| In the early days the barrier to comment was higher and there were no obvious points to score from doing so. If a blog had a post you had opinions on, you could write a response on your own blog, or email the author. These days we have sites (like this) where commenting is almost 0 effort, and people can rack up fake internet points for doing it. The best thing I've seen in recent years in on bearblog, where people will most their email address, so if someone has something to say in reply to a post, they can simply email the author. It's not a public pissing match for who can have the hottest take. There are a couple things that often resurface in my mind on this topic. The first is from Teddy Roosevelt's Citizenship in a Republic speech. > It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat. The second is Ego's review in Ratatouille. > In many ways, the work of a critic is easy. We risk very little yet enjoy a position over those who offer up their work and their selves to our judgment. We thrive on negative criticism, which is fun to write and to read. But the bitter truth we critics must face, is that in the grand scheme of things, the average piece of junk is probably more meaningful than our criticism designating it so. In modern times with comment sections, influencers, talking heads, and a seemingly endless supply of opinions from those who risk nothing while judging those actually putting something out into the world, we seem to place far too much value in the critics, while dismissing the risk and efforts of those who actually create. While some criticism is valuable or even necessary, it feels like we've gone overboard as a culture and the balance of creator vs critic is completely backwards. We have millions of people refreshing screens all day long just waiting to call the next new thing crap. |