| > The only valid question is: which social circle can you share that opinion with? Social circles are two-way streets. In my opinion you can share your opinion with the entire world but no one has to engage with you or listen to you. The law even protects your right to disengage from an individual who is hell-bent on getting you to engage with them. Few people want to hear an unsolicited opinion about anything, not just art. This has suddenly become a public conversation, for the first time that I can remember, because of the advent of social media. Hot take alert: We hear a lot about social media creating echo chambers, but I have a pet theory that the real problem with "the news feed" style Facebooks and Twitters is that people actually aren't echo chambered enough. Hear me out. I think it's a good thing that the Internet has given everyone a voice, but it's a double edged sword because everyone, as individuals, needs the tools to be able to listen to the voices of their choosing. I'm a huge fan of pre-mobile / pre-social media forums. In my opinion they more closely mirror the way that people tend to socially organize offline: through shared special interests and hobbies. Outside of work, my wife and I are performing magicians by hobby. We are members of our local Magic Circle. I can't remember ANY instance in the 12 years that we have been a part where a conversation has devolved into a flame fest of people shouting at each other over their personal opinions about art and/or politics. We are there to bond over a common interest. Nothing else matters. Social media opens a firehoze of unsolicited opinions and while you can block and mute certain individual voices that you find persistently annoying, it is very lousy, by design, at giving you a narrowly defined topical feed. "The algorithm" is constructed purposefully to take that control away from you. And as we all know, it tends to push the most controversial, incendiary, emotion-inducing content to the top because that's what people engage with. To compound that problem, people visit social media mostly on their free time as a form of entertainment. They just got off of work, or they are taking a break or they just had to deal with their 2 year-old throwing a temper tantrum. They come in, pre-exhausted, looking to unwind and all they want is cute cat gifs but instead they get some random asshole's unsolicited opinion about current President or Star Wars. So yeah, I just went off on a rant about social media when the topic is whether we have valid reasons to hate on art. My point is that I don't remember anyone ever telling anyone else that can't hate on something prior to the social media era for fear of hurting a stranger's feelings. |
Around here, Germany, art critics are celebrated for their often acerbic criticism. E.g. look for Marcel Reich-Ranicki on youtube, though I don't know if translations really convey everything properly :) Also, talking about the quality of anything isn't considered "intelligent" or "honest" around here if you don't talk about negative aspects. If you just say nice things, you are quickly considered dishonest, a salesman or dimwitted. Of course you need to state some valid-sounding reasons for anything negative, same as for the positive aspects, otherwise you'll be considered shallow or dimwitted as well.