Sooner we call this out the more aware we are of it when we buy things 💰... by Nick Fox

This is why I've tried so hard to fight vs my completionist tendencies and to instead focus more on how much I personally enjoy individual characters. Collections shouldn't be investments. They should be momentoes of things you enjoy.

I would love to talk about this (lol). I think this is actually a problem in many fandoms, but I see it a lot here.

For those unfamiliar with the term, it's from economics, and it's when output intentionally doesn't meet demand in order to drive up prices, or when a feeling of scarcity is manufactured to drive interest/purchases. But from a consumer or personal perspective, it's often used to described the feeling of there not being enough to go around, not being enough for everyone. And it's often designed that way, by companies -- by creating an artificial sense of limited availability, you make people try harder to get it or want it more (like when a website tells you "only 2 left!" or the entire diamond industry). Especially when there actually is enough of something to go around.

But what I mean with the term is more about that feeling. It's easy to get stuck thinking there isn't room for everyone in fandom (or in other areas of life) if you see someone already doing something, or someone already talking about that topic, or someone already drawing art of that thing. To think there's only a need/desire or room for one of that thing, from one person's perspective.

But fandom works in the complete opposite way of a capitalist economy (where artificial scarcity is part of the system, and drives up prices -- it's good if there's less of something that's in demand, or even if there only seems to be less of something, because then it's more coveted, so people will buy it; it also drives wages down).

Fandom is, as I said, the opposite. We want more. We always want more. Fans always want more stories, more art, more fic, more moodboards, more gifs, more more more. Everyone involved wants more. Because we love that thing. In fandom the idea of one of something being enough, or of everyone wanting the same version of one thing, is so foreign as to be meaningless. Tropes exist because people enjoy them, over and over and over again. AUs exist because people enjoy them. There will always be fans who like every variety of fic or art because we all have different preferences and interests and things we like. And there are so many of us! The audience is ever-changing and shifting and huge. We overlap in many ways but we also differ, which means there is so much room here for creation.

We have to switch our brains from scarcity mode to abundance mode, in fandom. Because that's really what fandom is about -- sharing in abundance. There will always be someone absolutely delighted that you wrote another version of that trope or that AU or that setting or that event with that character. Every author puts their own spin on it and that is just absolutely beautiful. (plagiarism aside)

I think this is often the root of why it's so easy to feel insecure, as a writer or artist in fandom. Because in the economic systems we live in, we're used to looking around and saying, well if someone already did it, is there even room for me? We have to learn to look at that question in the complete opposite way. Because the room in fandom is endless. There are no bounds. There is an endless ocean of creativity in front of us and a horde of people behind us who are craving stories and art about this thing.