What On Earth is Wattpad?
When it All Began:
In 2006, Wattpad started at the same time eBooks were becoming “hip”. Fast forward to fourteen years, Wattpad now has 70 million readers. Wattpad is an open community for young writers and readers to share their work online. With so many young writers and readers, teenagers start pursuing writing on this platform freely, without the parents having to worry.
How to Become a Wattpader?
Starting your own profile on Wattpad is probably the easiest thing, easier than Facebook even. You put in your username, your age, and what country you live in. You then have the option to start writing your first story, or to browse millions of cringe-y stories to start reading. You can add the stories into your library, and once you start reading it saves the page number for you. Just like every social network on the face of the earth, you can also start following people, usually the ones that write your favorite story so you can stay up to date when it comes to them publishing a new chapter.
Many have published books through Wattpad. Some have been recognized for their work, that their stories became T.V shows and Movies, for example the latest movie that came out of Wattpad is “Light as a feather, Stiff as a Board”. Connections on Wattpad are probably the only good thing users can get out of it.
When users write a story, they are able to keep up with their progress. On the website, you can check the demographics of the people who read your story, which is completely unnecessary. You can also see who votes for your story at the end of each chapter and the comments they leave. Another bullshit thing you can do if you’re interested is check which country is reading your story the most. The greatest thing about Wattpad is that it’s completely free, anyone can make an account, add their stories or read other writers stories without paying a dime.
Why teenagers choose this platform to write about their vampire fetishes?
Teenagers between the ages of thirteen and seventeen use Wattpad to experiment with their writing. They develop their own thoughts and ideas, they choose their own creations as guinea pigs to see if readers are interested in their stories. Even though writers get bullied for some of their work (teenagers are mean), it is not as often as one thinks. The Wattpad community supports and encourages each other by leaving comments and votes on a chapter. There will be comments that look like this, “this sucks, take it down.” and there will be comments that look like this, “Love your story, but take some time to work on your grammar.” Readers also get to vote at the end of every chapter if they enjoyed it, which really just is made to make the writer feel better. Unless you reach a million or so votes, then you can get recognized and your story will be top rated in that genre.
So who is on this platform?
If you are over eighteen and have a werewolf fetish, then Wattpad is the place for you. Majority of users on Wattpad range from the ages of twelve to seventeen, which explains the fan-fictions. These teenagers, myself included, the reason they start writing on Wattpad is to see if people enjoy reading their stories. This age group is usually going through the same shit at the time, transitioning from being a tween to an angsty teenager. This is where young authors come to see if writing is really their thing, to see if this is something they are good at, and if they should pursue it. But realistically anyone can publish a story on Wattpad, but older writers should be aware of the mature content they add to the platform.
Maybe shouldn’t use Wattpad?
Almost every story on this platform have the same shit going on, with a little twist with the plot. The characters and settings seem almost copycat-ish, if you enjoy one of them, there will be a million more with the same plot. Many of the storylines were completely unrealistic and make absolutely no sense what-so-ever. It could be because some of these writers are incredibly young, but after fifteen if you can’t stick to one story line then no one can really help you there. If you are longing to cringe, the teenage highs school stories will help, and there are a shit ton of them on this platform. The vast majority of these stories tend to be about a girl or a boy who casually bump into each other, lock eye, and fall in love. As great as it is that some of them actually follow through with the storyline, sometimes you’ll wish they wouldn’t. The idea that anyone can publish stories on this platform may seem terrific and there are a few great stories, but the grammar on a vast majority of the work is absolutely fucking terrifying. Readers who read a story on Wattpad tend to become extremely demanding, which is the last thing any writer needs, especially a teenager. You could be reading/following someone’s story for months and the writer can easily abandon their work, leaving the readers extremely angry. In other words, Wattpad is a great for young writers to share their work and engage in a communal cringe fest.
Website or App?
Wattpad started in 2006, which enough time to make drastic changes to both the website and the app. They are both extremely easy to use, but both so tacky. Wattpad has not changed since it started, the website and app look exactly the same. For some reason, the color scheme is orange, which is completely appealing. Nothing about both of them have any sort of aesthetic to them.
When you first enter the webpage and app, there are advertisements that pop up. The absolute worst is when someone is reading a story, there is at least two to three advertisements after every chapter of any book you read.
Over the past couple of years, they allowed writers to create something called Coin. How Coin works is writers pay to put advertisements at the end of each chapter, and whoever presses on the advertisement the writers collects coins, and if they reach a certain amount they get paid. Some books for some odd reason are not free, and on the application when you are browsing for something new to read, it will only show you the ones you have to pay for first, and the most read. Doing so, a lot of young writers with few reads are rarely noticed on the platform.
Content Guidelines:
The content guidelines are a bit sketchy. Because of the amount of young Wattpaders(Yes, that is what they call themselves), they do not allow pornographic content, age of consent, non-consensual sexual content, sexual role-play, and illegal sex acts. Which only explains the intense amount of high school cliches, the “I dropped my books, he helped me pick them up, and our hands touched.” Bullshit. But even so, Wattpad isn’t always on high alert, even though they say that sexual content will be removed, there are many stories that they let slide. There is a way to create Mature content and mark it as so, but it is very hard for readers to come across them when they are over the age of sixteen.
Before the beautiful creation of Wattpad?
Fanfiction.net was the place to be before Wattpad existed. Even though Wattpad isn’t the platform it used to be, Fanfiction.net is absolutely ten times worse than Wattpad ever was. There are fan-fictions on every possible show, musician, and celebrity. Like Wattpad, Fanfiction.net removed all mature content on their website. Even though Wattpad could be a lot easier on the eyes, Fanfiction.net is even worse.
