The Worst Thing You Ever Saw or Read Usually Isn't
I've seen this a few places lately. I don't know why but every once in a while people start asking about what the worst movie, book, TV show, etc... is and there are always tons of folks jumping in with comments about how horrible X was or how Y was crap.
Thing is, these people almost never actually come even a bit close to "the worst" of a medium or genre.
Seriously, if The Star Wars Prequels or Wheel of Time were the "worst" films or books you've ever experienced you are either a lucky lucky bastard or at least mildly delusional. Because for such admittedly somewhat uneven works to actually be the worst thing you've ever come across you'd have to miss a lot of real shit.
Of course, saying the worst movie you've ever seen was Freddie Got Fingered (which I still insist myself) doesn't garner the attention that saying you hate Star Wars does. Of course that can't be it, since it implies that many people given to such hyperbole are attention whores...and really that's gotta be unlikely, right? Right?
Uh-huh, right. We live in a world where folks will give money to a guy so he can buy and then smash a PS3 in front of a crowd of folks who didn't get one...attention whoring has reached something akin to an art form, mehtinks.
So anyway, Let's be brutally honest about what really sucks, shall we? Let's not complain about how Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring is the worst film ever because you miss Tom Bombadil. If we must declare something the worst of the worst, let's dip into the well of deserved obscurity to find some real shit, shall we? Unless your worst movies ever list contains gems like Beyond the Wall of Sleep I can't see how we have anything more to talk about. If you're going to put Eddings, Jordan, or whoever on the worst sci-fantasy novelist list and you don't have Susan Wright, John Norman, or that person who tried to sell their Star Wars fanfic novel on Amazon well up towards the top of your list then we really don't have any common ground to tread.
So please, don't bother claiming that anything even a five folks you know thought was "okay" was the worst thing ever. Because it wasn't. At all. And all such behavior really does is make you look ignorant. Ignorant of what's really crap, but ignorant all the same.
Thing is, these people almost never actually come even a bit close to "the worst" of a medium or genre.
Seriously, if The Star Wars Prequels or Wheel of Time were the "worst" films or books you've ever experienced you are either a lucky lucky bastard or at least mildly delusional. Because for such admittedly somewhat uneven works to actually be the worst thing you've ever come across you'd have to miss a lot of real shit.
Of course, saying the worst movie you've ever seen was Freddie Got Fingered (which I still insist myself) doesn't garner the attention that saying you hate Star Wars does. Of course that can't be it, since it implies that many people given to such hyperbole are attention whores...and really that's gotta be unlikely, right? Right?
Uh-huh, right. We live in a world where folks will give money to a guy so he can buy and then smash a PS3 in front of a crowd of folks who didn't get one...attention whoring has reached something akin to an art form, mehtinks.
So anyway, Let's be brutally honest about what really sucks, shall we? Let's not complain about how Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring is the worst film ever because you miss Tom Bombadil. If we must declare something the worst of the worst, let's dip into the well of deserved obscurity to find some real shit, shall we? Unless your worst movies ever list contains gems like Beyond the Wall of Sleep I can't see how we have anything more to talk about. If you're going to put Eddings, Jordan, or whoever on the worst sci-fantasy novelist list and you don't have Susan Wright, John Norman, or that person who tried to sell their Star Wars fanfic novel on Amazon well up towards the top of your list then we really don't have any common ground to tread.
So please, don't bother claiming that anything even a five folks you know thought was "okay" was the worst thing ever. Because it wasn't. At all. And all such behavior really does is make you look ignorant. Ignorant of what's really crap, but ignorant all the same.
posted by Jack at 10:12 PM
1 Comments:
Yeah I think we're there together on that one. I am fairly critical of things I don't like but I try to do two things I don't see often, especially online:
1) Have reasons.
If I say that Eli Roth's horror films to date are in my opinion poorly-plotted rehashed crap, I can actually point out scenes and examples. (Not gonna here because we'll be here all day but to give just one example, the end of Cabin Fever with the cops outside the cabin was better and more socially relevant when it was in Night of the Living Dead).
2)I don't resort to hyperbole except by accident.
Sure, I sometimes overstate for effect but if I say something really sucks and bored me half to sleep I actually mean I was near dozing during it. If something really offends me, and few things do, I say so.
I also make a real effort not to assume the best or worst about creative works or just regular folks without some evidence. You see this a lot. When Author A or Actor B does one thing someone doesn't like or even something they think they might be offended by if their possible interpretation is correct (and in my experience it rarely is) they get all pissy and start calling folks names.
And that's childish. As is expecting creative people to live in your head just because you consume their creative product. Sure, actors, directors, artists, can be churlish dicks and some of them are pretty loathsome human beings...but enough of those folks and enough real crap exists in creative fields that you don't need to watch the world through me-colored to see that stuff. All doing that will do is create more things to be pissed about.
And really, no offense, but if you're mad at an old college buddy for making a crass joke you kinda sorta took offense to or ranting about how insincere Mel Gibson's "sorry I'm a drunk dick with issues" apolofy was...suck it up, shut up, and get over it.
There is real, mind-numbing gut-wrenching atrocity in the world. Shit that would turn you white to even know it exists. I count myself lucky to only be aware of some of it and its still a scar on the soul even then.
Cutesying up words like hate and rape and whatever to describe how you feel about a film or even someone else's fairly reasoned if opposite opinion does a disservice to the the real horrors those things are supposed to represent.
Calling people who doesn't agree with you names and comparing them to Nazis or whatever should be grounds for an elderly Jewish woman kicking you in the nuts with a spiked boot.
Sorry to rant (well kinda sorry), its this negativity that has made me excessively negative about geeks. Geeks, in general, look for horror in their usually fairly damned good lives.
Not that these folks want real horror, of course. Real horror and pain and evil...sucks.
So they search instead for drama...horror's weaker bitchier cousin. And internet enables this drama to come out without someone else being able to cut you off in mid-sentence and say "Don't be a fucking twat." Hence it's popularity with folks wanting to spout off at the mouth about everything from Star Wars to politics.
So what's the alternative? Well Jd's got it...so do a lot of folks I know. Try and and give at least a little benefit of the doubt, look how it could be worse, etc...
And the funny thing is...this is generally NOT optimism and blinding oneself to flaws like some whiny emo kid would insist it is. Nope, in my experience, this is cynicism refined to enable enjoyment. Observe the sentiment and end result of the following statements:
"Hey that could have utterly blown...and it was pretty so so...but at least that fight scene was cool and there were a few entertaining lines. Likely I won't watch this again, but I was moderately entertained."
"Man, that is so not what I would have done with that...but I can see how they got there. And for what they did, that worked decently."
"Hrm, I would have changed that bit...I really think it hurt the end of the work's impact. Still, it was really entertaining overall and it certainly didn't ruin the stuff I already really enjoyed."
Those are all positive comments based in cynicism. Which is I guess a way to turn a negative positive.
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