…Is it just me, or are a lot of said review sites out there hyper-critical, and more than a little petulant? I mean, it’s almost as if people have money down on bets that certain films or projects will fail, and they’re trying to protect their gambling investments. I certainly understand wanting a project that you didn’t personally work on to succeed; if you like a particular film topic or style, naturally you want those to do well so that you’ll get more of those. But rooting for failure seems less logical, somehow.
I know that this topic isn’t likely to be very interesting to people who aren’t me. But it does interest me, and I’ve been noticing all of this with some bemusement for some time now. Who knows? Maybe I’m the weird one, here. Certainly those review sites are getting hits, which suggests that people are buying what they’re selling…
It isn’t just you. I don’t read those kinds of sites anymore. They all seem to be written by overgrown children acting out a petty power fantasy. At this point in my life, I’m pretty confident I know what I’m going to like, and that it will be discussed on one of the few sites for which I bother to make time.
Yeah, its hard to find sites that are not full of pessimists and debbie downers. Maybe its a product of the times when even light hearted fun topics have to become depressing slogs.
It depends.
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I’m damn tired of getting smacked in the face by the aggressors in the culture wars when I’m just trying to enjoy some bit of escapism.
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So yeah. I want the new Ghostbusters movie to fail. (And ESPN. And…)
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There are things like Destiny, to pick an example.
It’s brilliant, but badly flawed, and the company treats its consumers as a necessary evil at best. You can’t do a fair assessment of it without focusing largely on the flaws and that the company will whipsaw you on a regular basis.
It’s not that I want it to fail (more projects like this, please!) It’s that the purpose of a review is to give people accurate information so that they can make an informed decision about the product.
Sure, I have a bit of petty bitterness about very nearly every promise to us about the game having been broken. And I get a bit hostile when a favorite piece of gear suddenly has different perks and plays much differently.
I’m not going to belabor it, but I’m certainly going to note it! (And most likely speculate about why.)
I’ve noticed a tend to tedious negativism on geek-interest sites. My theory is a variant of qixlqatl’s “overgrown children”: many of these writers (and their readers) have not grown out of the studied cynicism that many adolescents fall into. Because, y’know, growing up is hard work.
Errg. That should start “I’ve ALSO noticed …”.
I think Ace over there coined the term “Hot Take Syndrome.” Now he was primarily about Twitter, but the theory pretty much extends to all parts of pop culture these days.
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It is not enough for you to say in a review: “I was ok, but I just was not feeling it that day. Might be a good drunk movie.” or “I realized while sitting there that this movie/game did not bring anything new to the table, but it was fun.”
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The response seems to universally be “What are you, some kind of p****?!?!?! THESE DIALS GO TO ELEVEN1?!1?!!1?
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You have to either be a 110% for something or you have to pick it apart so meticulously that it would make the creator’s mother cry- and she’s been dead for 5 years.
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Add to this click syndrome and everything gets dialed up. I also think they want to all be the next Mr. Plinkett over at RLM and get 7.3 million views.