in other words, you stink

"If you don't like it, don't watch it."

Ever read this comment posted after an online article or blog entry in which the writer criticizes a TV show? This sentiment and its variants tend to show up now and then, and man is it getting old (or, rather, is way past getting old). It reveals what so many comments tend to reveal: That people are often sensitive to a fault when it comes to what they like, and it doesn't take much to put us into our defensive postures.

Now, I don't like people criticizing things I like. I am tired of anti-"Lost" whining from people who, I confess that I presume, are just too impatient to appreciate a story that doesn't wrap up in one season though the show itself will continue much longer than that. I honestly do not understand how so many people can choose to instead watch "Criminal Minds." (How many crime procedurals with likable casts but a constant emphasis on sick behavior and twisted characters do we, as a society and viewing audience, really need?)

I am naturally a more sensitive person about these things. If a particular writer tends to trash something I am really fond of, I don't read what that writer says about that something. I understand the impulse to jump up and defend the merits of said thing, but we often don't do a good job of defending in a constructive way. This may have a lot to do with how much time we spend on our argument (very little, I suspect) and the immediacy provided by click-and-comment capabilities at many sites.

Statements like "If you don't like it, don't watch it" aren't thought out very well. Do you really want every person who can find any flaw in any episode of a particular show to never watch it again? Shows get canceled when viewers don't watch them. Are we so averse to criticism that we are unable to see that, given in the right spirit and tone, criticism can be helpful and good? Why equate criticism with blind hatred? If no one ever offered anyone else tips on their work, relationships, creative endeavors, etc., then we'd all be mediocre or worse, as would all the things we're working on.

A "real" fan doesn't look blindly at what she likes. Nothing is perfect, not even a show as good as "Lost."

•••
Friday's appropriate quote:

"You speak unskilfully: or, if your knowledge be more, it is much darkened in your malice."
— Taken from Shakespeare's "Measure for Measure," via the Shakespearean Insulter