Don’t read the comments
How useful is the feedback from your fans, and at what point can it have an adverse affect on your creativity? Matt Berninger, Lily Fontaine, Anna B Savage and Richard Dawson give me their insights
Anyone who’s ever posted anything they’ve made online will be well aware of the Russian roulette of the comments section. Mostly, you’ll find exactly what you want there, a happy empty chamber of “love this!”, *crying laughing emoji*, “come to Brazil!”. And then click. Your head is blown off by, “Oh man, I’m old, but listening to this was like listening to my parents talk about music.” Somebody actually posted that under a Loud And Quiet podcast recently, which I’m so completely not bothered by I’ve written an entire article about the effects unsolicited feedback has on creativity, speaking with The National’s
, English Teacher’s Lily Fontaine, and Richard Dawson.The origin of online comments dates back to 1998 when they were rolled out by the journaling site Open Diary. Considering it was the age of dial-up, with an estimated 147 million Internet users worldwide (3.6% of the global population versus today’s figure of 67.9% – 5.56 billion people), I can’t imagine Open Diary had much of a problem with shitposting, although you never know. As quickly as comment sections became a staple of web 2.0 they seemed to prove what psychopathic goblins a lot us can be, reaching what should have been their nadir in 2016 when Vice (Vice!!!) closed their comments section, stating: “We had to ban countless commenters over the years for threatening our writers and subjects, doxxing private citizens, and engaging in hate speech against pretty much every group imaginable.” Others followed suit also citing abuse as the reason, from NPR to IMDb, but the trolls had already found the fertile feeding ground of social media by then. All the snowflake hearts they could fit on their plates.
I’m not so much interested in the extremes of trolling – the vile hate speech and rape threats that have very real consequences, or the contrary pot-stirrers on a mission of confusion, petty inflammation and, let’s be honest, devastatingly hilarious putdowns. We’ve got those trolls’ numbers by now, and can mostly dismiss them as bots with blood. But what about the commenters that think they’re doing you a favour – the big fan who simply has to tell you of the fine adjustments you could make to be a little less shit? Or the non fan who, please understand, won’t be able to get on with their day until they’ve expressed on a public forum why they think you’re a hack? Combined, they can kill you with a thousand cuts, but can they also be of use? Do artists ever hear some truth in them and adjust the art they make accordi… “Oh, fuck no,” says progressive folk artist Richard Dawson before I can get the full question out.