Don't Like, Don't Read!

You've all seen it, at the tail of that one fic's summary. The author will not suffer your bullshit and is telling you to shove off.

Why, oh why, did someone come up with this label? Is FFNET the only fan fiction site with this mentality, I've never seen it on Archive, or any other fan fiction lists that I've skimmed.

• Not a thread to post links to fics that use it, but a place to discuss the usage of the phrase/label in general.
• Arguments for and against the usage of the phrase.
• Interpretations of the phrase.

edited 1st Jul '14 1:43:25 PM by FOFD

It's quite common to any site that stockpiles bad fiction, and I've seen it on all of the major fanfiction sites and many of the minor ones. It's also bluntly stupid. Putting up your work in public is inviting the public to look at it, including the ones who don't like it and feel the need to mock it. That's publishing. If you don't want to cope with it, don't publish your work for anyone.

edited 1st Jul '14 11:36:11 AM by Night

Yeah...the thing is that on some sites (AO 3 comes to mind), just seeing the summary and/or tags is enough to elicit a "why would you write that?" reaction. You don't even have to click it - it's just shoved in your face regardless.

I guess the mentality is something like "if you don't like pairing A, why'd you click on a fic about it?" That makes some sense, but most people just use it as an excuse to complain about reviews that aren't glowing praise.

edited 1st Jul '14 11:44:47 AM by SapphireBlue

I'm going to have to go in favor of the tag. I am well aware that I write very niche stuff, but I also make no illusions about what I'm doing, so I feel that anyone who comes along and trashes has no ground to stand on because they were fully aware of what they were about to read.

Example: I have a work that I've let wither, wherein I took the story of Gundam Wing and novelized it.....replacing every character from Gundam Wing with one (or more) characters from Love Hina/Negima. I made this clear from the very beginning and yet someone felt compelled to show up and trash me beause of it.

Because you can still do that premise wrong. Because criticism of a premise is in itself still valid criticism.

Not criticism.

Also not relevant.

If you don't like the premise, you can still make a reasoned argument as to why you don't like it, and indeed even why it might be objectively bad.

You're missing the point.

That was some shithead's review on it.

So completely relevant.

edited 1st Jul '14 1:04:30 PM by Cganale

You're also missing the point. They can leave that review if they want. You gave them the opportunity when you published. Their opinion is valid (though less valid than if they were capable of a reasoned objection), and they may express it because publication gives them access to the work and access to a means to talk about it.

If you can't stand the idiots, you should never make your work available to them. The price of the good that comes with public exposure is the acceptance that the public is not required to be kind or intelligent. You have no rights to control public reaction to your work once it is given over to them.

edited 1st Jul '14 1:10:43 PM by Night

Do you like working your ass off for nothing but harsh words?

Some people might think it's pointless to even bother publishing if all they ever get are flames.

edited 1st Jul '14 1:19:12 PM by amitakartok

So it's suddenly changed from "criticism is valid even if you don't like it" to "opinions are valid even if you don't like them." Excellent example of moving the goalposts.

Be that as it may, we're just going to have to stay in our own little corners of the interweb because there's no reconciling this, clearly.

In theory, "don't like, don't read" is supposed to mean "if you don't like the premise, don't read the story and then leave a review complaining about how much you hate the premise".

For example: "[Pairing A] sucks. [Pairing B] is way better", or perhaps even "What kind of sick, twisted freak would write a Gears of War / Teletubbies crossover?"

Though the latter is, admittedly, a very good question.

While someone might make a very good argument of why your premise sucks, most of the time I agree with the authors in this case: don't bother reading it if you know you're going to hate it. It wastes both you and the author's time.

edited 1st Jul '14 4:11:30 PM by Unknownlight

I think a lot of it hinges on the wording. 'Don't like don't read!' is admittedly petulant-sounding and harsh, but wording it like 'Not for fans of Character X or Couple This/That or Those with Sensible Stomachs' is perfectly valid and basically says the same thing.

edited 1st Jul '14 6:38:13 PM by NapoleonDeCheese

Are we reading about the gruesome slaughter of the teletubby invaders?

Personally, to me it sounds petulant. It already goes without saying that readers shouldn't spend time on a premise they disagree with. But usually if I see something like that, it means the author is not open to well-meaning criticism. I've actually been blocked by an author on ff.net for ''daring'' to point out a few typos. Because clearly that means I didn't like the fic.

It should go without saying, yes, although I've apparently been on the good end of Sturgeon's Law a few times regarding specific premises (i.e. I don't like X but this is really good!), so it doesn't always. That said, if someone isn't dissuaded from reading a story by its premise despite inherently not liking it, I doubt a Don't Like? Don't Read! tag will do anything useful.

There are some instances where Don't Like? Don't Read! genuinely applies. I once read a fanfic that I disliked for a whole host of reasons. Just as I was heading to the comments section to write my scathing review, I realised that all those points were clearly hinted at in the description; I could have known going in that I wasn't going to like the story. In that light, criticising it felt a bit pointless.

However, it's used far, far more often by stubborn authors as an excuse to ignore any and all criticism. "The characterisation on your OC is poor"? Don't Like, Don't Read! "You really should make your paragraphs shorter; it's a pain to read this way"? Don't Like, Don't Read! "This plot event makes no sense; why don't they Just Eat Gilligan?" Don't Like, Don't Read!

The criterion for whether DLDR applies is how fundamental the aspect you're criticising is to the story. Only when the story's most basic premises are under fire, the DLDR defence is justified; for all other aspects it translates to "I'm too lazy, stubborn, and/or conceited to properly respond to your criticism."

Personally?

I belive that people are allowed to dislike stuff. So, I do indeed believe Don't Like? Don't Read! to be an invalid defense.

Saying "Don't Like Don't Read" fails at a basic level because when you're making your work public, you're writing it for someone else. A lot of people like to say that they write it for themselves or that they write because it's fun, and I understand that, 'cause it is fun and liberating and whatever the hell you want it to be, but in that case... why are you posting your work online for other people to see it?

When you post a story in Fanfiction dot Net, you're opening your story for everyone to see and criticise (and if anyone could correct my spelling on that I'd be thankful) it, you're opening yourself to the possibility that people will call you a sick freak for writing a story in which a pony makes cupcakes from another pony.

The person who doesn't like your fic already won't go on reading it anyway. It's pointless to say it. There are few masochists that force themselves through a story they hate for the sake of comedy (which is why people who slog through Twilight to properly mock the hell out of it like the Das_Sporking thing are so generally well liked). If the person dislikes the premise, then it's as simple as that. You can't even complain, because they clearly cared enough to actually give it a chance. Otherwise they wouldn't have clicked on it and taken the time to leave a review.

So be happy with that.

What's really grating is when dumb writers use Don't Like? Don't Read! to defend themselves from constructive criticism and from criticism that's not about their ideas or the like, but rather about grammar, punctuation and formatting.

edited 20th Jul '14 12:18:44 PM by IAmNotCreativeEnough

DL/DR is only applicable to plot and character relationships and such that are available in the description. It's in the description before you started reading it; it's your own damn fault for starting it. books come with a short synopsis at the back or inside cover. it's the same thing.

Hell, if they warn you up front that they have a superpowered main character, don't complain when you read 5 chapters in and the main character's superpowered. A reader does have the responsibility to, you know, have some reading comprehension.

anything that wasn't covered in the description, like bad grammar, pacing, mary sues, idiot balls, etc. are fair criticisms.

edited 21st Jul '14 7:33:46 AM by willyolio

I liked how Unwinders Tall Comics handled it. Unwinder posted a bunch of negative comments under Felicity's webcomic. Felicity replied "This comic isn't for you." Unwinder shot back, "If you don't like my criticism, you don't have to read it."

I wouldn't go quite that far. It's entirely possible to write a story that's meant to appeal to a certain niche of readers, and if it's made clear from the beginning, it's a waste of time for somebody slam a story for the sole reason that they aren't in that niche.

For example, say I write a shipping story about X/Y, and it's clearly labelled as such in the description. Somebody leaves a comment complaining that X/Y is a stupid pairing and the story sucks because it should've been about X/Z instead. Simply put, such a comment does nothing but waste everyone's time because it's purely subjective. Now, the commenter has every right to have that opinion and to dislike the pairing, but that opinion shouldn't be framed up as actual criticism unless they give some sort of reason why the pairing doesn't work in the context of the fic.

The reason for this is that the comment isn't really about the story anyway; it's about the pairing. Unless the commenter has something to say about the story itself, comments about the premise are pointless. They're fully entitled to have an opinion, of course, but that doesn't mean that they should be douchebags about it. And yes, I think that leaving such comments is douchebaggy, because it essentially boils down to "Your story sucks because you wrote it about what you wanted to write about instead of what I wanted you to write about." Invoking DLDR in that case isn't a shield against criticism because such comments aren't criticism at all; they're just annoying.

It's the literary equivalent of a bunch of vegetarians review-bombing a steakhouse on Yelp because they don't eat meat. They're well within their writes to not eat meat themselves, but not to bother everyone who does eat meat.

That said, in any other circumstance, DLDR is just an excuse for an author to ignore criticism, which is dumb. And I certainly wouldn't use it as a disclaimer outside of trying to avert the situation mentioned above.

I only mentioned that because I think there's a line because "complaining about the subject matter" and "critique". There's a difference between "This story sucks because it's about X" and "This story sucks because it handled X badly". The latter is valid critique. The former is just grumbling.

edited 21st Jul '14 1:01:47 PM by JapaneseTeeth

I facepalm a lot when even professional critics can't get this right. I mean, I recall reading reviews of the Speed Racer movie. Some critics complained about the simple plot, unrealistic physics, and over-saturated colours. What part of "cartoon" do you not understand?

To be fair, the Speed Racer cartoon never went as overboard with the colors as the movie did.

I felt the same way when reading reviews of Pacific Rim I found one review that actually reviewed the movie itself rather than spending most if not all the review complaining about the mecha genre (and that review was from an anime and general Japanese pop culture fandom who was already comfortable with the concept of the mecha genre).

Exactly. A given work can be made for a specific purpose, and complaining that it doesn't fulfill some other purpose. It's like going to watch Blazing Saddles and complaining about a lack of historical accuracy. You can't hold that against the movie because it's obviously not trying to be historically accurate.

I mean, it's obviously not a shield against all criticism, though. But if you're going to criticize a work, you have to criticism the work based on whether it succeeds in being what it was made to be. Criticizing a comedy for being a comedy instead of a drama is dumb. Criticizing a comedy for being a bad comedy is perfectly valid.