Flickr members (and probably those of other photo sharing social communities as well) are addicted to faves. We want that our pictures are appreciated. We want to be faved. We want to be loved. Pleaaase....!!!
And because we count our love in numbers there are these very special people that apply very special tricks in order to gain more faves (and feel more loved or important or what....??). The more people you follow, the more follow you, the more faves you get. That's probably the train of thought. And so some of these individuals easily gather 50.000 people they follow. Great. And very personal. Or at least you could fave randomly. Don't care if you really like the pic, but fave it and you will be faved back. And in addition you could post your picture to 150 (well, better 180) Flickr groups that you have never visited before and where you would never ever fave any picture of any other poor fave craving Flickerista. And there are these interesting people who only fave you after you have faved a picture of theirs. Reciprocal limited love you might call this. And then the ones that appeal to their followers: "Please fave me...!" "On Flickr and as you are just doing it anyway please carry on on my 500px, Instagram, Tumblr, Facebook and Twitter account!" And the crown of Favomania is to gauge the Flickr Explore algorithm and to post a picture that you guess meets all criteria for being explored. The pinnacle of sophistication!
Well - we are all so inventive when it comes to being faved. And of course everybody knows that the number of faves is not to the least in any way any kind of representation of the quality of the work that we display. There are wonderful artistic works out there with 17 faves (or less) and many 130+ pics are artistically - well - just crap.
So why the hell do we want it? Probably because we are little innocent children that want others in our sandpit to tell us that our little sandcastle is the nicest in the whole wide world.
And the emancipation process takes a while. And it hurts. Because when you realise that you are fave addicted and that you want to get off this addiction and if you change your behaviour, your fave numbers drop. I know it. I did it. I stopped reposting my pictures. I am limiting my group postings to 15. And I am posting pictures because of artistic reasons knowing that fave numbers will be low. I went on turkey. And I am trying to regain my pride.
Greetings. From the sandpit. From addict to addict. From artist to artist.