silwritersguild | Jun. 2nd, 2024

Comments and feedback provoke strong emotions throughout fanworks-centered fandoms. Creators wonder how to increase feedback from their readers/viewers and can assign a lot of meaning to feedback—especially a lack of feedback. On the other side, readers and viewers of fanworks have their own reasons for leaving—or most often, not leaving—feedback on a particular work, which can also generate strong emotions, in part due to social norms around comments and feedback that can leave what is intended as a simple act of appreciation feeling fraught.

Fandom Voices is a project that is a part of our monthly fan studies column, Cultus Dispatches, that seeks to record and collect the experiences of Tolkien fans around a variety of topics. As Cultus Dispatches prepares to dive into commenting and feedback over the next few months, we want to hear from people who create fanworks or read and view them about their experiences giving and receiving comments and feedback. If you create Tolkien-based fanworks or read/view them, you are eligible to participate! Responses will form the basis of an upcoming Cultus Dispatches column and will be collected on our site. You can receive attribution for your response or remain anonymous.

You can contribute a response to our current Fandom Voices collection on commenting and feedback here.