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Comment by Barrin92 | Hacker News Reader

> it does need to mourn the death of the hatchet job.

I despise hatchet jobs. They may not be as common in literary reviews any more, but they absolutely have taken over most popular internet media. Youtube is full of dunk reviews of absolutely everything, dripping with sarcasm and often targeted at anything even remotely unconventional or provocative.

I can't remember who said it but I took the advice to only listen to critics who lead you to something, not away from it. For one it is more actionable and useful to get advice on what to read rather than what not to read, and also scathing criticism is often more about the reviewer than it is about the subject they're writing on.

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I can't help but agree with this. I'm noticing this more with games than anything else, but it's simply not possible to release something that won't be immediately bombarded with hate.

There are too many people who style themselves reviewers who cannot tell the difference between something not being for them, and something being actually objectively bad.

> something being actually objectively bad.

How would you even define "objectively bad" when it comes to art?

I think current Hollywood is a prime example of doing objectively bad art especially live action movies. They ignore the source material to make it fit their political agenda, which has always been a thing, but it becomes problematic when it breaks the characters and rules of the world. The stories become so inconsistent that you just cannot get immersed. Knowing more about the writer than the characters is really bad writing.

I also consider the all knowing character very popular in webtoons to be just a form of cheating. I've seen it done well, e.g. knowledge as a double-edged sword, but mostly poorly to the point it could have been removed and the story would have been the same. In general adding superflous elements because it is trendy is really shallow writing.

> I think current Hollywood is a prime example of doing objectively bad art especially live action movies.

There are two movies out today that are famously doing very well and are quite good.

> They ignore the source material to make it fit their political agenda

It's one thing to use "thought terminating cliches" in posts, but actually believing them is nothing more than self-harm, so you should try stopping.

something that dilutes itself and tries to appeal to everyone and yet very few people actually like it.

of course "bad art" is a ridiculopus concept in some sense, but I think here the issue is a total lack of "art", an entirely cynical attempt to hit the exact average with no ideas behind it

I noticed this slamming things (at least in the title) is pretty popular as well. Especially with video games. I have a few go to reviewers that I trust. But watch one review and the others get recommended.

I guess it was like movie reviews from back in the day, you’d find a reviewer that matched your preferences.

I think it changed when the views began to pay the bills.

hate and outrage generate a lot of clicks, it makes sense (sadly) that people would tend towards it given the profitability.

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