Sometimes "well then make your fucking own" is a relevant comment

[yvannairie]

Sometimes I feel like people on the internet have forgotten that not nearly all criticism is founded, relevant or useful.

Sometimes, criticism is just... "this thing doesn't live up to the thing in my head and that's somehow your fault".

Comments

[cassini]

[+1 so much. and as far as i can tell, criticism of the 'this doesn't live up to the thing in my head' type isn't inherently valueless, but it gets elevated beyond itself by various factors that make it appealing but don't actually make it founded, relevant or useful. and '...that's somehow your fault' is definitely one of those factors, especially when/where outrage is currency ]

[yvannairie]

Like... sometimes, pointing out things the creator didn't think about is the best criticism you can make, but most of the time "the creator should have done this instead" is just writing a fucking fanfic instead of answering the question "why was what the author did unsatisfying". All good criticism starts at agreement with the author over what they were trying to accomplish.

[cassini]

[agreement with the author is a good way of putting it; i contrarily lean towards a word that feels more neutral but that phrase is very correct. in the outrage-currency-critical sphere, even a basic notion of acknowledging a creator's intent looks like ceding ground and we don't do that and keep our cred, do we. *vaguely points at people calling r sugar a fascist* -_- ]

[gonna plead ignorance once more on 'idk how fandom does things sorry', but i feel like there should be plenty of room for people who can't make art/fic/whatevs to express their wishes and disappointments and instead just have to talk about it without the promotion of it as anything more than opinions... but i'm being idealistic, and i'm conscious of it. stuff can't be filed neatly ]

[yvannairie]

I mean, ideally a lot of intra-fandom conversations would just be that -- talking about what worked and didn't and what we maybe would have wanted instead. A lot of meta is soft fanfic or re-exploring already explored material to find things that better Please The Fan... and then there's, y'know, fanfic :'DD

As such, you're not ignorant -- you've probably just been isolated :'P

[cassini]

[it's a deliberately cultivated ignorance :3 ]

[i may have to pick up 'soft fanfic' to blend with my 'not-meta' term ]

[yvannairie]

Good >:D