People following without ever messaging- what's up with this?

[taffy_felice]

I'm not upset by this, but it really confuses me when someone follows my profile without ever sending me a message. I barely write in public but I feel like I get like 3-4 follows a month. It makes me feel like I'm missing something entirely, like are they trying to get me to talk to them first... If you have an explanation for this, I'd love to know, I feel so confused when it happens.

 

[Jericho Z. Barrons]

I don't know other people's reasons. I usually only follow people I like their posts and find them interesting, or if I enjoy talking to them.

However, if they ask me "why? Why you doing that?" it makes me want to unfollow them.

 

[east]

A lot of the time when I'm checking peoples request threads I'm on my phone, and I've had a few rejections because of poor grammar due to typing stuff from a phone. So I will hit the follow button to remind myself that this is a person I want to contact when I get home and I am on the computer proper.

But often times that is hours later, and by the time I sit down to write that introduction they have changed their request thread or they have already found partners. So I'll just keep an eye on them for when something of interest will open back up.

 

[Passion]

Some use following as a bookmark but other than that, following doesn't actually do anything. I usually follow people I am/have RPed with. Other times, I follow to remind myself to possibly contact someone when I'm looking for new RPs again. Usually this is because I saw something on their RT that interested me. Anyway, I would look at it as people possibly interested in RPing with you down the line or they just find you pretty cool.

 

[Amaya Ilyina]

I feel like for a lot of men, an attractive profile picture (and I imagine they do like yours) is enough to follow, like or whatever.

 

[erikaG123]

I don't always have time to add new writing partners if I already have a lot of active stories. But I'll still go through the request threads and see who's out there and what folks are looking to do. If I see someone I think might be a good partner, I'll follow them so they're on my list and when I have time, I'll send a message later.

 

[Tazreale]

I rarely follow folks. Usually if I write with them, but often if they follow me first if I am writing with them then I might follow them back. I dunno much on follow mechanic, besides it showing someone online when you are online?

Other than that, I think other people that followed me might just like the random things I discuss when I do get out of my shell and come into the OOC discussion threads from time to time. Be it random games, literature works, or various media(anime/movies/shows.)

I dunno, I don't really focus/care too much for it. Maybe if I woke up one morning and found triple digits following me out of nowhere I might start to be concerned for whatever I may of done on the site.

 

[taffy_felice]

Thanks for people who responded, I never really thought of it as a way to bookmark potential partners

 

[Fruit]

I primarily follow friends. I also follow people as a way of bookmarking them as potential partners if I didn't want to message them immediately but wanted to keep them saved for later. People started getting sensitive about being followed so I started bookmarking RTs instead.

 

[Sync]

I rarely follow others, as it doesn't (so far, on this site) serve any real purpose. I'm also often surprised when others decide to follow me.

As far as setting reminders for any potential future partners go - to me, that's what bookmarks are for.

 

[Sadiah]

I was a bit bewildered when this happened to me as well, but someone who did it messaged me a day later. When I asked why they had followed me they said it was because they were on their phone and wanted to have a way to remember to message me later.

Totally understandable.

I still haven't figured out why people do it and never message me though!

 

[Occam's Razor]

I still haven't figured out why people do it and never message me though!

Same here. I've had one person follow (then obviously delete it, so I'd get the alert again on subsequent adds and what; maybe message them?) twice in two days and three times in total within a few weeks; all directly after I'd bumped my thread.

That only makes me less, not more, inclined to initiate contact, which I make a point of leaving to the person doing the following anyway.

The only people I follow are established friends and, to be blunt, the only followers I want are established friends!

 

[Chalarm]

I know when I used to do this it was in the manner of bookmarking potential partners to contact later. Sometimes I would see a request thread that I had an interest in but no time to write a reply at that time or because I didn't have any openings for new RPs but wanted to remember the request thread.

I've stopped doing it since because I often never got around to replying or I never saw the thread bumped again. Plus the amount of request threads that I had an interest in were beyond any ability to respond to all of them.

 

[Jericho Z. Barrons]

Same here. I've had one person follow (then obviously delete it, so I'd get the alert again on subsequent adds and what; maybe message them?) twice in two days and three times in total within a few weeks; all directly after I'd bumped my thread.

That only makes me less, not more, inclined to initiate contact, which I make a point of leaving to the person doing the following anyway.

The only people I follow are established friends and, to be blunt, the only followers I want are established friends!

....that sounds a bit like harassment? I dunno. If someone kept following and unfollowing me and never sent me a message, I'd ask them to stop and to NOT message me ever. Then I'd put them on ignore and let a mod know, in a conversational PM, what has happened. That just seems like a subtly aggressive way to manipulate someone else because you know they get an alert every time you follow them.

 

[glitch]

also jumping on the "i do this because i like the user's search threads and/or they seem neat/we'd jive well together."
usually i do it when i like some of their plot points, but i don't have a muse for it at that exact moment in time? it's sort of a struggle, especially with original rps, since the only characters i use are developed ones, not made-for-that-rp characters. so it helps to catalog incase i come up with a future character and then look back at the people i've liked like, "oh, hey, i've got just the gal/guy for this now!"

/shrug
different strokes for different folks!

i definitely think spamming the follow/unfollow button to try and get someone's attention is a dick thing to do. conversations are a still a thing, even if you're online. like dang. go touch some grass and maybe you'll remember what being a human is like? heck.

 

[Occam's Razor]

....that sounds a bit like harassment? I dunno. If someone kept following and unfollowing me and never sent me a message, I'd ask them to stop and to NOT message me ever. Then I'd put them on ignore and let a mod know, in a conversational PM, what has happened. That just seems like a subtly aggressive way to manipulate someone else because you know they get an alert every time you follow them.

It could be construed that way by some, but in my case, I don't feel threatened or harassed. If anything, I find it strangely amusing.

 

[Breezi]

I get it but it still bothers me because most of them have never messaged me and it makes me wonder if they even check in from time to time. I get paranoid also like what if something I did threw them off? What if they saw something about me and now don't want to RP with me?

 

[Maze]

I don't mind people following me. I think it's pretty cool. I'm not bothered if they message me or not. Maybe, as others have mentioned, it's a bookmark type of deal which is fine by me. They can message me whenever or not, all good. I follow for interesting things people have said or common interests, etc.

 

[MaxMax]

I was using “follow” feature to essentially mark people who I would like to approach in future, but didn’t have time at the moment.

In most cases.I would then unfollow them, which was probably sending completely confusing message

I then discovered that there is a bookmark feature, and realised that using follow was stupid

 

[Lydia]

In our social media/following-heavy world I try not to make assumptions about why anyone uses the follow feature. Sometimes people follow everyone they find remotely interesting, sometimes people follow no one at all.

Personally, I’ll go on following sprees then forget about it forever, realize I’m not following people I love, go on another spree, rinse and repeat. I think it’s a very useful feature, but I don’t attach any particular meaning to it.

 

[ƒeral]

I follow people whose work I want to read in my newsfeed. Sometimes it even come down to I just really like their graphics. XD

I also follow people I've never spoken to. For me, I'm definitely in the I maybe want to write with them one day camp. I do hope the people I've randomly followed didn't go 'ƒeral wtf' lol.

I often follow people when i don't have enough information to make a judgement call one way or another yet, and I never message people first and ask for writing samples; that just feels rude to me. So it's kind if a wait and see?

I also often follow people when I'm overloaded on rps, but want to follow stalk their work for a bit and see if it's something I want to add to my plate when it clears off somewhat.

I'm sure I've also confused people with how I follow then unfollow. Mostly that happens when I either (1) hit follow on accident on my phone. The button is kind of in an easy to accidentally hit spot. Or (2) realized I'm way too busy in the indefinite future to try to approach 'em.

So you know, I would certainly hope nobody's reading too much into it. It's just a handydandy feature for those of us that have too many RPs and limited attention spans.