Don’t be bitter, be better
Dealing with criticism in the internet age
I’m going to keep this one short because I need to drill this through your skull.
Here is my magic nugget of wisdom, in the form of a quote
When you get criticism on the Internet, do not immediately dismiss it as invalid
You should start treating the internet as an eternal spring of wisdom, which I know is hard, especially if you visit BuzzFeed or the weird parts of Reddit with any frequency.
But here’s the thing: before you attribute other peoples’ criticism of your work to malice, trolling or a bad hair day, think if they actually have a point.
In fact, even if you know that their criticism is fuelled by malice, trolling or frizzy hair, still give consideration to what they’re saying.
If I hate you and tell you that your shit smells bad, it doesn’t mean that, against all odds, it smells like roses.
Common sense, right?
Unfortunately, we’re not as smart or as logical as we pretend to be.
When someone gets on your case and tells you that your new article sucks because it has too many paragraphs (I know), it’s hard not to tell them “fuck you, sexysquirrel923, your mom has too many paragraphs”, especially on the web where anonymity is a given.
Until you realize that by doing that you’re missing out on an amazing learning opportunity that has never existed before the invention of the web.
The rush of starting out
I have created and posted a lot of things for people to consume over the years: music, apps, logos, books, articles.
The one common theme running through these endeavours has been this: when you’re just starting out, anything you create looks, sounds, works or reads like a masterpiece to you.
My first ‘music’ track was a bunch of static recorded from the TV and some ‘drum hits’ from me slapping on my apartment’s furniture, drenched in delay and reverb. The thrill of figuring out the recording software and the joy of slapping delay over everything overshadowed (at least to me) the fact the the track sounded worse than Alfred’s wet fart in the Batcave.
My first app was a ramshackle collection of Java and XML, threatening to collapse under the weight of the memory leaks I had introduced. And yet, the simple fact that you could tap a button and see a card-flipping animation was so exciting to me that I published it in the Android Market (what is now known as the Play Store).
This is the stage in which you’re at your most vulnerable as far as acceptance of criticism goes. You know that you’re not the hot shit you’ve convinced yourself of being. You’re suffering from extreme impostor syndrome. How dare anyone say anything bad about your creation? I would regularly snap at strangers in forums and consider their criticism a personal attack.
All that changed about a year ago.
A better person
Maybe it was getting older and mellower but all of that changed last year, when I decided to start designing some logos.
After designing a couple of logos I was really proud of, I posted them on Reddit at r/logodesign. Immediately, I started getting comments. Most of them weren’t flattering. In hindsight, they shouldn’t have been.
At first I thought ‘hey, they can’t be as bad as these people are saying, right?”.
However, after visiting that specific subreddit enough times, a pattern emerged: whenever I saw a logo (that someone else posted) that I thought looked nice, I would see that it had garnered a lot of upvotes. I would then visit the thread only to discover that the comments were almost universally positive.
It was at that point that everything clicked for me.
A nice, good-looking logo would get very positive comments.
A bad, amateurish logo would get bad, highly-critical comments.
“Hey, wait a minute!”, I thought.
The takeaway
Listen here, kiddo: if you’re 20 years old and just starting out in whatever creative endeavour(s) you’re about to undertake, do yourself a favor: do not wait until you’re 38 to have the sudden realization that, hey, maybe criticism on the internet can actually be helpful.
Put your pride aside, create stuff, share it with other people (don’t be afraid to share your stuff, this is crucial — it’s the only way to get critiques) and, when they talk, listen.
Even if they are being assholes, you have to listen.
There has never been a time before in human history when your creations were available to millions of people to comment on. You can now get professional musicians and producers discussing your newest track an giving you pointers. Professional designers commenting on your page’s layout. People working at freaking Google comment on your code.
Don’t waste this opportunity. Start listening — ASAP.
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