in "DC fandom" on tiktok. None of my Phantom based posts blow up on tiktok, and I'm betting that it's mainly because this fandom is over a decade and a half old and understands how to be normal about fanworks. (Or maybe they just don't like me idk lmao.) It's always my crossover or specifically DC based works that get ripped. The DC fandom there is big, enthusiastic, and worse, relatively new-- which means that they seem to lack a lot of common fandom etiquette that people who don't participate in fandom labor and fandom creation genuinely don't understand...and that etiquette doesn't flourish on tiktok, as a video-based medium that made its entire popularity off the back of using other people's music.
This is a flagrant attempt to make money off of your work. These people who posts on these bot accounts are aware that they are doing something wrong, because stukkoo_oo on Tiktok purposefully and knowingly blocked my same-name tiktok account after taking my post-- and based on what @stealingyourbones told me, probably blocked theirs too. They are not fans. They do not like you. You are a tool in the tiktok machine, either as a "content creator" or "content consumer", and your earnest effort and willingness to participate (or lack thereof) does not matter to them.
So...*sigh*. What do we do?
No idea. Bones has thrown a couple of ideas around with me but at the moment, this blog is locked down to prevent my posts from showing in searches, but that's a me thing. I hate this and I want everyone on tiktok to get a clue and realize they're driving all their fan creators to patreon out of desperation.
What I am thinking, thus far, is:
None of the posts that I, personally, have had stolen, were short enough to fit in a tiktok. Having a readmore there helped.
None of the posts that I, personally, have had stolen, had any of my "fully published" gimmicks: a title, a picture, a credit to the site where I got the picture, trigger warnings, a summary, tags I thought were applicable...stuff that delay getting to the good part.
What I do not want, and what I think is happening, is that increasingly, fandom tumblr is becoming the workhorse for a tiktok monetary industry that is profiting off of us.
Here's your reminder that fandom is not a spectator sport. It is not free. This is a gift economy. You pay for the things you love in comments, kudos, likes, reblogs, making your own fanworks of their fanworks, conversation, recommending works to other fans, shooting the shit, filling prompts...these are the hallmarks of a functioning fan community. When you take someone's work and repost it somewhere, especially without telling the op that there's something out there with their username on it, that's completely cutting your fellow fan out of the conversation that they started. Not only is that not cool, but you wind up shooting yourself in the foot when they stop making stuff because no one is talking to them!
There's nothing wrong with admiring a prolific fan artist or fan author or fan composer or meta analyst who is participating in community efforts out of the love in their heart, but once you start viewing them as a "creator" over "fellow fan you can politely interact with on their terms, the way you would anyone else", something has gone wrong.
Anyway. I am deeply against the commodification of fanworks that these stolen posts represent and which tiktok's monetary algorithm supports.
