Fair vs Unfair Criticism

                                                              Fair vs Unfair Criticism

I stumbled into the world of YouTube criticism channels by accident. Those that criticize comedians and those that criticize prizefighters. Two of my interests. At first look I thought these were just jealous people hating on those who were successful and nitpicking every little thing. Certainly perfection wouldn't be a reasonable standard would it? Over time I came to appreciate that some of this was holding powerful people accountable, which is probably a public good. The channels also carved out a niche of levying certain relevant criticisms that journalists in a given industry would not make for fear of damaging certain relationships. Of course there was a mix from unfair and ad hominem criticisms to ones that were pretty reasonable. My point being is some of the criticism is crap and some is of a high quality. We should not dismiss it ALL in generalization as people just being haters.

There is a difference between serious criticism and jokes. A joke is not meant to be taken seriously. It is not what the speaker REALLY thinks. Criticism is taking a serious position. As in you MEAN what you say it is NOT a joke. When the critic or comedian is being unclear, it is reasonable that the speaker can be criticised in both ways. Also, critics should accept they are ALSO going to be criticized. You are not beyond being criticised (or even disliked) because you are a journalist or saying what you believe is the truth. Criticism flows in all directions.

If we are talking about media criticism it is generally based on individual taste and opinion which is subjective. This is not to say that all criticism is "just opinion." It is more there is a spectrum from more subjective to less to even objective. For example: criticizing writing for creating characters that are "not likeable" is pretty subjective. Criticizing writing for improper spelling, grammar and punctuation is closer to objective (unless it is a stylist choice to break those standards in a specific instance). Opinion is more subjective. Fact is objective. Criticism may mix opinion with fact.

On reading minds and inferring what someone else is thinking / intentions. We cannot read minds. Speculating on what someone is thinking or their secret intentions... This is a form of criticism people are drawn to. We want to say "ah-hah! gotcha!" and believe that there are secrets to uncover in this way. It is really difficult to do this well, and most of it is pretty sloppy. We have to establish a baseline of behaviour for the subject (how do they act usually? are they deviating from their normal patterns?) As someone taking in this form of speculation take it as having very low evidentiary value, and that many of the points made could probably have reasonable alternative explanation. At least compare it to other possible explanations.

A last point on my personal taste: I enjoy rude jokes but I don't enjoy people just being rude. This seems to be a prevalent strategy in YouTube video criticism. There is a difference between an inciteful (but painful to hear to the subject) criticism, or a snappy one-liner and just being a jerk. There are a critics who are also fans, and this kind of rudeness just for the sake of rudeness makes one appear to be a spoiled brat crying about some minor thing in this awesome film they watched. It should be allowed, of course, it's just something I find gross but I wouldn't censor it.