My last article on HuffPost got far more comments than any of my others. As an on-and-off blogger, comments are always exciting. They let you interact with people you never would otherwise. They imply that many strangers have read your writing, and that feels pretty cool.
However, my friend who used to write for HuffPost and now works at the Onion, always used to complain about comments. She warned me never to read them, but I didn't listen.
I posted my first four articles in the Education section. I would get the occasional comment here and there, all pretty benign. The type of people that read education articles are those already with an investment in education, and they are generally open-minded and excited about new ideas.
I posted my fifth (and most recent) article in the Entertainment section. This may be obvious to those who frequent online publications, but I did not realize how crazy and impassioned movie commenters can be. In an article that essentially suggested that we shouldn't be so quick to judge taste, there were people who were angry about the idea of accepting unique opinions. I knew this concept was controversial, but I didn't realize people would be genuinely enraged. I guess my opinion could be classified as sort of socialist, but this isn't politics, it's movies!
Anyway, the response to this article (both positive and negative) cemented a goal I already knew I had. I want to make it my life's work to make sure people question the cultural assumptions that we make each day. The quality of art and media is one of those assumptions. The way we judge and evaluate things are a product of the social context. We value certain qualities more in one decade than in another, and I don't think it's fair to declare that some people (especially kids) have bad taste because they don't like what everyone else likes.
This isn't a fully fleshed out post by any means, and I definitely will not be publishing this on HuffPost. I just wanted to get out these thoughts while they were ripe!
However, my friend who used to write for HuffPost and now works at the Onion, always used to complain about comments. She warned me never to read them, but I didn't listen.
I posted my first four articles in the Education section. I would get the occasional comment here and there, all pretty benign. The type of people that read education articles are those already with an investment in education, and they are generally open-minded and excited about new ideas.
I posted my fifth (and most recent) article in the Entertainment section. This may be obvious to those who frequent online publications, but I did not realize how crazy and impassioned movie commenters can be. In an article that essentially suggested that we shouldn't be so quick to judge taste, there were people who were angry about the idea of accepting unique opinions. I knew this concept was controversial, but I didn't realize people would be genuinely enraged. I guess my opinion could be classified as sort of socialist, but this isn't politics, it's movies!
Anyway, the response to this article (both positive and negative) cemented a goal I already knew I had. I want to make it my life's work to make sure people question the cultural assumptions that we make each day. The quality of art and media is one of those assumptions. The way we judge and evaluate things are a product of the social context. We value certain qualities more in one decade than in another, and I don't think it's fair to declare that some people (especially kids) have bad taste because they don't like what everyone else likes.
This isn't a fully fleshed out post by any means, and I definitely will not be publishing this on HuffPost. I just wanted to get out these thoughts while they were ripe!
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