When I Think or Feel Something Sucks…

People don’t realize how unfair and bias their criticisms are of new or different projects, products and ideas. It’s more easier than ever to hate and bash on people’s work today with everyone having unlimited access to voice their emotions and opinions online without any consequences. We all gravitate towards the consensus and majority with our emotions, people don’t even realize it but our attitudes are being shaped mostly by immature teenagers online. I began to have similar responses and dialogue in my head whenever I come across new or different ideas and projects that I’m not used to. It’s dangerous because there are too many platforms if I do choose to voice those impulsive feelings and hate. Luckily I learned to snap myself out of it by taking a couple of steps back to asses whether or not my feelings and opinions are bias and unfair or not.

I try to be as mature and honest as I can when I really dislike or feel something is not up to my standard of quality. There are 3 big questions that I always ask myself: Can I do it better? Am I envious? And, Can I voice my opinion in person to his/her/their face? It’s very hard to answer these questions because we aren’t honest with the assessment of ourselves. It’s much, much easier to troll someone else’s work online anonymously and to believe that majority of people have the same opinion as you when really everyone’s opinion is controlled by what’s popular and celebrated. I feel when we all take a step back from our initial negative emotions or opinions of things and ask ourselves these questions, it will put our opinions and hate in the right perspective.

Can I do better? Well if we have no experience or track record singing, performing, drawing, illustrating, filming, writing, speaking or starting a business we can’t really say something sucks because we don’t have skin in the game. Even if we do have experience(s), do we have it at that respective level? Just because we played high school football, basketball or we performed at our middle school plays, it doesn’t really give us the right to say, we’ve been through it all, we can hate on it all we want, that we know everything that goes on in the process. Projects, products, performances and ideas in any medium at the professional level deals with endless amounts of political, bureaucratic, legal and financial constraints and factors, it’s very hard to understand all the things that go on behind the scenes. This shouldn’t spare creatives, artists and companies from blame but it’s a huge factor that normal fans and consumers don’t realize or consider.

Am I envious? Most hate stems from jealousy and envy. Envy from the fact that we didn’t get to do or act on that idea, be a part of that project or get the attention in our attempt. It’s hard for us to go through seeing something or someone else find success where we failed. It’s really hard to factor out our own subconscious bitterness and see a project or idea for what it really is. Envy and jealousy is probably the hardest emotion to control in my opinion. The last question and maybe the easiest to answer is: Can I voice my opinion in person to the respective person’s face? To be honest 95% of the time the answer is no. Even if we are not intimidated or fear the person physically, it’s not a good idea to voice our negative opinions and hate. It’s not just about physical altercation or fighting, it’s just not right and it’s petty to attack someone personally because of their work or ideas, which if you really read majority of comments online or in your own mind are personal, racist, derogatory and nasty attacks.

It’s very hard to fall in the trap of hating something when we don’t ask ourselves important questions like these. For me, even when my opinions and criticisms do pass these questions I don’t even want to label or feel like something “sucks” or is bad, even if I have valid criticisms, it’s such bad negativity when you use these words, I make it a habit now to use different words to frame my attitude. Instead of saying something sucks or is terrible, I’ll just say “it’s not for me” or “I don’t agree”.