I thought I was just getting a bit sentimental yesterday. I will admit, I had a few people in mind when I wrote yesterday's post, but a good chunk of it was to remind myself of what I have to do in order to rebuild a more active environment that is able to sustain itself. This led to some more thoughts on writing, etc.
When I started this blog, I didn't really think at all about target demographics or audience. Back when the original NTCweb was around, I became fully aware at just how strong of a connection there was between fur and Femdom for many, many people, and a significant sub-group of those people were also of the Femdom + fur + Forced feminization variety. Basically, I knew that people existed, I just didn't know how to reach them.
My first 5-10 posts were sort of all over the place. A mix of ideas and fur fetish topics. Soon after I realized that I really didn't understand much about myself. I knew what kinks appealed to me and I understood quite a bit about D/s, but I didn't know why or how the two intertwined in the way that they did. After those initial few posts, I shifted gears a bit. I started writing from a more focused standpoint: Who am I? What am I? Where do these come from? Why do subs like this? Why do Dommes like doing this?
In D/s you'll find several types of blogs. This is a very simplified breakdown, but things start to branch out within each of these categories:
1. Domme / D/s couple blogs.
2. Fetish / Fantasy blogs.
3. sub experience blogs.
4. sub D/s Theory / Philosophy blogs.
Domme and D/s couple blogs tend to draw followers in no matter what. The ones that delve a bit deeper into the subject matter tend to attract greater numbers of followers, but "Today we had lunch and D/s'd" blogs still gather a good number of them. The followers are often other Dommes and loads of subs. I think these blogs are treasures. Very rarely do people get the chance to see into a Domme's mindspace and it's such a rewarding experience to be able to do so.
Fetish / Fantasy blogs that delve in pictures, captions, Femdom art, fetish fiction and the like also draw a huge number of followers. The followers are primarily subs, but the ones that really get into the mind's eye of both parties will draw quite a few Dommes that connect to the fetish as well.
Submissive experience blogs vary widely. The ones that are more "masturbatory" in nature (I like making up words) will usually have quite a few followers. The ones that aren't... vary widely, often depending upon how many comments the author makes on other blogs. I've noticed that most of the followers on these blogs are subs with a handful of Dommes.
Theory / Philsophy blogs, unless they are written by a renowned BDSM author, are a strange egg. D/s ideas composed by Dommes are well-followed. D/s ideas written by subs are all over the place. While the follower count may remain modest, these types of blogs tend to draw the most equal distribution of Dommes and subs. The writing is usually the "least sexy," of the types, but these often open up ideas and avenues we had never considered before.
From my experiences with my early blogs, I was definitely a theory blog and I was receiving more comments from Dommes than subs. While that made me very proud, it also signaled something to me: there just aren't a high percentage of male subs that spend much time thinking about these things. At least 5 of my readers were subs that were ordered to read my blog by their Dommes (this was stated to me via comment or email) and it's doubtful they would have spent much time here without that. That someone was assigned to read here made me very proud and I felt like the quality of comments I was getting from a handful of followers was quite rewarding.
After I started drawing, things got a lot more active. I had started to become a bit more of a Fantasy blog and my reader base quadrupled in a matter of months. These led to different types of comments. Many of them were very supportive. I could tell I was supplying masturbation fodder. I still felt I was terrible at drawing, so it actually made me happy that someone could "get off" to my crappy work. This was the first contact I started to have with that initial group of fur Femdom fetishists that I had envisioned. Many were just happy to see someone doing something that meshed the two together as there haven't been many to focus on that aspect in over 15 years. I've even had a couple of people show up going "Hey, that's me!" in reference to content I re-posted that was no longer around on its original host (Kvaat and Kimberley), this made me happy as well.
While the follower count ballooned, the audience had a different feel. In most cases, to get a Domme to comment on a drawing I had to capture something in the essence of D/s that spoke to them. From subs, it was a mix of feedback, mostly "I like this, please draw more." I also got a handful of "stop drawing _____, draw _____ instead." I catered to a little of both. I had my "churn em out" drawings that were cheap fantasies driven by me (e.g. Humiliation Boutique) and I had my drawings that were more reflective of actual D/s scenarios and held a deeper place in my heart. It was around now that I started to recognize the various demographics that were reading.
I was able to maintain a balance for a while, keeping content available to the people who had been around since the earlier days as well as new material for those brought in by my drawings. Then things started getting rough in my relationship with T and I spent many days feeling uncomfortable and afraid. I stopped writing to people... and started thrashing around blindly, writing out of desperation for human contact, and eventually I fell off the planet.
I don't necessarily think it's a good thing for an author to pigeon-hole themselves into a specific blog type. People generally write what they're comfortable with talking about, and so I'd guess the styles people gravitate towards is more based upon that than feeling like they are supposed to be something. It can also be easier to write when you know what types of things your audience is expecting or seeking as long as those expectations don't trap you.
No comments:
Post a Comment