“With each passing week it becomes more obvious to me that the majority of readers have lost the ability to comprehend a mixed review, where I am enthusiastic about some aspects but withering about others. I’ve spent the last few days explaining that I do, in fact, like many aspects of the HBO series THE NIGHT OF, but thought other aspects were bad. I do not understand why so many readers seem not to understand how such a thing could be possible. It’s gone beyond puzzling and into troubling. ‘You don’t like it.’ ‘I like PARTS OF IT.’ ‘But you write all this negative stuff!’” —Matt Zoller Seitz
And this right here is the problem with poptimist ‘hater’ culture, mixed of course with the ever popular media illiteracy and the poor reading comprehension that is the modern Internet user’s trademark:
You’ve had ten plus years of everyone pretending (Christ I hope they’re pretending) that everything is either ‘amazing’ or ‘the worst’ to the point that any critical nuance is immediately tamped down as ‘hating’ –
meanwhile,
we bend over backwards to promote flimsy pop culture items into positions in the cultural dialogue well above their weight and class out of some misplaced need to be part of that same dialogue.
The result being that most now not only don’t know how to critically dissect good and bad art (and media) but are confused by it when they see it done.
—jason malmberg
Flommist Jason Malmberg is a simple man who believes in brown liquor and small dogs. He also makes art sometimes. Copyright © 2016 Jason Malmberg.
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