The Crisis of Criticism
Are we over the bell curve on critic culture?
Five years back, Disney-Marvel produced its first real glitch in the matrix with Captain Marvel, a movie that sucked beyond all comparison but still made a billion dollars due to the timing of its release. This would fuel the next few years of similar cinematic duds both in the theaters and on streaming, as they would apply the same tactics of “stunt casting” a director, hiring inept writers, and boosting the actors when they attacked the fans.
When the pandemic hit and people quintupled the amount of time they spent online, pre-existing video critics like Nerdrotic and The Critical Drinker completely took off, with the latter racking up millions of views on his jabs at Captain Marvel and other movie duds. I first listened to one of his videos in late 2020 and have been a big fan ever since.
He’s one of the few in the critical space who tries to take his job seriously. I respect his efforts not to paint himself into a corner and to examine his own blind spots, lest he become the very thing he’s fighting against. (That said, I still think the trailer for his upcoming short film was really bad, but that’s another issue.)
The problem is that for every critic like The Drinker, there are a hundred spammers trying to pimp the algorithm and rise to his level, not realizing that the caliber of his work—and the originality, and the timing—were what got him to where he is. As a result we have an overabundance of X accounts, YouTube channels, and TikTokers who do nothing but screech the same canned phrases about Disney Marvel, Disney Star Wars, and the cancer of reboots/sheboots/remakes/unwanted sequels that Hollywood has committed to.
We’ve reached the point where none of the criticism is new any more. We know what the problems are and the big studios are hellbent for leather to never fix them. Even Jay from Drunk3P0 recently said on a Geeks & Gamers stream that he’s focusing on some of his other channels because there aren’t many more ways to say that Star Wars sucks.
The gold rush for critical channels is over. The big names in it are the ones who were already doing it, and doing it well, and just needed to be discovered. I actually find this rather encouraging because of what I’ve already been doing, and doing well, whilst needing discovery. I’ve been a novelist for decades at this point. I published my first one ten years ago. I’ve published at least one book every year since then, despite moving to two different states, having two more kids, switching jobs, switching schedules, and surviving some of the most personally turbulent years of my life.
I know what I’m good at and I want success in it. When I see someone else have success at what they’re good at (in this example, cultural criticism) then that’s cool, but I—we—have to fight the temptation to immediately emulate them, thinking that we’ll have that same level of success.
It’s like wanting to be a successful lawyer, so you spend all that time and money on your undergrad and law school, only to see a successful doctor, and suddenly you try to throw yourself into an operating room because hey, success is there. Quit flopping around and stick to your path.
I’ll say it again: the critical gold rush is over. Now we’re inundated with far too much of it, and not just from the creators: comments sections have become parrot perches that just repeat whatever they’re fed from their favorite personalities.
I feel like I started to get tired of it all about a year ago, maybe six months ago. “Oh, another Disney Star Wars show came out, and it sucks. Oh, another Disney Marvel show came out, and it sucks. Oh, another Hollywood movie came out, and it sucks.” Yes, and? What are we going to do about it? What are we making instead?
That’s a really good question. Let’s look at what people outside the system have been making this entire time and go from there. Go read my books. I’ve got a bunch of them.
As long as there is a thriving criticism industry with a million tryhards working their way into the game, these studios and streaming services know they’ll have at least a base number of people watching, even if it’s to tear their stuff apart. Hungry YouTubers don’t actually want to watch this stuff but they’ll be there opening night so they can see it, digest it, make jokes about it, and upload their video before the next guy for those sweet, sweet views.
Nothing changes if nothing changes. We’re past the point of there being any hay to make when it comes to pointing this stuff out; the hayfield is where the new IPs are. Books, comics, probably even some indie films, though I don’t watch indie films much and I don’t know where to start. I’m a literature guy. The bottom line is this: the corporate behemoths pushed. The people have pushed back. The battlefield is now flat and empty.
Get in there and fill it up with something good.