Lessons from a Serial Complainer
Added 2021-10-05 16:14:27 +0000 UTCConsider your favorite type of media or art. What is it? Music? Movies? Drawings of Car-Dragon love on DeviantArt? Now consider your least favorite artist or brand or stakeholder in that industry. Let's say you love movies but you don't care for Nic Cage. Imagine leaving the theater and posting a tweet that says "boy howdy, that nic cage sure does stink in this flick", and then several years later your name is permanently inseparable from that post. What would that signify? When it happened to me, it signified the exact moment that the videos I produced for fun had accidentally become significant.
If you perform a google search for "Internet Shaquille", the #5 result is a reddit post cataloguing every mean thing I ever said about anyone who posts about cooking online. (It'll probably become the #4 result after a hundred of y'all search for it and click on it.) All this took place several months after I had deleted my Twitter account for unrelated reasons (twitter sucks mega ass), but it didn't stop those enterprising reddit sleuths from digging up the evidence on the Wayback Machine. To the public, it now looks like I used to post nothing but mean-spirited complaints, then deleted my account as soon as I got called out.
The day this all blew up in my face was in fact a huge pain. I had to apologize to a couple folks via email for being a meanie, and I've been pretty much blacklisted from getting invited to "collab" on cooking vids. Still, I hold this moment in a sentimental spot of my heart, as if it were an injury sustained after performing a once-in-a-lifetime skateboard trick. I know what it's like to complain about the state of a certain industry or art form, effectively tossing my gripes into the void. I know what it's like to digitally scream "WHY IS EVERY VIDEO FIVE TIMES LONGER THAN IT NEEDS TO BE" to an audience of 200 for a dozen likes. This public reddit spanking, however, was the point at which it became apparent that my shitposts started to matter.
The stuff I was complaining about never changed. My tweets were rightfully written off as the reeeeeeees of a jealous small-potatoes wannabe. The work I produce now is far more influential than my written critiques ever were. My dinky little youtube channel turned out to prove that it is possible to pop off online without chasing algorithms. The lesson for me as an ~*influencer*~ and you as a ~*thoughtful media consumer*~ is that the most difficult, most effective, least reputation-ruining way to complain about something is to try making it yourself. One day I'll run out of ways to reference this freakin' book, but "the best way to complain is to make things better"
Comments
I have taken this approach, silently and on my own, for years on social media. I hate that every “viral” tweet, even ones that make me laugh, are then threaded with ads and links to whatever blog or song or etsy shop the OP wants to promote. But complaining into the void still feeds the void. The algorithm still gets what it wants if you express disdain for the thing everyone is talking about, because most of that talk is also disdain. So even as a consumer, and not yet a creator, the best way to let that stuff stop bothering you is to stop speaking about how much it bothers you. Once you get to that point…. The problem itself seems less obnoxious and consuming. Now if only I could fucking create something better……. Guess I should work on that football site I wish already existed?
2021-10-11 01:48:02 +0000 UTCAll these years studying and practicing design have gotten me way too comfortable with critique, and I often forget that normal people don’t operate this way
2021-10-07 17:31:01 +0000 UTCShaq, people who can't take criticism for what it's worth and improve aren't worth the effort of criticizing them. If they think they reached the peak they can only go down, f-em. People who can't take criticism of other people or ideas for what it's worth probably won't ever learn critical thinking and aren't worth the effort of debate. Some of them think being learned means being smart, some of them think being an academic means being a critical thinker. All of them think that because they "approve" of something, it means it's untouchable. Just thinking about it is cringe. And people who can't comprehend that a person is separate from the work that person does aren't worth engaging with on matters of works or people. Let's say that hypothetically you're an absolute asshole and I would disapprove of everything about you as a person, even if I knew that as a fact I'd still watch your vids because your work is awesome and speaks for itself. These people on reddit just have absolutely everything backwards and I'm not even gonna bother searching for that thread. Funny enough it would've taken me less effort to do that and bask in the reddit cesspool than typing this comment.
2021-10-07 15:47:31 +0000 UTCIdk man, Ad*m’s content is like fine, but he’s such an insufferable prick that most of his videos are (to me) unwatchable. His lackadaisical approach to such academic topics comes off as so corny and preachy that it’s honestly unnerving that so many people like his shit. The point I’m trying to make is all your criticisms of him are completely valid, and it sucks that his fanbase (who has to be 90% horny moms, let’s be real) got so booboo faced over it
2021-10-06 04:58:41 +0000 UTCI'd dig that final quote on a bumper sticker.
2021-10-05 20:23:44 +0000 UTCthat attached .png is fucking hilarious
2021-10-05 20:13:08 +0000 UTCPlease label this NSFW
Christopher Macioci
2021-10-05 16:18:01 +0000 UTC
