With the verge between celebrity artists and the “commonfolk” being as small as ever, the rules of assessing an artist’s work have become just as tricky. And with the constant emergence of new subcultures by the hour, the concept of micro-celebrities makes the idea of criticizing anything even trickier, because we’re way past the time when you could buy your favorite artist’s record and just listen to it. Now it’s about being subjected to a streamline of the ins and outs of all the details from the conception to the eventual release. And it’s not just with the megastars of the world. Now practically every artist with a sizable following will have a community that knows more than just the final product, which gives us many artists who strive for the expansion of their personal lore with the idea that it will inevitably feed into the reception of their work, so that whoever is devoted enough will “get it” more.
Because just listening to an album is not the same as knowing exactly what personal circumstances the songs refer to. And just watching the movie doesn’t equal the artificial satisfaction of seeing three versions of the same character, played by different actors in the same movie, doing a silly meme. So the reward in itself becomes understanding the reference and remaining in tune with whatever is going on, rather than any genuine aesthetic quality. Because if you don’t get it, that means that you’re not cool, at least in the eyes of people who adhere to that niche. But how many niches are there today?
Too many to be cool in everyone’s eye. Because everyone curated their own bubble of interests that rendered even the relatively novel concept of a digital echo chamber a bit outdated, since you’re allowed now to just be a recipient without contributing anything necessarily. And thus it’s entirely plausible to unintentionally create a community of thousands just because this random internet user decided to daily post a funny video. So the reward nowadays is for committing to this thing that equally maintains your sense of individuality as it does give you the ability to bond over it with others. And with that in mind, the idea of criticism as a mainstay in our culture is immediately called into question.
Because how could a professional opinion be of any value to anyone who celebrates buying all colored vinyl variants of a re-recorded album that was made ages ago?
The general disdain over critics is not new at all, especially by the artists themselves, with the general idea being that there is an unfairness that comes with criticism when the person voicing it has never done the work themself. But the usual response was that the critic is one that puts themself in the shoes of the consumer, with the caveat that they’re mindful of the experience at hand. The internet completely altered that dynamic though, since the consumer now has been offered the chance to voice their thoughts as freely as one can do. Also, consuming art is less risky than ever due to its huge accessibility, so there is no urgent need for a professional opinion. So while there is an incontestable sense of professionalism that is conveyed through a critic’s viewpoint, the people aren’t exactly begging for professional opinion and would rather take a regular opinion, because it’s probably what reflects their personal experience better. But that statement alone includes a massive misunderstanding of the critics’ main objective.
And they probably had a role in that false perception too, since a critic’s job to point out the highs and lows is really just scratching the surface of their main goal. But the need for the outlets to sensationalize their views using stars, grades, and fresh tomatoes led to the propagation of that belief. And it’s even more rampant now with the excessive use of garish terms such as “must-see,” “flop,” “smash hit,” “disaster,” “tour de force.” Although there is a level of sympathy that comes with the fact that trying not to overplay your views as much wouldn’t generate that much traffic towards your article. But that same principle is what eventually came to cripple the state of media criticism once every “internet personality” was able to use these same tactics—like digging up every single plot hole or calling out the tropes and clichés—completely burying the fact that a critic’s job is more than just giving a thumbs up or a thumbs down. As Pauline Kael once mentioned, “The art of the critic is to transmit his knowledge of and enthusiasm for the art to others.” But the media landscape got so used to the numerical aspect of the critic’s job, and studios completely bought it, since they can’t really promote their product by “transmitting knowledge and enthusiasm” when star ratings plastered on the poster can do the job more efficiently. And when said ratings became obsolete in favor of influencer endorsement—which is guaranteed, since an influencer’s job is to influence and not to evaluate—the role of the critic started dying too. And the stereotypical image of the bitter, no-fun critic (which isn’t entirely misplaced) started taking shape in our collective consciousness.
It will be easy to push all of this under the rug of social media, because it’s undeniably true. But it’s more about the ABCs of this claim than its evident validity, because this concept of optimism in our apps is there by design, at least in most of them. Which puts emphasis on liking and hearting things and keeping it short and sweet within a character limit. Now I’m not calling for a dislike button on Instagram. And of course there is little to no fruitful conversation to be had on a photo dump. But the idea of an “approval button,” as cheerful as it sounds, is not compatible with the way our socials function today, with how they became the primary space for discussion. And all of that does indeed harbor a culture of anti-criticism that feeds off the brevity of a heart emoji, which in turn leaves no ground for a genuine discussion to occur. And as a result, we get all of these tiny bubbles that serve as unconditional support rooms that get pointlessly disrupted every once in a while by someone who just left their own respective bubble. Which is why this ingrained optimism is more in tune with the cultural zeitgeist of the late 2000s to early 2010s, as it is conveniently when these mechanisms were conceived—a period that promoted the internet as a sunny place. With all of its YOLOs and Party Rock Anthems, it left almost no room for criticizing anything, which is why we’re left now with platforms that can only contain mere complaints rather than full-fledged arguments. Because apparently, 20-second microdoses of “content” are more lucrative than most long-form stuff out there. So these avalanches of content get lumped into this deeply flawed dualistic judgment of “good or bad,” with no chance of nuance, simply because each publication can only get a few microseconds of brain stimulus per day. And when we project this line of thinking into media criticism—particularly movies—we’re often left with half-baked takes that are confronted with half-baked replies. And whenever there’s any sort of pushback for someone’s favorite thing, you get faced with the “let people enjoy things.” And I don’t always disagree with this statement because context always matters. No one likes a Debbie Downer that’d ask a memes page to address the “economic state of the world.” But people who use this statement whenever their favorite thing is called into question are somewhat missing the point, since the point was never to make one feel bad or dumb about being excited for something. As criticism (at least in its proper, well-meaning form) doesn’t seek to reprehend enjoyment as much as it’s just a dissection of the subject at hand—a dissection that might lead to unfavorable remarks. But taking the rose-tinted glasses off and questioning the merits of your favorite piece of media is not exactly a bad thing, and the unyielding nonacceptance of it is only there to cultivate an anti-intellectual way of thinking.
It was only a matter of time before we got to the current state of the internet, where the excess of the anti-critical sentiment can only lead to its inevitable implosion. How far can we go with evading critical discourse until “being a hater” becomes on-brand again? Because the issue here is not that “hating” just magically rose to prominence in a post-quarantine world—because that’d simply be nonsensical—it’s more about the way we embraced “hating” as the new hip thing to do, which is how we ultimately got pop culture moments such as the massive Kendrick Lamar acclaim for simply being a hater. And we took it and trendified it in the process as an opposition to the “be a fan” modus operandi, because the cynicism surrounding fan culture is only getting larger every year. So much that even artists themselves are now complaining about the parasociality of this behavior and its normalization in pop culture—a culture that is coated with various embodiments of consumerism that turned colored vinyls and customized popcorn buckets into an expectation to be met rather than a gigantic bonus. This consequential devotion fatigue got so widespread in recent years that it led to the reassumption of minimalist trends like quiet luxury and “brat summer.” It goes without saying that I’m not claiming that these trends have no monetary impulse behind them, but it’s such a stark departure from yesteryear’s “Barbie summer.” So it’s no coincidence that this year’s cultural obsession turned out to be a blasé lime green record that presents slackness as a central motif. And while we can sit here and claim that it was meticulous campaigning, this doesn’t negate the fact that it was indeed what caught people’s attention, and that people are craving authenticity more than ever in a world full of preplanned paparazzi snapshots and fraudulent apology videos. Which in turn explains the contemporary admiration of non-PR- trained celebrities like a Reneé Rapp or a Paul Mescal. And as a result, this post-COVID rejection of celebrity insincerity, coupled with the normalization of fanaticism as the leading force of verbal exchange, triggered an equal and opposite reaction that reappraised hatred as a method of rebuttal against the overly optimistic, anti-critical sentiment perpetuated by social media today. And it was only a matter of a simple pendulum swing in the wake of the escalation of the media illiteracy discourse in recent years that gave us the ensuing pass to freely hate again. And because a world where friendly discourse taking place in spite of opinion disparity sounds too utopian, I’ll be content with a world where we’re allowed to admire and criticize concomitantly.
Taha Louafi
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