It's Okay to Like Things · 5:19pm May 30th, 2014
art by Aborrozakale
No "Fallout: Equestria" tag for this week's blog. Instead, just a random thought:
It's okay to like things.
We all know the following video. (Most of us, hopefully, live up to the advice.) But while the sentiment here is common...
...the reverse doesn't seem to be stated nearly enough:
It's okay to like things.
All too often, we allow ourselves to fall victim to the degrading mentality that hating things is "cool" and liking things is not. We want to be negative because people think being a hater and a curmudgeon is hip and edgy. Or we are unwilling to like something because it seems that everyone else likes that something. Being against the crowd becomes a misguided key to our self-perception of individuality or superiority. Or, perhaps worst of all, we are unwilling to like something because everyone else doesn't like it. We are afraid to be different because we construe "different" as "wrong"... or we assume others will. We want to fit in, we want to say we don't like the same things our friends don't like, and we don't want to stand out and face ridicule for our choices.
But all of that is dung. There is absolutely nothing wrong with liking something even if everyone or no one else likes it. It's okay to take joy in something (so long, of course, as it isn't harmful to someone else), and it doesn't matter if it is a television show, movie, book, hobby, or what-have-you. (Hell, if you have a weird fetish that creeps me out, so long as it causes no harm and you don't indulge someplace I have to see it -- if I go looking, that's my own damn fault -- then more power to you.) It's okay to like a song, even if everyone else has grown sick of it. Or an cartoon, even if people think you're just jumping on a bandwagon.
As bronies, you would think that this isn't something we would need to remember. After all, we are all here because we enjoy a television show ostensibly aimed at a much different demographic. And we're not ashamed of it (or, at least, not enough to prevent us from enjoying it). For many of us, what everyone else thinks of our pastime is a non-issue. If members of any group doesn't need to be reminded that "it's okay to like things", wouldn't it be bronies?
But then we see divisions come up over episodes or fanfics or other things that absolutely shouldn't be made into dividing lines. Or we see ourselves become overly critical, and begin to lose the ability to enjoy that which we once did. And when we do that, we only harm ourselves. We rob ourselves. I came across this video the other day, and it started me thinking on this topic:
Within a day of watching that, I was going through some of the old specials by the Nostalgia Critic which prompted further contemplation. Doug did a set of videos on the top ten movies he likes that everyone else hates and, conversely, the top ten movies he hates but everyone else loves. He prefaces the videos with this very sage sentiment:
Don't go around judging people by this; it's not worth it. ... It doesn't say anything about whether or not you're a good person or a bad person, a smart person or a dumb person. It's just opinion and what you like. To me, what matters is how well you can explain it.
Allow me to second that. If your opinion is in the minority, it doesn't make you the blind fool who just can't see how great or bad something is any more than it makes you the exceptionally perceptive one who is so much better than the "sheeple". It's an opinion. It's what you like. Don't let what you like make you think you're better or worse than people with differing opinions, and don't let what you enjoy be dictated by other people.
(All of this, of course, with the obvious caveat that your likes and hobbies do not bring harm to yourself or others. But that shouldn't need to be said. Nor should it need to be said that people who choose to be "hurt" -- such as people who think that your marriage impacts the sanctity of their marriage, or anti-bronies who whine that bronies are degrading them by existing -- don't count.)
art by Nightflyer22
I'll even add it my own example:
A few years ago, on a broiling summer day, I went to see a movie. I went in part because I was interested in the movie, and in part because I had the day off and it was too damn hot in my apartment, driving me to seek the solace of a dark and air-conditioned theater. The movie was supposed to be some kind of apocalyptic disaster movie, or at least that is what the trailers had led me to believe… and I suppose it was, but that is the limit of where the movie and my expectations coincided.
People hated the movie, and I certainly cannot blame them. The movie seemed to take every cliché and trope of apocalyptic disaster movies and play with, twist, invert or subvert them. There are a reason that we have these tropes and clichés: they work. They are what a majority of people want and what they enjoy. They are tried and true. Even more, they are what people expect. They are comfortable. The movie didn’t provide what people expected. It wasn’t what people had gone to the theater to see.
People expected building action leading to a bombastic climax. The movie was intentionally slow and cerebral. The few action scenes were downplayed, and the ending was a lingering affair of tense silences and slow, creeping pursuits. The last third as filled with atmospheric camera work, including panning shots the reinforced the sense of isolation. I am reminded of the final stanza of the poem “The Hollow Men” by T.S. Elliot:
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.The apocalyptic disaster played out like this, only the whimper was a long, gurgling one that slowly faded until there was only silence. And instead of ending abruptly there, the movie gave you time to fully soak in that silence, to start forming the contemplations about it that would follow you out of the theater and throughout the rest of your day.
In the movie, people behaved less like movie archetypes and more like people. Conversations had what I can best describe as a “strangeness of normalcy”. The movie had an undercurrent of weirdness. It marinated in its low-key tension. It was horror without any big scares or cats jumping out of closets. If someone was asked to describe the movie in a word, that word would not be “exciting” or “dramatic” or “frightening”. Many people would choose the word “boring”. The word I would choose is “phobic”.
Critics lambasted the movie, the public hated it, and I loved it, all for essentially the same reason: in the end, it was a movie where virtually nothing happened.
In short: don't be afraid to have fun and enjoy what you enjoy.
art by Drawponies
Fair point.
Me? I like ponies. That's not controversial here, mind, but try telling that to my family.
I see and appreciate what you did there.
Edited for emphasis.
the movie that you mentioned you saw... it wouldn't happen to be Knowing, would it?
Agreed.
So, what's the movie?
Very true Kkat, very true. I wish we could all just respect each other's opinions for what they are, rather than combat them for what they aren't.
You can't say all that without telling us what the movie is!
By best guess would be...hmm, The Happening?
Such power in your words.
People are naturally opinionated. In some respects criticism is good because taken the right way, it can help make people/things that much better. Even then though, criticism is only an opinion and not fact. Meaning, it doesn't always apply to your work.
At the end of day, we all have our tastes. I detest Twilight (film), Naruto, Bieber, but I can understand why some might like that stuff. We're all wired differently. One thing I have noticed recently is our desire to hate thing that become popular. The word "overrated" is thrown around a lot lately as a way to try and tear down something popular, as if saying "yeah, it's good, but not THAT good." We seem not giving credit to something that truly deserves the praise, Frozen probably the best recent example of this.
It's now refereed to as the "hipster" mentality but it's in a lot more people than you may think. The average joe tends to form their opinion more on critics these days as well. If something doesn't get above 70% on rotten tomatoes, people tend to assume it sucks without forming their own opinion on that matter. It's almost if we don't want to even try to like something any more so we let the consensus speak for us.
I agree with all of the above and feel like adding, Don't let the actions of a few ruin what you like.
That first and last picture are just too cute! XD
That made me smile, thanks! (And so did the blog. That's a good reminder that we need, really.)
I disagree. One word: facebook.
]2159127 "On the Beach" would be my bet. [url]=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_the_Beach_(2000_film)]The 2000 re-make.[/url]
I feel like I never have anything beneficially additive to respond with to blogposts and things in general, so I often don't comment.
In any case, I find the sentiment of this also matches up with a phrase I tend to find myself coming back from time to time. "It's fine to like what you like, as long as it doesn't hurt others". And this post does a step better than mine in ruling out cases of people choosing to be hurt.
This was just an excuse to post adorable Littlepip pictures wasn't it?
I jest.
I like Fallout: Equestria!
Nicely put as always,
upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/5/5d/Kit-Kat-Wrapper-Small.jpg
Can there be a like button for this? This blog post deserves more than a few.
At first being a brony felt kind of weird and almost exciting in a juvenile hipster-ish way, though I genuinely enjoyed the show from when I first got hooked.
Nowadays I'm still mostly a closet brony, but the novelty wore off: its just another hobby for me now.
I think that transition has been good for me as a person in reaffirming that "its okay to like things", and its something I owe to MLP and the fandom.
Kkat, there is one question that is eating me iside out: Are you a girl?
I think you are.(If you're not then I'm an insensitive prick and I'm sorry)
For some reason I can't let it out of my head no matter what I do.
I love this post a lot, because we now know where Kkat might be in a hot summer day (lame puns being thrown at the fact that Kkat remains anonymous)
Nah... I just like this post because it is reassuring. It shows me that, I'm not the only one who thinks that hating on things just because society says so, is kind of dumb... before falling for peer-pressure ask yourself: "Why close yourself from all that you could learn, or all the experiences you could live". Open minded curiosity seems to be the smarter choice, of course, this is just my opinion.
.
This is why I
Kkat. His/her, side-view of society, never ceases to amaze me.
B-But... what movie did you see? Don't leave us hangin'!
2159303
She is, to my knowledge.
This I most certaily agree with.
Miss KKat, your wisdom exceeds that of most other mortals who travers the realm of the internet.
For that I applaud you, the world could surely use more people like you.
I was chatting on a different forum many moons ago and there was a thread about music tastes.
Of course everyone has different tastes and such but one guy who commented was a radio station DJ and I will paraphrase what he said;
"Everyone's music tastes are awful, everyone's. If you show your music/film/hobbies to another person and 9 times out of 10 they're going to find something they don't like."
If you need some reminding of this just think back to your old favourites when you were a kid and try listening to them again.
Where i'm going with this is, actually I don't know. I just forgot. Damn it.
Just uh... Be excellent to each other.
2159179 This appears to be the correct answer...it fits Kkat's description, at least. Annoyingly, I don't think Kkat will confirm.
In general, I agree with the sentiment, but I feel like what should go without saying, sometimes needs to be said.
Its ok to like things that aren't hurting other people. However, there are some things that, either directly or indirectly, hurt others. There are things that promote problematic behavior, and there are things that are produced through the exploitation of others. Things where the exploitation of others isn't immediately apparent, or is advertised as being harmless. There is a wide range of things that go from minor to major without a clear objective threshold of where minor stops and major begins.
If someone I know tells me that they are fascinated by a piece of hate propaganda, I am absolutely going to try to nip that in the bud right away. But even then, it is not necessarily a bad thing to like. It is totally possible to enjoy a production for some aspect or another, while still acknowledging that it has problematic elements. It doesn't have to be a one or the other kind of thing.
Because nothing in life is going to be perfect, and people need to be able to look at things critically and acknowledge when something is problematic, even if its something they like; and honest, open, and polite discourse is important for seeing that through. (Thats not to say that arguing can't be detrimental too, and its true that many people apparently got their arguing skills from daytime tabloid talk shows, which is definitely something to avoid.)
I can, for (an extreme) instance, acknowledge that Leni Reifenstahl's Trimph of the Will is a masterpiece of cinematography without ignoring the very problematic fascist narrative, just as I can appreciate the excitement of some random summer action film, while acknowledging that casually shooting up a building full of people would be wrong in real life.
- John Stuart Mill
--- ---
I suspect I will catch some flak, as I have already repeatedly done in the past for saying this. But as for ponies, the main draw of the show for me was always the philosophy. There are lots of other shows out there that one can enjoy as intellectual popcorn, but providing a meal was what made Friendship is Magic stand out for me. When the dark consequentialist and authoritarian undertones crept into the series in Season 3, I was turned off. People would occasionally scoff when I compared myself to Fluttershy, but when something makes me uncomfortable, I tend to avoid it.
I'm not going to tell anyone that they're wrong for liking the comedy, action, fun, or whatever, although I hope they can acknowledge that love and friendship are for anyone and everyone who put forth the effort, that they are not gifts to be spread from on high by an authority figure, no matter how wonderful, and that you don't have to be special to make a difference; while doing so.
Point being: I hope people don't think that I am choosing to "hurt myself," by not participating. If that wasn't the cut of the jib, then feel free to ignore my ramblings.
What movie was that Kkat? That sounds very interesting.
Once again, an excellent and thought-provoking blog.
Wise words
Are you familiar with the Hostile Media Effect?
No?
Because this post is basically saying "I am suffering from the Hostile Media Effect really, really, really badly." Also, "I am hostile to anyone who dislikes things I enjoy."
So let's be clear here:
It is vastly more difficult to criticize popular things than it is to approve of them.
"But TD!" you cry, "It is cool to be cynical and go against the crowd and all that stuff!"
No, it really, really, really isn't. It is "cool" to do this in exactly the same way as everyone else does.
If someone says bad things about something which is popular, people get very angry and see it as a personal attack against them.
And then we get people like you talking about how good conformity is. Because that is precisely what this post is about.
And you don't even recognize it because you've bought into this mentality.
But you absolutely have.
There are "right" and "wrong" ways to "go against the crowd", all of which are about going with the crowd. The IDEA of being an individualistic iconoclast is very deeply embedded in American culture, so people like to think that they are an individualistic iconoclast because it is seen as a virtue in our society.
And then you realize that there are literally millions of bronies who think that they are individualistic iconoclasts because they unironically like My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic, and you see multiple goths showing up at school on the same day wearing this t-shirt:
rlv.zcache.com/you_laugh_at_me_because_im_different_i_laugh_at_tshirt-r9498358b1eba4abe8bbdce7d33c608de_va6lr_512.jpg
If something is "popular" to rebel against - corporations, the government, fast food, whatever - then rebelling against them is "cool".
Of course, if you tell them that corporations are what make their lives possible, that the government is why they have roads and police protection, or that organic foods are a scamm, they get incredibly angry, accuse you of being a sheep, of siding with "the man", whatever.
Not of course realizing that they are themselves part of a group themselves, and that rather than being individualistic or iconoclastic, they're eminently predictable and samey. And indeed, in many cases, constitute the majority of the population.
Let me translate this into what you just actually said.
You are feeling threatened by people having different opinions than you do. And yes, however much you lie to yourself, this is exactly what is going on here, because you just made an entire post about why people should stop complaining.
You even put in that people who are criticizing things are "ruining it for themselves", which is known as rationalization - you don't like something and therefore claim that it is harmful to everyone, including the person who is doing it.
Why do you think I criticize things? The answer is quite simple - because I LIKE dissecting things. I like pulling them apart and seeing how they work. I like understanding things. Criticism is a route for that, and a route for sharing your findings with others. Criticism is not necessarily negative, and yet, you view it as such - you view it as ruining.
That's not to say that you should criticize everything you do... but it is how you learn fastest.
I like MLP. That's why I spend time analyzing it and understanding it. But just because I like MLP doesn't mean I enjoy every aspect thereof.
When you get upset by people criticizing things you like, it is your monkey brain telling you that the person who is criticizing is your enemy, they aren't on your side, they are trying to diminish your social stature and put you down, and then there is much yelling and flinging of poo.
Well, in a human kind of way.
Criticizing things does not diminish them. If you feel bad after reading a criticism of something that you liked, if that makes you feel threatened or diminishes your enjoyment of said thing, and then decide to reject it because you want to like it, you are acting more like a chimpanzee than an intelligent human being.
I don't try to analyze episodes. To do so would ruin the fun for me, instead, I take it for what it is, another piece of lore and development to help further the overall story and once again show me why I got involved in the first place.
Fanfics however are a different story, but in those cases, its more of for fun, since I don't truly expect the author to actually take a moment and reply back on what I am thinking (which most likely is what someone else already thought and probably sent a note about)
On occasion though, I just take the time to sit, relax and read read read.
And lets be honest everyone, we're all in this community, we already bucked the general publics opinion. There's no sense stopping now.
2160092 While an interesting viewpoint, I downvoted you. You've written your opinion in a hostile and insulting fashion, and so I do not respect you.
2160277
I suppose I like things like the Monkeysphere and No Nonsense Self Defense a bit too much.
It is more or less why people have such a hard time with being wrong - we perceive wrongness as a loss of social status. It is why politicians have "evolving" opinions rather than, you know, just say "I was wrong" or "I was lying to save face" or "I just said some random bullshit without thinking about it much."
It is hard for people to even contemplate the idea that they might be wrong, and people often get very hostile at the idea.
It is also why you see people decide they are persecuted when someone pushes back against their dominance.
All wonderful insights, Kkat. I've had such thoughts before, but kept them to myself. Really, anyone who will bother to use their head can see this sort of sense, assuming they haven't been indoctrinated by some source of great misguidance.
I am glad to say, though, that the things I don't like I don't like simply because I don't like them. I haven't come to disdain them based on others' opinions; they just don't appeal to me.
2159827
Thank you for adding that to the conversation. Very good points.
2160092
Wow. You really read a lot into this that wasn't there. At first, I was confused, but then I reached this point...
...and I realized what might be happening. I think you are reacting to Hostile Media Effect (and yes, I'm familiar with it). Instead of an upbeat, feel-good reminder of taking joy in things, you read into this an attack on what you like (specifically, criticism), and you lashed out. I recommend you take a step back, and look at your own reactions to this through the lens of your (needlessly hostile) response.
2159130
I figured, with the last two words, it didn't really need to be said. It felt more poetic leaving it unstated.
2160464 I'm not feeling clever.
What last two words? What do you mean?
2160477
It's a movie where "nothing happened."
2160480 Oh! I already forgot about that comment, I thought you were responding to my third post here.
Man, that movie... I think my hatred of it isn't due to the movie itself, but stems from the fact that, due to various circumstances, I've been forced to sit through it three times in a short period of time.
2160464
Here's the problem:
Here's where you went wrong.
Right there. Do you see it?
How do we do this terrible thing?
And in the context of the start of this whole thing, you are claiming that people do this because they think hating things is cool.
You lack understanding of others. You don't get what they're thinking or where they're coming from. And as a result, you are completely wrong about why people do these things.
People do these analysis things because analyzing things is interesting to them. Very frequently, they do this stuff because they are excited about the stuff they're analyzing, or because they're simply excited to do analysis. Anyone who focuses on doing analysis of MLP episodes obviously either really cares a lot about the show, really loves to analyze things, is doing some sort of study of children's entertainment, or has some other motive. It is fun.
They aren't doing it because it is "cool" to hate on MLP episodes; the very idea of it is absurd. Creating stuff like that takes an enormous amount of time and effort, and spending an enormous amount of time dissecting an episode of a children's show is anything but "cool". It is incredibly, incredibly geeky.
You are complaining about people doing something they find enjoyable.
Why is this?
What possible reason do you have for this?
Well, because it bothers you. You wouldn't have made this post otherwise. You wouldn't have erected the hipster strawman to knock down if it didn't.
You're talking about how terrible it is for people to conform, and then complaining because people aren't conforming to what you want, to be more like you, to not be critical. And that is precisely what you're doing here - you don't understand what they're doing, and you see it as bad, so you made a post talking about how it is okay to like things, like this is something you need to stand up against.
But you didn't actually cite anything bad.
You talk about how "we rob ourselves", but the people doing this analysis ENJOY it.
So who are they robbing? Who are they hurting? Certainly not themselves. Their viewers seem to enjoy watching them pontificate.
You. You see it as hurting you. And thus, it must hurt them, too, because otherwise... well, otherwise you're just getting upset over something which doesn't affect you.
Yep, sounds about right.
This reminded me of a friend of mine who found himself actually enjoying Duke Nukem Forever a lot more than other people. He did give reasons as to why. I believe it went with "At least it's not another CoD or Battlefield. And the game wasn't THAT bad."
2160599
I see where you read something that you interpreted as speaking against what you enjoy, and had a visceral reaction to it. But forgive me for asking this: why do you seem so hyper-defensive and/or insecure about what you enjoy? Perhaps you could benefit from being reminded that it is okay to enjoy things?
Have you never known anyone who enjoyed something until they let their friends persuade them that it wasn't okay to enjoy it anymore? Have you never heard someone express "I used to love this show/band/whatever, but I just can't anymore" not as a statement of having matured in tastes but as a statement of regret? I've seen it often enough to believe it's worth cautioning against.
No. I may be completely wrong about why you do these things. But you are projecting your preferences onto everyone else, and then decrying any belief that runs counter to your own personal motivations. If you analyze things because you enjoy them and enjoy analysis, that is well and good. In fact, the message of my above blog encourages you to do that because it is something that you enjoy. I'm in no way saying that you can't or shouldn't analyze things if that is what you enjoy doing.
But you seem to have a vested interest in denying the existence of hipster mentality and the "negativity is cool" mindset that so many people who aren't you do fall into. (I can speak to this from experience, because when I was a teenager, I tried to be sarcastic and critical of anything popular because I thought it was cool to be that way. As did my social clique.) Just because you don't relate to the mentality doesn't mean it isn't real.
Why are you fixating on "hating things is cool" as if it is the entirety of what I said? You seem to be suggesting that I am saying we become divided or overly critical solely because of hipster mentality. That conclusion is wrong. Hipster mentality is one reason people become hyper-critical, but it is not the only one. Did you watch the associated video? It would have provided valuable context, allowing you to understand more. Also, please remember that I am not saying that analysis itself is harmful. I'm saying that analysis to the point of no longer being able to enjoy something is harmful. (If the analysis itself is what you enjoy, then wouldn't that theoretically not be an issue?)
No, I'm actually doing the exact opposite of that. I'm encouraging people to do what they find enjoyable, regardless of whether or not it is popular or accepted within their peer group.
I think the more salient question is "why are you reading that into what I wrote"? What part of your psychology drives you to read insult into endorsement? What makes you need to see the above blog as an attack?
Do you see the blog as hurting you? Do you see people enjoying themselves, or enjoying things you don't like, as hurting you? Do you believe that anyone who doesn't agree with your critiques is either an idiot or the enemy? Do you feel like you are being labeled a "loser" if you aren't being put on a pedestal above all the "monkey brains" for your opinions?
You've ascribed a lot of motivations and psychology, dead certain that you are perceiving the "real" reason for what I've written... but I don't think you're seeing me at all. I think you're seeing something in yourself.
2159459 yee :3
2160292
How can one be "wrong" on what they like?
By what rubric would you judge that?
I may find some piece of media to be absolute garbage, but what if the parts I find distasteful are adored by another?
Does it truly make any sense to say one of us is "wrong" in what we like and dislike?
This post was not about right and wrong in terms of having facts correct.
2160975
"Rubric" is a wonderful new addition to my vocabulary. Thank you!
2160820
Well, not really. You seem to be mistaking me for someone who doesn't enjoy arguing on the internet.
I'm not actually angry with you; I just have a very aggressive posting style.
I've seen people stop doing things because their friends weren't interested in doing them anymore and it was a social activity, but I'm not sure if I've ever actually seen someone be told by their friends "this thing is bad and you should feel bad" and them actually stop liking it.
There's lots of things that people once enjoyed but don't any longer. People feeling nostalgia is very common - it is the source of the whole "good old days" thing that people always obsess over.
But it doesn't mean that it is a bad thing at all. Usually it is a good thing - I don't play League of Legends anymore, for instance, because I've played it enough that I've seen the shape of the thing. I understand the game, I can play it decently, but it just isn't fun for me anymore because the novelty has worn off and the gameplay experience itself is actually pretty miserable, objectively speaking - the game is really bad about having games go on far too long, and non-close games (winning or losing) can drag, and on the losing side, it tends to be a very miserable experience, whereas on the winning side, it becomes a little bit rote.
And those games happen fairly often, because of the game's mechanics.
It wasn't that I never had fun with it, but that I see it for what it is and it just doesn't appeal to me anymore. I have better things to do.
I don't play Magic anymore because I have better things to spend $400 on than a deck of playing cards. It is a fun game - arguably the best game around, at least of its type - but it isn't worth the continuous investment of money.
I don't enjoy the old 80s Teenaged Mutant Ninja Turtles anymore because, quite frankly, they are awful. I tried watching an episode some years back out of nostalgia and realized just how unwatchable it really was. I loved it as a little kid, but I'm not five years old anymore.
So it is with many things. Knowing more about the world makes it a better place. If you learn that 3.x D&D is a horribly broken game, it doesn't change the fact that it was always a horribly broken game. If it destroys your ability to enjoy it because now you realize that the whole game doesn't work right at all, that's simply because a major aspect of what you enjoy about the game was never very good in the first place. If by getting better, you find something gets worse, then it doesn't mean getting better is bad - it means that whatever it was wasn't as good as it seemed to be.
This is an entirely natural process, and calling it bad is silly. A lot of video games don't excite me as much as they once did because I'm way better at video games in general now and I've seen a lot more, but I wouldn't trade it in for that fresh feeling again - if you're not growing, you're dying.
Nostalgia is a real thing, but it isn't actually a good thing - it by its very nature distorts your view of the past and makes you think things were better than they really were. Reversing your growth would be a bad thing.
Ask any of the reviewers if they like doing what they're doing. Do you really think any of them are going to say "No, I hate doing this thing with my free time"? Because I'm pretty sure that none of them are going to say that.
Do you think Ebert didn't love being a movie critic?
Ask Bookish Delight if he liked reviewing video games.
As any critic can tell you, it is generally more interesting to your audience when you can savage something than giving a glowing review; positive reviews are simply much less interesting than negative ones. That's why Zero Punctuation is full of sarcasm and vitriol; he actually enjoys a fair number of the games he reviews, but he takes the piss out of them anyway because it is funnier that way. When you read his reviews, they're for entertainment, not enlightenment.
Ebert, on the other hand, is more of a reviewer for the purpose of helping the end consumer. Well, was; he's dead now. But he definitely enjoyed writing reviews for terrible movies, even if he didn't like the movies themselves, and he collected a book of his lowest-rating reviews and sold it because people enjoy reading that sort of thing. But he couldn't do that for every movie; a lot of his reviews were more about informing the consumer than about being hugely entertaining.
The problem is that reviewing a MLP episode from a standpoint of "should you watch this" is more or less worthless - what you really want to do is analyze it. Break it down, look at the parts, see what worked and what didn't. If you look at something like Daring Don't, that's pretty easy - the episode had pretty big flaws in it. Making Daring Do real damaged suspension of disbelief because she was established as a fictional character previously, and then further damaged suspension of disbelief by having the mane six just stand around watching, making the audience feel disconnected and be like "We get it, you want us to think that totally not Indiana Jones is awesome - wait, we knew that already". Going through and tearing it apart is easy because the cracks are obvious.
When you look at something else - say, a more top tier episode like Party of One or Suited for Success - you need to talk about why it is good, and that is often hard if you don't actually know how to make good things. Seeing that they are good is easy; explaining how it was that they made it good is more difficult, and moreover, more difficult to actually make interesting.
This is, incidentally, why I mostly don't watch MLP episode reviews - the few I've watched, a lot of them either did boring gushing and/or complained about things in a not terribly entertaining fashion. After watching a few, I gave up on them.
The sort of cargo cult hipster mentality you described certainly exists, but the thing is you don't even recognize why it exists in the first place. It exists because The Complainer is Always Wrong, so by complaining, you are acting like an iconoclast. It feels like you're rebelling by complaining about stuff, but because it doesn't require you to actually do anything, and because you're complaining about pre-approved things, it is a form of pseudo-rebellion - rebellion without the actual rebelling bits.
Selling this sort of cynicism is a big business in the US, as I pointed out, because the US has a big "I am an independent iconoclast" thing going on. It is part of our national heritage. But most people aren't individualistic iconoclasts; they are just sold things that let them decieve themselves into believing that they are. That's how the Republican Party and Apple manage to convince people that being a part of one of the largest political parties in the US and buying overpriced, curvy personal electronic devices are a great way to rebel. It is how organic food is marketed.
It is, of course, incredibly stupid. But, well, making a random blog post telling people it is okay to like stuff isn't really the best way to fight against the mentality, because at its core, the mentality is all about pretending to be a special snowflake.
But the thing is, being a hipster is all about being vacuous; saying "this is bad" without any actual reasoning or rationale behind it. It has nothing to do with criticism, and it is disingenuous to lead into something which is complaining about people pointing out flaws in episodes (which is what the video and the bulk of your post is about) with it and then claim later on that you weren't really talking about hipsters down there, even though you were deliberately conflating them as a part of your attempt to convince people.
Generally speaking, if you write something, and you start off with a topic, people are going to assume what you write afterwards has to do with that. If you lead in by talking about the hipster mentality, people are going to think you're talking about the hipster mentality.
And you did it for the purpose of priming people to agree with you.
I watched the video, partway through the first time, and I watched it fully now; I didn't watch it fully the first time because I anticipated it was going to be dumb after he brought up his issue at the start, and it turns out I was right about what his point was (and indeed, was why I brought it up with you). Lemme summarize:
"I have low standards, and therefore am always satisfied. I am threatened by people who have high standards, because they seem right about things and that scares me, because it means I might be wrong about things. You should have low standards, because that way we can all be happy."
And that isn't subtext; it is what he is really saying. And you seem to be endorsing that.
The thing is, there's a reason people have standards, and that's because they, well, want to spend their time well. He talks about how his mindset is a good mindset, but, well, it isn't.
There's nothing particularly WRONG with having low standards in the sense that you'll be satisfied with whatever, but it also means you're much less likely to seek out more stimulating things. The benefit is that you're satisfied with less, the cost is that you are going to end up with less because you have less incentive to seek out better things.
And the truth is that a lot of people DO have low standards. But standards are, to some degree, innate; that is to say, if you are a high standards person, you generally speaking can't really lower your standards, because, well, you have those standards for a reason. You understand why things are less than they could or should be. A lower standards person, likewise, sometimes has trouble even grasping what is "wrong" with something that they enjoy.
People with high standards are pickier about their entertainment for a reason, and any time they find something which is good, and then something bad happens with it, they worry that the entertainment is going to cease to be one of the things which are actually up to snuff. And they're not even wrong in doing so; if season 4 was what the show was like from the start, I would likely not have ended up watching it.
And indeed, he talks about how talking about the episode decreased his enjoyment of it; how people discussing it and talking about its flaws made him feel worse about the episode.
This is exactly what I pointed towards in you - that this was why it was upsetting you, this very same mindset. Indeed, it is this same mindset that makes some people feel that gays getting married or people getting divorced makes a mockery of the institution of marriage - because someone else has a different take on marriage, it makes their own marriage less meaningful and special. But why is this? It is clearly illogical, and yet people feel this way, even though it in no way directly affects them.
It is the same thing here. He feels bad that people point out flaws and errors in the show and point out ways in which it failed to deliver or didn't do things right, and felt upset because it made him question whether or not the show was really what he thought it was.
The other thing here is that he goes into "Well, it is a show for kids", but the thing is, he's actually kind of confused about how this sort of thing works. Kids shows suck; they're drivel meant to keep kids entertained.
Family shows, however, are something different. If you look at, say, Disney's canon or Pixar movies, you can see the difference - a family film is a movie which is directed at people. Not kids, not adults, but everyone. They're the most broad-targeting form of entertainment there is. And it is enormously challenging - writing a good family movie is tough.
When you deal with family entertainment, though, you have the advantage that older people can watch along as well. When you devolve into kids show stuff, it takes away from the older audience's ability to enjoy it and sit there and watch along with their kids and be excited and entertained by the same stuff. Aladdin and The Lion King and Finding Nemo are movies that adults can enjoy as much as kids can, without taking anything away from the kids.
If something can only be enjoyable because I have "turned my brain off" (something I can't really do anyway), then it isn't worth enjoying in the first place as my brain is much more enjoyable.
I see it as hurting other people, because it is pretty hard for people to speak out critically about things that other people enjoy, and you're trying to discourage it. You claim otherwise, but you linked to a video talking about turning your brain off and how having low standards is a good thing, and you lead into your criticism of people being critical by talking about hipsters, when they're not at all the same thing.
I will note that there is actually a real reason that people with high standards don't like it when things which do not meet their standards do well - they want to be catered to, and it is easier to produce lower quality works than it is to produce higher quality works. So in effect by showing that you can still make lots of money without pulling in the people with high standards, you're making it less likely that the people who have high standards will get anything at all. Yes, in theory you'd make even more money if you hit everyone, and the movies which DO hit everyone do extremely well... but they're also a lot harder and it is easy to miss with them. If you aim high and then mess up, you might create a movie no one likes, or no one but the highbrow audience likes, and that's worth a lot less money.
2160975
Ah, but you see, this is how people think. Indeed, the video pretty much described exactly what I was talking about; he liked the episode, but then spent a large period of time around people who saw more, deeper, further. They had higher standards and deconstructed the episode, pointing out its good points as well as its flaws. And he claimed it negatively impacted his perception of the episode.
Why is this? How can knowing more lessen our enjoyment of something?
Well, the answer is pretty simple: why do early 3D video games look awful, when, at the time, they were touted as having amazing graphics?
The answer is because they've seen it done well, so when they see it done poorly afterwards, they recognize it as being of lower quality.
This is why people end up with higher standards over time, and why we "outgrow" kids shows; what seemed engrossing back then looks banal as you gain more experience and see more things.
This raising of standards isn't a bad thing at all - it is a good thing, as it means YOU are a better person, because you are able to see. As a side effect, things which you have already seen become rote to you and much less interesting.
Once you've seen better things, worse things are harder to swallow, because you know there are better things out there.
It is a highly irrational mindset to resist this, because the cause of those higher standards is you growing as a person.
If you enjoy something, and then later on learn that it wasn't as good as you thought it was, what happens is known as cognitive dissonance; nostalgia is perhaps the worst case of this, where people cite many old games as being amazing, when in fact they pale in comparison to modern games by and large - there are a very small number of exceptions to this rule, but really, they're few and far between.
But the dislike of people criticizing things that you like comes from the same place - when you see people screaming about someone disliking a video game that they liked, it is tribalism, "monkey" behavior - they're upset because they see you as attacking them, rather than something else, because they are personally invested in that something else and perceive any attempts at making out that something else to be less valuable than they perceive it to be as an affront to their good judgement. And worst of all, they're worried that you might be right about it and that they're going to experience buyer's remorse and you'll have the edge, because you saw things better than they did and thus may gain respect as a result. Tribalistic stuff which doesn't quite apply to the modern-day world properly, but it is still wired into people.
I suddenly realized TD's posts may actually be some sort of meta-commentary or a joke.
2161113
I'm going to go ahead and prove you objectively wrong with a single video.
While negativity ("savagery", if you will) can provide instant gratification and takes less effort to formulate (imperfections are, in fact, easy to find in anything because nothing is perfect), solid, well-presented positivity can stick with those who encounter it for years to come, even if they don't agree with it.
Carry on, I guess.
2161159
Generally, not always.
2161113
For the record, I do not enjoy arguing on the internet. This will be my final post in what I consider to have been an ill-thought derailment of my blog. Please, in the future, take your arguments elsewhere and have them with people who want to engage with you.
I do not care if you are angry with me or not, but I do care how you behave. My blog is intended to be a place of civil discussion. If you are not capable of phrasing your arguments in a polite manner, you will be blocked. (If your initial post had been directed at anyone other than me, I would have deleted it and blocked you already.)
Do yourself a favor and consider improving your tone and self-presentation.
I have. Again, just because something is outside your mentality or scope of experience doesn't mean it does not exist.
Perhaps I am simply not skilled enough as a writer to properly express what I am attempting to convey. Perhaps you are not a skilled enough reader. The paragraph in question, which followed the statement "It is okay to like things" is this:
That was written as a list -- specifically, a list of reasons we might not be willing to like things -- and to me it reads as one. Instead of laid out numerically, it is connected by repeated use of the word "or". The items on the list are not in strict hierarchy. Nor is the list itself, much less any item on the list, the topic of the blog. If other people do not read this as a list of reasons, then I have failed at communication. If they do, then the fact that you instead inexplicably took the first item on the list and construed it as the focal argument of the blog is a fault in your reading comprehension.
Well, I have to say you have provided ample anecdotal evidence that you were right about the following:
Now let me be blunt:
The rest of your argument seems largely an excuse to stroke your ego by proclaiming your standards "high" and the standards of everyone who disagrees with you as "low", and dismissing others as being "scared" of you. You have misunderstood or misconstrued both the message of the video (which is about judging things by an appropriate level of standards) and this blog entry (which is about being willing to embrace enjoying things -- including, as stated, hobbies... which would include your hobby of amateur analysis). You repeatedly "summarize" or "translate" what people are saying, insisting that your insulting interpretations are reality. You've projected your self-aggrandizing "noble critic" mindset onto everyone who ever criticizes anything... just as you've projected your own flaws onto me, accusing me of motivations that appear to be a reflection of your own. Finally, you've couched the lot of it in a highly defensive, antagonistic presentation and then tried to excuse yourself as just having an "aggressive posting style".
Now it is my turn to say "I'm not angry with you". But I'm not impressed either. I am, if anything, disappointed. Your viewpoint is interesting, and some of your arguments have merit, but your behavior has fallen short of my high standards for this blog. And you have reached the point of just repeating your assertions. Despite the fact that your last comment showed an improvement in civility, I think it's best that I call this done.