Meaning of Kudos

[littlemousling]

Poll #10088 Meaning of Kudos

This poll is anonymous.
Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 369

When I click the Kudos button, it most often means (one or more of) the following:

View Answers

Good job!
261 (70.7%)

I liked this!
339 (91.9%)

I finished this and didn't hate it!
60 (16.3%)

I ADORED this!
204 (55.3%)

I like clicking buttons and assign no meaning!
4 (1.1%)

None of these options apply
6 (1.6%)

This is a sort of follow-up to bethbethbeth's great Kudos/Comments poll here. There are a number of comments there discussing the various reasons people click the Kudos button, some of which may be more common reasons than others.

Feel free to expand on your answer!

Comments

[juno_magic]

I don't like the term "Kudos", so I rarely click that button. But if I do click like/+/♥ buttons, it's usually because I liked something but can't quite say anything useful.

[littlemousling]

You are meeee! Sometimes I don't quite manage to comment on adored things for various life reasons (most common: because I am reading on my phone and typing is a hassle), but that's definitely the way I conceptualize it.

[dancing_serpent]

I chose "None of these options apply" because I don't leave kudos. That word got stripped of any positive meaning for me back in the late 90ies/early 20**s - I was part of a group of authors then who constantly misused it. It got so popular that people started using it for pretty much everything, even as greetings. Got really annoying, really fast and now only carries memories of irritation for me.

[croissantkatie]

Sometimes, I get rather overwhelmed by stories and just don't know what to say. I find kudos really helpful in those situations because it allows me to go YES \o/ AWESOME without having to struggle to find words. I personally love getting notification of kudos. It might be a small thing but it sure makes me feel pretty amazing.

[cypher]

I leave kudos on pretty much everything that I read and enjoy. Then I will also leave a comment if I have something more specific to say -- if I want to call out some turn of phrase or if they made me think about characterization differently or...basically, if my response to the story was more complicated than just "yay!"

And I love getting kudos, as a writer; I tend to assume when the email its my inbox that the reader has just had that experience with my fic. They read it, they feel good about reading it, they want me to know they feel good about reading it. Yay!

[turlough]

I don't use kudos. If I like a story enough to finish it I will leave a comment. (ETA: And include it in my weekly rec post.) It might be just one or two words or it might be several paragraphs, all depending on how much I liked it and how well my brain-to-English translator is working at the moment. I trained myself to always leave comments when I became active in fanfic fandom back in 2004/2005 so only leaving kudos would feel like I'm cheating.

[iulia_linnea]

I like the Kudos button and use it as a way of letting a creator know I enjoyed her work; sometimes, I can't think of anything to say in comments, so it's nice to have a way of letting a creator know that I appreciated her efforts without having to comment.

someone liked something I did

[jenna_thorn]

Plus plus! I'm joyful when I get the email that lets me know that a guest has left kudos, because it says, "Hey, someone's reading your HP fic from forever ago!" or "Hey, someone giggled at the SG:A John with tentacles and Rodney being inappropriate" fic or whichever.

I have a little happy chair dance just for that.

Especially if I've not posted anything recently; it's a no-obligation (on anyone's part) reminder that a year ago I wrote something funny, and it's still considered by someone as being worth reading.

[musyc]

I leave a comment if a story really struck me somehow, or I have more to say beyond a basic "this was a fic, yay for fic" sort of enjoyment. I scatter kudos like dandelions in spring, but I often can't formulate a comment.

And a secondary reason that I don't see a lot of people making, so maybe it's just me. I don't want to start a dialogue. I don't want to "make friends" or whatever. I want to tell an author "I liked this" and yay, that's it. Like applauding the actors at the end of the play, great job, thanks for the work, now where did I park, who wants to get dinner? Maybe, maybe if I find myself going through an author's entire backlist and I put them on alert and their stuff is just that awesome to me, maybe then I'll be interested in waiting at the stage door to say hello in person.

If it weren't for the kudos button, I'd leave less than a quarter of the feedback I do right now, because I'm not dropping a "nice fic" comment. The kudos let me give the feedback without forcing me to risk unknown interaction.

[melusina]

I just went back and reread a bunch of the comments on a series of polls on Feedback that I did on LJ from 2003 to 2006 and it's interesting that at that point, when LJ was still fairly new (and DW and AO3 weren't even glimmers in anyone's eye), there was some sense that LJ comments were "less than" an emailed letter of comment, because the ease of "clicking a button" and leaving a few word response was viewed as an inadequate response to an author's work (hmmm. . sounds familiar!). The more things change. . .

[littlemousling]

That is FASCINATING.

[melannen]

>> Comments SHOULD require sacrifice, in my opinion, something to acknowledge the writer bringing something new into the world. Plus, fandom is a gift economy: the writer made a gift of their story to me, and I make a gift of my appreciation to them. A Kudo just doesn't feel like I'm giving them back anything that shows how much I valued their work.

This is really... not how I think about feedback (and not how I want to think about feedback, either.) If I post a story (or give a gift!) I don't want people to feel like they need to sacrifice in return! A gift is a gift, the joy is in the giving and receiving, it doesn't require repayment - or even thanks. If it starts being about repayment or obligation or sacrifice it stops being fun. If someone wants to freely give back in return, well, that just creates more joy in giving! But whether they do or not, no matter how small or large their gift is, it doesn't change what I (or they) got out of giving in the first place.

[melannen]

+1 so much.

[melannen]

I am definitely with you on the making friends part. The social side of fandom is secondary to the reading/writing part, to me, and I don't want every fic I read to turn into a chain of social obligations - or even a new friend. I don't have the time! Or the energy! I wouldn't any time left to read fic! Which isn't to say I don't want to be friends, just that I need to budget my social output more than that.

[melannen]

And then you go back to 'zine days, where I'm given to understand people felt lucky to get any feedback at all. :D

[melusina]

From the comments to the 2004 poll:

"It only takes a few seconds to click the comment button on LiveJournal, but if someone sends me an email, I get all wibbly and happy. It takes that much more effort, which speaks volumes to me."

Which sounds almost exactly like some of the comments on why comments are superior to Kudos. . .

[musyc]

Chain of social obligations - I think that's a good way to put it. I've been dinged before because I either don't respond to comments or I respond months later. (My pairing-specific archive comments have been sitting there for six months, currently, because I ... god, the thought of responding to them makes me want to eat a box of glass instead. JUST THAT NERVOUS. And there's only so many ways I can say "thanks", in the end.) I love the kudos option, and I love receiving kudos, because it removes that anxiety and that so-called unspoken ~*~duty~*~ to be a "good fan/writer/person". It allows me to write my fics and provide them to people, and allows me to read fics and give that applause, both without the necessity of getting wrapped in a chain I can't carry.

[jiele]

Yes, that.

[jiele]

+1

[sprat]

I love seeing those long flaily comments, too. Right away I know that someone's read my story and connected with it and is still thinking about the characters even after the story has ended. It's immensely flattering and yay-making, and I sometimes save these kinds of comments so I can go back and read them again on days when I need an ego boost.

But I didn't write any of the stories I've written expecting that readers would leave me this kind of feedback (or ANY kind of feedback) after I posted. I don't think that's what "gift economy" means. My definition of the term is kind of the opposite of that, in fact: in a gift economy, we do and make things with NO expectation of getting anything in specific return. Like, I write and edit and labour over stories before I post them because I love the show/source and I love the fandom at large and writing is the thing I have to give. Somebody else might mod a community or record podfic or write software or make macros or, yes, leave feedback-- but they aren't giving these things directly back to me in exchange for my fic. They're giving them to the fandom, out of their own genuine love and desire to give what they have to give.

For me, by definition, there is no obligation in a gift economy. I give what I give freely, out of love, and I get to enjoy the gifts of those around me freely, without expectation, and voila, the fandom flourishes. If you start sticking price tags on things -- even if the price you're asking isn't monetary -- the whole endeavour falls apart. We've seen that played out many times already. Don't you think?

[likeadeuce]

I don't think I've EVER gotten an emailed comment off LJ unless it was from someone I already knew well and would be in contact with. I might be kind of freaked out that a stranger had gone looking for my email address, honestly.

It's definitely a cultural shift!

[jiele]

I love that little button. Comments=social interaction, and most of the time I'm reading to de-stress from things including social interaction, so being able to say "yay!" without the stress is wonderful. If I had the social energy to comment on everything I (finish) reading, that would be nice, but I just don't.

In addition, when I really like a work, it gets a bookmark+rec. Which is about 90% of what I finish reading.

I kind of dislike the word "kudos", probably because it just seems....like a word nobody uses? Idk exactly. I love the ♥ part of the button though.

Oh! But I usually leave comments for people I actually talk to. Which is really only like 2 people. Lol. I think it's because we already have a social-type relationship, so I feel comfortable saying something like "omg ilu u *insert-affectionate-insult-here", as we do in other conversation, without having to worry about how my comment will be perceived.

Though in the case of people I talk to via twitter, if I have something short to say beyond "yay!", I'll probably @-reply them, because it feels more personal.

....so, teal deer:
kudos=stress-free yay!
comment=This was mind-blowing/I actually know you.
bookmark+rec=I read and enjoyed and kudosed.

[qwerty]

hahaha. I remember reading discussions of this nature as well. Every generation has a new lawn that they want people to get off of.

[anatsuno]

I leave Kudos when
- I liked the story & am out of spoons to make words
- I liked the story & am out of social spoons & don't mean to create a possible 'chain of obligation' (re-using terminology from an earlier comment thread in this post)
- I liked it and finished it but w/ caveats, & consequently don't feel like commenting positively while leaving out the caveats (I don't give crit to people unasked anymore, so listing caveats is not something I will do)*
- I'm rereading and already left a comment and don't feel like leaving another
- I'm downloading podfic I haven't yet listened to

I leave comments when
- I liked it and have the energy to say so in words, even non-specific words
- I have something specific to say or gush about
- I'm rereading and haven't left a comment before
- I'm rereading and want to say in words how much I like it, again
- I finally listened to the podfic and want to say thank you / comment on it

What Kudos NEVER means from me
- 'I finished this and didn't like it'
- 'I don't like this enough to tell you so in words'**
- 'I guess you deserve _something_ for all that work/time'(ugh dismissiveness)
- I am adding to your Kudos count bc I know people use that as a rec.
(when I want to rec something I bookmark it and mark it as rec on AO3; I also bookmark it on Pinboard, and I might even rec it someplace else)


* and ** seem related but they're not similar; my unwillingness at a given moment in time to side-step the stuff I didn't enjoy while leaving a positive comment is an inability _of mine_, it doesn't mean that I rationally weigh a story as "deserving of a comment above Kudos". This is NOT a ranking in story value, but a ranking in my own abilities to express myself in a socially acceptable way, and those two things are VERY different.

I feel like I had other things to say but I am running out of articulatedness, apparently. :)

[verselle]

+1 on the not wanting to start a dialogue. I'm not reading fic on AO3 to make friends but to read fic. It's a bit like how I watch television or read a book except I'm given the choice to click ♥ or leave a comment (if I have something more specific to say than just 'I enjoyed this') after I've finished. For me it's about entertainment not socialization.