InsaneJournal

Tweak says, "Baby got back!"

indigo (indigo) wrote in webcomickers,
@ 2007-09-15 09:14:00

Current mood:

disgusted

I really should be more careful when I check the linkbacks for Kismetropolis.

Someone suggested me to the guy who writes Your Webcomic is Bad and You Should Feel Bad as "a nice pleasant person with no discernible talent". They go on to describe some of the gags as not funny, yada yada.

This is not just a case of "if you post on the internet, expect people to comment, and expect some of those comments to be negative." The site in question is dedicated solely to trashing. Not criticism. Criticism implies there are style and preference issues, or that the things that are "wrong" can be fixable. And the person who runs this site actually began with the most popular webcomics and tore those apart for sucking. So constructive criticism, and anything resembling credibility go right out the window. He just slams webcomics [many of which are genuinely good] just because they're popular and he thinks it's funny to tirade.

More Artificially Inflated Internet Balls. He likes to say "the real world is not insulated," but it is. In the real world, people like this are [usually] mitigated by having to see the expression on the face of the person they just took such a cheap shot at.

I'm not linking to it because that "review" site revels in being as mean and cruel as possible [even though I haven't had a review, the people who read and enjoy the site like the meanness and want to see it continue].

Gotta love people who think it's fun and cool to do things like this.

Ads by Project Wonderful! Your ad here, right now: $0

(Post a new comment)

frostflowers
2007-09-16 11:38 am UTC (link)

Now, I hang out at a forum dedicated to finding the worst crap available on the Internet, and then bringing it back and mocking it mercilessly. However, the difference here is that we mock things that are BAD. Popularity =/= badness. (And yes, some of those things deserve to be torn apart mercilessly, because they have no redeeming qualities. Until you've read Joseph Mengele Mary Sue porn, or Agony in Pink, the lovely fanfic where the Pink Power Ranger is slowly tortured and raped to death, described in loving detail, you don't know the meaning of 'awful'.)

Picking on things just because a lot of other people like them seems to me like a huge case of non-conformist-itis. You know? The sort of people who are contrary just for the sake of being contrary - the kind of people who refuse to like something just because it's popular (like taking that stance makes them more "real" than the rest of us.)

(Reply to this) (Thread)

indigo
2007-09-16 01:09 pm UTC (link)

This is a wise philosophy.

It just annoys me significantly that people who have Artificially Inflated Internet Balls go around pissing in other people's cornflakes who have never done anything to them.

And yeah, I know from the mary sue porn of the Subjects That Should Never Be Ficced. My brain is fine like it is; I don't wish to bleach it, so I avoid those like the plague and simply warn based on context to others who do not wish their brains bleached either.

(Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

frostflowers
2007-09-16 05:48 pm UTC (link)

"It just annoys me significantly that people who have Artificially Inflated Internet Balls go around pissing in other people's cornflakes who have never done anything to them."

While I can get laughs mocking people whose sense of self-important is large enough to merit its own orbit around the sun, people who piss others off for no reason are just boring.

Equation goes like this: If I tell you your art/writing/whatever is crappy for x reason, and you come to me and start ranting and raving and frothing at the mouth, then you're hilarious. If I tell you your art/writing/whatever is crappy just to piss you off (i.e: it's not crappy, I'm just being a boring nitpicky 'tard), then I'm boring. And pointless.

"My brain is fine like it is; I don't wish to bleach it, so I avoid those like the plague and simply warn based on context to others who do not wish their brains bleached either."

What can I say? I'm masochistic. ;) 'Sides, some of the people at that forum are hilarity personified. Once or twice, I've ended up thinking I might have busted a rib from laughing so hard. And, really, some of the crap they bring back from the darker corners of fandom is just so out there that it's hilarious all on its own.

(Reply to this) (Parent)

raerae
2007-09-17 01:36 pm UTC (link)

Sometimes popular comics can be irredeemably bad. But since it idealizes the life that the fans want to live, or is moderately funny and well-drawn, it will draw fans. Of course, some webcomics are popular because they are good.

I've had a bunch of people call my webcomic horrible in a community that I was a regular in called bad_rpers_suck(though they didn't know I was, I don't think). They ripped into pretty much every weakness in my comic(why did they? Pretty much because someone copy-pasted one of my character profiles to a application for a Harry Potter rp). Honestly, frequenting b_r_s, I could hardly say that talking behind one's back was insulting to me. And my comic does have major weaknesses, a result of jumping into it without much planning. It was written for yaoi fangirls when I WAS a yaoi fangirl. I've long gotten rid of the 'fangirl' part.

I pretty much told them I respected their opinion and understood where they were coming from. Funny, only one replied.

But you know, it just made me strive to make my next comic better. Drawn better, written better, planned better. Even if it's not critism, but outright flaming, try to let the negative feedback influence you to get better.

(Reply to this) (Thread)

frostflowers
2007-09-17 07:40 pm UTC (link)

Good point, raerae.

Concrit is a wonderful thing, and as hard to find as a needle in a field full of haystacks - you have to seek out people you know are going to be merciless, or otherwise you'll get the "OMG! Good comic!!!one!" comments, which are useless.

The only comments I tend to ignore are the ones that are some variation on the theme "LOL! You sux genitals!". Because those, too, are incredibly pointless. If someone told me that and then proceeded to flame the bejeezus out of my characterisation, or my art, or my plot, then they've got something in there I can use.

(Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	indigo 2007-09-17 07:58 pm UTC (link)
	See, to me, if you have to flame to get your message across, it's not constructive criticism. It's destructive. No use for anybody who has to tear somebody else down. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

frostflowers
2007-09-17 09:51 pm UTC (link)

Meh. I've got a pretty mellow attitude towards flames. I don't give them myself any more (firstly because I grew out of that kind of behaviour years ago, and secondly because the people who truly deserve them - see my comments about Nazi-porn and torture-rape fics above - are too flame-retardant to even raise an eyebrow), but if someone gets in a snit and feels like flaming me, I can look at what got them angry in the first place and shrug off the vitriol.

Getting upset at a flame is only going to amuse the people flaming me, which gets me more flames - it's a cycle that really doesn't need to get started.

(Reply to this) (Parent)

	raerae 2007-09-18 05:00 pm UTC (link)
	Then don't let it tear you down. That's the reaction they're looking for. Laugh it off. Sometimes it helps to post it up in public and laugh at it in groups. I was in a few communities like that early in my LJ days. (Reply to this) (Parent)