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A lot of this resonates with stuff we occasionally complain about when people just reply to stuff in a way that reads like every conversation is a challenge. https://twitter.com/synxiecbeta/status/1387889723515969536?s=19">https://twitter.com/synxiecbe...
That& #39;s a really convoluted sentence, but it& #39;s the thing where, like, how am I meant to respond to that? What did you want out of this interaction?
It& #39;s not always a robot, but that& #39;s a good example. Basically, I& #39;ll draw a robot - a thing I do every day, for free, because I love you - and someone will tell me they don& #39;t need that robot for whatever reason.
Okay? Fine? I& #39;m not going to defend it and try to sell you on it. It& #39;s a drawing of a pretend robot. If you don& #39;t like it, you can wait for tomorrow& #39;s one.
Without being rude, and in the spirit of the OP I& #39;m quoting: this isn& #39;t a collaborative project. You get a robot picture each weekday. That& #39;s the extent of the transaction here.
I don& #39;t mind replying and having fun with ideas and stuff - it& #39;s why I share these pictures - but ime there& #39;s often not much of a follow-up to "I don& #39;t like it" or "it should be like this instead". As in the OP& #39;s thread: what kind of engagement are you trying for?
I talked about "comment culture" not long ago, and I think one part of it is that 20+ years of internet culture has just trained us all to give opinions on everything, but there& #39;s also a (real and perceived) creator/audience heirarchy that comes into play. https://twitter.com/PublicChaffinch/status/1388101515076845570?s=19">https://twitter.com/PublicCha...
To whit: there& #39;s an unspoken assumption that engaging with media is a one-way relationship, as it has been historically. If I yell about a TV show from my sofa, no one who made it is likely to hear me: it& #39;s just me saying my piece, apropos of nothing.
Creators occupy a rarefied position in this conceptual model: they make things to be consumed because they have power, and consumers who are relatively powerless pass judgement on them. Fair& #39;s fair.
But we exist now in a far more democratised marketplace in terms of media creation and consumption. The creator you& #39;re commenting on is more like a contemporary. The heirarchy is less rigidly enforced, which means they (we) can respond.
So the audience is working from a model in which their opinion is a largely meaningless potshot into the void, while the creator is working from a model in which they& #39;re your equal, having a conversation about their work.
This audience doesn& #39;t expect, or necessarily even *want* a dialogue: it& #39;s just the expression of an opinion. So when a creator responds, assuming a dialogue is desired, there isn& #39;t really a conceptual space for it.
Hence my snarky, "I& #39;ll delete it then, shall I?" type comments. Because *I* think you want something constructive out of the exchange, but there literally isn& #39;t anything constructive that *could* come out of it. So we hit an immediate impasse!
You didn& #39;t expect a reply, so you don& #39;t have a follow-up. That isn& #39;t how the situation is set up.
And when I do reply, whatever I say is going to sound harsh because I& #39;m basically dragging someone shouting from the crowd into the ring to have a fight. And no matter how justified that may be, I look like an arsehole for doing it.
It& #39;s like audience and creator are having two totally different kinds of conversation. You feel there& #39;s a power imbalance, while I don& #39;t because I see myself as just like you.
This is all articulated far better by my friend @KirstySedgman, whose job it is to study these ideas, and which I& #39;m just bashing against like an australopithecus who just discovered rocks tackling a particle accelerator.
