My rants and criticisms tend to be more popular than my chapters with actual helpful advice. If I can put it in a list, it gets even more popularity. In the vein of giving the people what they want, here are ten kinds of people I've observed on Wattpad. As a word of warning, this list is the personalities. The kind of people and experiences that stick out.
Wattpad has always been as much a social website as it has been a place to put up your writing. You can't have socialization without other people, and Wattpad has a cacophony of interesting people that you'll find yourself having to interact with. Some of them you'll run into as commenters. Some you'll run into only if you visit the forum/clubs.
However, if you do want to dive deep into the personalities that make up Wattpad, here's another list of the top ten most "interesting" people you'll have to encounter. So you know what you'll be getting into, these are the kind of people you're bound to meet if you meander around Wattpad long enough. I'm not saying anyone on this list is "bad", but we'll just say they can be challenging. What kind of people am I talking about?
The Ranter
A Ranter is a person who dedicates a large chunk of their online presence into whining about things that stress them out. Many of them create "rant" books, and many of those books become impressively popular. If you check out the top 100 nonfiction books, I'm betting you a good portion of them are actually rant books.
Some of these rants are political, fighting for or against politicians, identity politics, or some hot issue like abortions, flatearth, vaccines, GMOs.... Others get far more upfront and personal, targeting types of writers on Wattpad. You have the "I hate One Direction" fanfic writers who will often receive their ire. Basically, think of an annoying thing, and you're bound to find a ranter ranting against it.
Shockingly, many ranters are fairly unforgiving about their rants. They can be the type that form hate groups. Their loyal readers who feel better listening to them cuss about the same things they hate, have been known to form mobs and fight or attack others in the name of their so-called rant. A few of the worst ranters let it get to their head and are the ones instigating these hate campaigns themselves. Freedom of speech! F*** yeah!
Of course, not every ranter makes a book. Some just rant in the message boards or rant in some poor guy's comments section. They'll write six-seven comment long essays about why the thing they just encountered pisses them off. They'll be convinced they are the first, if not one of the first, to ever say this thing, thus convincing them they are doing this for the greater good. Their words have to get out there, how else will everyone know that One Direction sucks?
The worst offender of this I found recently. This guy writes some self-help book and he put out a chapter where he singles our personality types on Wattpad (cause all people are alike, I'm sure) and then writes this entire chapter ranting about those personalities. It was truly disgusting. I certainly wouldn't give that guy and/or girl a star.
The 12-Year-Old Girl
Perhaps I shouldn't focus so much on a specific age group. That's agist! In fact, not every girl who fits in this group is necessary 12. Some of them are 13. The point is, I wrote an entire chapter on this one called 'Git Gud' which broke all of this down. That chapter lists out all the common signs of a starting writer with extreme low self-esteem desperately trying to get attention and do things "her way".
The signs are pretty clear. They pump out "books" with six chapters, 300 word long, and don't even capitalize and then spend a long time feeling sorry for themselves when they aren't getting hundreds of followers. They'll often form cliques (yes, I didn't know Wattpad had cliques, but it apparently does), and the girls will all build each other up. It's a feel-good pity party full of excuses, logical fallacy, and narcissism abundant.
If you happen to make one of the girls feel bad, all of her friends will take the time to start harassing/attacking you for "making their friend cry." They are the queens of reactionary behavior. They'll come into a conversation, speak down to people, and then as soon as you try to argue your points they'll fall back on their favorite lines.
You know the lines, I made another chapter on the ten worst comments on Wattpad, and while those comments seem to be approved for all ages, this certain demographic uses them all with extreme precision. You're a mean bully if you try to explain things to them. You're aggressive if you provide evidence. You're "immature" if you get in an argument with them. No! I'm not taking it personally! The 12-year-old girls are being mean to me! There is no winning in a conversation with them, only levels of less losing.
The Beggar
The beggar begs. I don't think much else needs to be said about them. As you grow more popular, you'll run into more of them. They want you to look at their work. They want you to star their chapters. They'll pm you at random asking you to "just glance' at their profile. Notice them, senpai!
Some of them will be real coy about it, filling you up with compliments, but at the end of the day they're really just hoping for one thing. They want people reading, staring, and commenting on their books. However, rather than depending on the Wattpad system to do it for them, they set out to make it happen themselves.
Now, I'm not really going to comment on people who plug in for their books. If it makes sense in a conversation to refer to your book, I'm not calling you a beggar. It's also perfectly fine to ask for help. If you want someone to look at your work, it's okay to ask them.
While there is a section where people advertise for reviews, beta readers, and editors, it's not completely unreasonable that if you find someone whose opinion you respect, you subsequently ask for their opinion on your work. However, to be a beggar, it needs to take it that one step farther. These are the people who don't really care who you are. All they see is a means of getting just a little bit more popularity. If they can just tug on your coattails for a bit and hang there, they will do so.
It's hard to tell the difference between people who genuinely want help and those who just want to milk stars out of people, which is part of the reason beggars are so dastardly. The only real way I've ever been able to sort them out is by playing a little bit of pm tag with them. Someone who is genuinely needing my assistance will answer my questions and talk back with more than one-word replies. A few PMs and you'll quickly figure out who' just looking for stars and who wants genuine feedback.
Typically, a beggar will spam pm people. They won't really know who you are, and they don't really care. They're just looking for stars... and not just that, but stars using the absolute minimum amount of effort that they themselves can manage.
The Crusader
I had thought of many names for this kind of person. For a while, "White Knight" seemed like the best name for them, except that that name has already been hijacked by identity politics to mean something that while similar, didn't seem to quite fit what I've experienced here. "The College Student", "The Enlightened", the "20-year-old who remembers what it's like...", however you want to name them, they're a type of person just old enough to be able to form decent arguments, but still young enough that they've convinced themselves they "get" the young folks.
The thing about this personality type is that they're right at that stage where they start figuring things out, and when they figure things out, they're just young enough to think they're the first person to ever think these thoughts before. They approach the world with a blind optimism that their thoughts are revolutionary and will somehow make the world a better place. They're the kind of people who think we could fix everything if we just did "this". They're the kind of people that argue socialism is great, "in theory".
So why do I call these people Crusaders? It's probably because of how I always end up encountering them. I always end up encountering them on a crusade. They have it all figured out. They peg down every comment, every conversation, every event... and there is no moral grey area in their warpath. One person is right, the other is wrong. They "HAVE" to give their two cents, which often is accompanied by an essay about why they are on the side of the righteous and why all the infidels need to bow down to their logic which is totally scientific and ground in fact, totally, like, they don't even need to check, that's how factual their facts factual factor. A White Knight is about protecting the princess, a Crusader is about getting rid of the nonbelievers in their holy crusade.
The Hater
Some people are just trolls. It's unavoidable. We all like to talk about the haters, but sometimes, they're actually real. The Haters hate, and what they hate depends on the person. Some people just hate one direction. There is no reason. One direction probably didn't run over their dog five years ago. They probably don't even particularly hate One Direction's music. It's just that... someone else loves it... so they must hate it.
Whether it's Star Wars, Star Trek, One Direction, Lord of the Rings, Naruto, 5 Shades of Summer, Bieber, Harry Potter, Twilight, or Hunger Games... someone is absolutely going to hate it. Once in a while, someone who loves it is going to run into the people who hate it.
Haters will do what haters do, take a dump all over the thing you love. Sometimes, haters go out of their way to slam something. They might end up in your comments section leaving something like "Bieber Sucks!" Other times, they'll create passive aggressive threads whining about how much your tastes suck. They won't talk to you, so as far as they're concerned, it's not an attack. Trust me, it still is.
I used an example before. Imagine you are sitting in a classroom reading a book. Let's pick something fairly universally loved, Animal Farm.
Suddenly, you hear a conversation:
"Oh, my God, do you see that girl reading Animal Farm? Animal Farm is garbage. People who read that kind of stuff are just trash.
"I know, right? Animal Farm readers are so stupid, they're just garbage."
You turn to them and angrily reply. "That's really mean, you know?
To which they respond.
"What? We weren't talking about you. We're just talking about Animal Farm. Why do you need to be such an Animal Farm fangirl? It's really sad."
If you can't see it, this is really just another form of bullying. Talking in a public forum is NOT a private conversation, and your conversation isn't impersonal because you didn't specifically the name of a person. That's just an excuse to be a dick. Only Wattpad help book people can get away with that crap, whoever those awful people might be.
The Attention Seeking Pessimist
Not to pick on the younger audiences, but I think this hits a lot of the young teens. These are the people that want this kind of attention. Almost always, this attention comes in the form of depression. You know the guy. They're the one that work admissions of suicidal tendencies and depression into their every day conversations.
They talk on and on about how miserable they are, but at the end of the day, they're bringing their misery to the forums just so they can get people to talk to them, or in the context of Wattpad, glance at their work. A single "Ah, I'm sorry to hear that", and another star on their account seems to be all they want.
In the lighter versions of this, it's someone who laments over their poor Wattpad performance. In a horrific Frankenstein's monster of the Beggar and the Attention seeker, they will use their attention seeking to beg. Woe is them, who don't have ten more followers. How sucky is their life because they wrote a Fan Fiction and no one wants to read it? When Wattpad subscriber meets Goth kid, thus you get the ultimate in pessimist.
The worst cases, of course, are those that talk about suicide. Is this a desperate cry we need to answer to save a life? I think Captain Hindsight will frown at you if you didn't treat it that way after things turn south. That's what makes the attention seekers so nefarious, their desire for attention spreads the doubt to the point that people who actually need the help are afraid to reach out because of attention seekers. They're afraid of being ignored, or worst, being called a fraud.
Shortly before I started my account on Wattpad, my son passed away from SIDS. He was six months old when he died. His birthday is this week. He'd have turned seven. His name was Chase. Some of you may recognize that as the last name of my penname. He is the reason I started writing. Yet, somewhere, deep down, I don't like talking about it too often. I think I've mentioned it maybe twice in this 100-chapter book. In a book about writing, where my biggest motivation was my son's death, that might be strange. Yet, I don't talk about it, because I don't want to be seen as an attention seeker. Because I don't want people's sympathy, not really. It's uncomfortable.
I think you'll find most people who are likely to commit suicide aren't the kind of people to jump on forums and talk about it constantly. I'm not saying they're not depressed, nor am I suggesting they aren't contemplating suicide. Some of them genuinely are at risk and absolutely may do it. Almost every freaking teenager, myself included, contemplated suicide at some point in their teenage years. I'm just saying that if you are depressed and suicidal, there are better places than Wattpad to announce it.
Once again, like I said at the beginning of this list, I'm not saying these ten personalities are "bad". Just that they can be a challenge to interact with.
The Humble Bragger
The humble bragger, ah, is there anyone so humble yet so full of yourself at the same time. I think we've all been guilty of the humble brag from time to time. While I talk about personality types and the kind of people you meet on Wattpad, I think this list sums up single interactions better than an entire person. People aren't characters in a story, and thus they aren't simple. They can be complex and three dimensional, being as they actual exist and have their own brain. Which is to say that anyone can be a hater in the right circumstances, but then be basically normal the rest of the time. A humble bragger isn't always a humble bragger, at least most aren't, but sometimes they'll be the braggart they appear to be.
In social media, you might experience a lot more of them on the likes of facebook. How come your exes always look like they are doing so much better than you? However, they can also permeate Wattpad too. They make you feel worse just by talking about themselves.
I'm sure I've probably made some people on here feel like I'm a humble bragger. I talk about getting over 1000 followers or getting my first book published, and if you haven't crossed any of those milestones, then that seems like bragging. Then for someone who has over 10,000 followers, or a million followers, those seem less like milestones, and more like blips.
I think I fail at it, and I think most people fail at it, but at the end of the day we all need to be a little more conscious on who we're talking to. Success is incredibly relative, and so when you talk too transparently about your success especially to someone still struggling to even get a few regular fans, it can be disheartening. I know I'd be crushed if, after announcing my "self-publish", someone comes up and announces, "oh yeah, I actually published with a publisher". Yet, me announcing I finally self-published can feel crushing when they're still working up the courage to "publish something online".
I think the humble bragger cannot be stopped. Rather, it's the people who listen to humble brags that need to be better at handling it. Appreciate other people's success and don't let it bring you down from seeking your own success. Everyone is different, and every path is going to be a little different too.
The Megastar
Of course, you have those at the very top of the food chain. You can't really have a Wattpad without the popular writers on Wattpad. Some people write a hit. It's as simple as that. They write that perfect combination of first chapter, characters, tags, and search terms that propel them into the top of the charts, and they remain that way until they become one of the pillars of the site. Many of them move on to become 'published' authors, either because they manage to land agents or book deals.
At some point, these people receive so much attention that the idea of responding to all their fans becomes impossible. They start to become aloof, and perhaps even forget how lucky they were. To Wattpad's credit, I've heard a lot of good things about many of Wattpad's Megastars. They typically remain good people, thankful and perhaps even humble towards their success.
They attract the haters, because haters gonna hate, but they've remained above it all. Usually. Of course, then you have the ones that become full of themselves too. Everyone on this website wants to be popular, and everyone on here has their own strategy for obtaining that popularity. Therefore, when a Megastar succeeds, it might give them the impression that their way was the right way. They may feel like their success was better earned.
I think this is a problem that effects all people in all faucets of life. When you become rich, popular, famous, you start to lose a sense of where you came from. It's very easy to convince yourself that you're rich because you're simply better or work harder. If poor people didn't want to be poor, they shouldn't be so lazy. If you want to be popular on Wattpad, then stop being such a lazy writer.
Of course, we all know that's a pile of bull. Striking rich is just as much a matter of luck and building off of previous success as anything. Some Megastars get that, others forgot it. You probably won't get to chat with them one-on-one very often, but don't take it personally.
The Polarizer
The internet is a place where things become polarized. If you don't know what poles are, polar refers to things like magnets. You have poles, A plus and a minus. When we talk about polarization, we're talking about taking sides, and when you talk about polarizers, these are the people that draw the line in the sand and force everyone on a side. You might not be aware they are even there most of the time, but there is a reason a light mention of "god" or "the bible" turns into a hundred-comment post of people fighting on whether God exists.
Isn't that just a troll? some of you might ask. However, I think the polarizer doesn't even really know they are doing it. To polarize something, you just need to be passionate about one side or the other. That person that makes every superhero that gets retconned as another sex or race an issue is an example of a polarizer. But so is the person who complains every time a character gets white washed.
If someone just makes a random comment, and then someone else blows it into a polarized issue, you have a polarizer. They can't help it, they just have to add that your comment reminded them about how ridiculous global-warming truly is... I mean, when you think about it, it's not really manmade. You guy's know that, right? That global-warming is a myth? Let's talk about it in the next fifty comments.
The Mediator
The last of the Wattpad ten goes to none other than the mediator. What's a mediator? I don't know, what's a mediator with you? Haha... wait... that wasn't even funny. Like, that doesn't even make any sense. It has no baring on anything. It's just... just... bad.
Anyway... so, where a polarizer is the person who impulsively needs to start an argument, the mediator is the person who impulsively wants to stop it. It doesn't even really matter if the conversation is already over. Two months later, they'll pounce into a conversation, breaking down both sides to give their synopsis of who's right, and who's wrong.
The mediator tries to end the fight, but not before giving their own opinion. Because when the fight has no right and no wrong, there really is no such thing as a compromise. That's why they say they just need to agree to disagree, because at the end of the day, pro life and pro choice are not going to mediate out their problems. One side is never going to be right, and the other side is never going to be wrong. You might win some arguments, and I lose some others, but the fight keeps going on and on.
And when you try to mediate that, you're not making the world a better place, you're just trying to stop people from talking about it. At best, you're reigniting old arguments, and at worst, you're trying to cover important conversations. The mediator is not the moderator. Don't let the names confuse you. A moderator makes sure conversations stay clean and fair. A mediator tries to control the conversations, and when all else fails, shut them down.
So... that's ten personalities I've seen on Wattpad. Once again, this isn't suggesting that everyone acts this way, that acting that way is necessarily bad, or that it's a permanent part of a person's personality. They're simply the kinds of people you can sometimes encounter on Wattpad. Their personalities can be problematic for the reasons I mentioned. Good Luck, and Happy Writing.