I just got finished watching "Heckler."
It's a documentary that Jamie Kennedy made about entertainers and their thoughts regarding critics and hecklers, the differences between them, so on and so forth.
And I got to thinking about a few of the things that were brought up that were actually pretty pertinent to my own past as a writer and as a "critic."
I used to do it a lot. Write, that is. Reviews of music, books, the occasional movie. I don't do it anymore. I'm not sure if any of my reviews are still up and online anywhere of any importance, but that's neither here nor there. I stopped doing it because, mainly, the internet has essentially become the truck stop piss house of the world now. ANYONE can write ANYTHING about ANY SUBJECT and put it up on the wall for anyone who happens to stop in to dump out to read. The vast majority of it is negative.
"This sucks."
"That sucks."
"If you LIKE this, then YOU suck."
"She's a fat whore."
"She needs to eat a burger."
"He's a has-been."
It goes on and on, ad infinitum and ad nauseum.
I have a whole lot of negativity surrounding me on a daily basis doing what I'm paid to do for a living... I don't need to contribute to the bitter roaring of the masses with my own voice. So I decided that I didn't want to write negative reviews on anything. Basically, I came to the conclusion that no press is BAD press, and I tried - at least for a little bit - to only write about the things that I heard, read and saw that I really liked. The things that impressed me and that left a "mark," if you will, are the things that I started to blog about pretty much exclusively. I say "blog about" rather than "review" because, realistically, if you're just writing about something that you like that you want to share with others who might be stopping in to dump out on your corner of the piss house wall... you're not really CRITIQUING anything so much as you're saying "Hey! Over here! Look what I found. It's sort of cool."
So then, the people who had been reading my reviews of music, books and the occasional movie in the past accused me of basically throwing a "love fest" for my own, personal pet interests. A couple of them - one of them in particular that stands out in memory - actually accused me of BETRAYING them by NOT writing a negative review of a CD that he had purchased.
Basically? He was pissed at me because he went out and spent his own money on a piece of music that he considered sub-standard, and it was MY RESPONSIBILITY to have kept him from doing that.
That's a whole other SHADE of fucked up... but I'm digressing a little I think.
The internet - this vast online sub-reality that some of us live in while others of us just skim through from time to time - is a miracle of human ingenuity. It's capable of being SO MUCH to so many of us everywhere. We've turned it into a Roman coliseum. We feed the Christians to the lions, and the crowd goes wild. It's the 21st Century version of Orwell's Two Minutes Hate that goes on, again, ad infinitum and ad nauseum.
Unfortunately, there are those who feel that when afforded a platform for virtually penalty-free speech on any given subject matter at any given time or place, then they MUST use it... regardless of whether or not they actually have anything to say at all.
I didn't want to be another one of those bread-eating, circus-attending peasants in the coliseum. I didn't want to put anything else on the piss-house wall for others to feed off of... but when I took a different approach to things and tried to do things under the light of semi-divine positivity, well, that didn't work out so well either.
It's easy to attack things online and to be negative about things that you don't like. It's too tempting - given all the various canvasses available - to say what you have to say under the auspice of "I'm just being honest, and I don't give a shit if that hurts anyone's feelings" than it is to keep your opinion to yourself and say nothing at all. There's no fear of reprisal. Flamewars are almost SPORT to some people out there who invite conflict and are itching to match wits with all comers. Sort of like fiber-optic powered bare-knuckle brawlers. People aren't seen as tangible when they're online. Handles, personas... hell, the SG's use them here (for OBVIOUS reasons, so I DO get that)... these are masks to some and full suits of armor to others who truly believe that the internet has become their own, personal field of battle. They get online, and they are empowered in their anonymity. Indestructible. The frustrations that they feel in their lives off-line bleed through, and so many of the people who cause the more noise to signal deficit of the current incarnation of the internet use it as a tool for their own self-therapy.
Their catharsis becomes someone else's wounds to nurse.
If you live in a sea of poison, then poison will flow through you as well. For a lot of people that are stoking the constant pyres of negativity out there, it's all that they know and, for that matter, all that they have to offer.
That's just my opinion, though.
So basically... I dug "Heckler." It's a decent documentary that might open your eyes and change how you feel about something.
Or not.
Either way... that's my "review."
All the best.
It's a documentary that Jamie Kennedy made about entertainers and their thoughts regarding critics and hecklers, the differences between them, so on and so forth.
And I got to thinking about a few of the things that were brought up that were actually pretty pertinent to my own past as a writer and as a "critic."
I used to do it a lot. Write, that is. Reviews of music, books, the occasional movie. I don't do it anymore. I'm not sure if any of my reviews are still up and online anywhere of any importance, but that's neither here nor there. I stopped doing it because, mainly, the internet has essentially become the truck stop piss house of the world now. ANYONE can write ANYTHING about ANY SUBJECT and put it up on the wall for anyone who happens to stop in to dump out to read. The vast majority of it is negative.
"This sucks."
"That sucks."
"If you LIKE this, then YOU suck."
"She's a fat whore."
"She needs to eat a burger."
"He's a has-been."
It goes on and on, ad infinitum and ad nauseum.
I have a whole lot of negativity surrounding me on a daily basis doing what I'm paid to do for a living... I don't need to contribute to the bitter roaring of the masses with my own voice. So I decided that I didn't want to write negative reviews on anything. Basically, I came to the conclusion that no press is BAD press, and I tried - at least for a little bit - to only write about the things that I heard, read and saw that I really liked. The things that impressed me and that left a "mark," if you will, are the things that I started to blog about pretty much exclusively. I say "blog about" rather than "review" because, realistically, if you're just writing about something that you like that you want to share with others who might be stopping in to dump out on your corner of the piss house wall... you're not really CRITIQUING anything so much as you're saying "Hey! Over here! Look what I found. It's sort of cool."
So then, the people who had been reading my reviews of music, books and the occasional movie in the past accused me of basically throwing a "love fest" for my own, personal pet interests. A couple of them - one of them in particular that stands out in memory - actually accused me of BETRAYING them by NOT writing a negative review of a CD that he had purchased.
Basically? He was pissed at me because he went out and spent his own money on a piece of music that he considered sub-standard, and it was MY RESPONSIBILITY to have kept him from doing that.
That's a whole other SHADE of fucked up... but I'm digressing a little I think.
The internet - this vast online sub-reality that some of us live in while others of us just skim through from time to time - is a miracle of human ingenuity. It's capable of being SO MUCH to so many of us everywhere. We've turned it into a Roman coliseum. We feed the Christians to the lions, and the crowd goes wild. It's the 21st Century version of Orwell's Two Minutes Hate that goes on, again, ad infinitum and ad nauseum.
Unfortunately, there are those who feel that when afforded a platform for virtually penalty-free speech on any given subject matter at any given time or place, then they MUST use it... regardless of whether or not they actually have anything to say at all.
I didn't want to be another one of those bread-eating, circus-attending peasants in the coliseum. I didn't want to put anything else on the piss-house wall for others to feed off of... but when I took a different approach to things and tried to do things under the light of semi-divine positivity, well, that didn't work out so well either.
It's easy to attack things online and to be negative about things that you don't like. It's too tempting - given all the various canvasses available - to say what you have to say under the auspice of "I'm just being honest, and I don't give a shit if that hurts anyone's feelings" than it is to keep your opinion to yourself and say nothing at all. There's no fear of reprisal. Flamewars are almost SPORT to some people out there who invite conflict and are itching to match wits with all comers. Sort of like fiber-optic powered bare-knuckle brawlers. People aren't seen as tangible when they're online. Handles, personas... hell, the SG's use them here (for OBVIOUS reasons, so I DO get that)... these are masks to some and full suits of armor to others who truly believe that the internet has become their own, personal field of battle. They get online, and they are empowered in their anonymity. Indestructible. The frustrations that they feel in their lives off-line bleed through, and so many of the people who cause the more noise to signal deficit of the current incarnation of the internet use it as a tool for their own self-therapy.
Their catharsis becomes someone else's wounds to nurse.
If you live in a sea of poison, then poison will flow through you as well. For a lot of people that are stoking the constant pyres of negativity out there, it's all that they know and, for that matter, all that they have to offer.
That's just my opinion, though.
So basically... I dug "Heckler." It's a decent documentary that might open your eyes and change how you feel about something.
Or not.
Either way... that's my "review."
All the best.