Sasuke, my son

Once again. I can understand the kneejerk impulse here, I do. It sucks to imagine, say, a creator scrolling online coming across some needlessly vitriolic post about something they worked on. But anyone is allowed to go "That's dickish" and move on, or people can engage with "I think this is oversimplified blah blah" if they want to but at the end of the day it isn't some kind of crime against the hobby or a fandom or even a singular person if someone just shoots off "This sucked I wasted my night" in their own accounts.

Like. A lot of people are trending towards thinking I'm talking about the importance of constructive criticism and like, sure, I think that is probably a more interesting avenue of analyzing something's flaws, but once again if you're not like, addressing an artist or interested in doing a deep dive that doesn't mean you're Not Allowed to be flippant or quick to judge. It's kind of startling how many times I've seen someone be like, "I can't stand this album" on their blogs, untagged, had that shit shared, only for it to come across someone's feed and for them to respond with "Why? What's wrong with it? People are allowed to like it, why are you being so negative, why are you tearing people down for no reason, this isn't even real critique," as though the intention in the first place ever was or ought to have been substantive critique in the first place.

OK sometimes you don't like a certain art style. That's fine. Doesn't mean the art is bad, it's just not to your tastes.

That doesn't give you the right nor even a reason to be a dick on the Internet because you don't like something. If you want to be a dick, do it to someone who has time and energy to give it back. Because at that point you deserve shit in return.

If someone is outright asking for constructive criticism, that still doesn't give you the chance to be a dick. It means they want help learning something they're putting time and effort into.

Why do I need a "right" or "reason" to post anything online? Why is it that my enjoyment of something is intrinsically justifiable, but my lack of enjoyment requires justification? And based on whose standards? If I can thoughtlessly tweet out a "This album rocks," without expecting people who hate it to demand a longform review from me to explain my enjoyment, I'm not sure I understand why I can't say "This album sucks" without having to go into the trenches about its positive qualities and negative ones. Why do I need to formulate every opinion I have in the form of an art school critique addressing nobody at all?

Why can praise be thoughtless but criticism must, at all costs, be formulated in art school constructive form in case the creator happens to see it and get their feelings hurt or a fan finds it harmful? Particularly when someone could very well have their feelings hurt by thoughtless praise of something as well! I'm not even trying to claim a more substantive form of criticism isn't more interesting or more valuable for one's interpretive abilities. I just think this notion that there is a moral obligation in all online spaces-- no matter how siloed-- to tiptoe around the potential hurt feelings of a hypothetical audience that may or may not even be courted, is at best stultifying for any real plurality of opinion and at worst enabling people whose insecurities about their own hobbies lead them to confidently dictate what people say in whatever passes for privacy in an online space nowadays.

I dunno, I've read works of brutal polemic that I've found immensely creatively engaging, thoughtful, and substantial in its knowledge of a particular form or medium. I've read works of praise I've found miserably trite. Why is the former not allowed to exist because of its dickishness? Why is the latter beyond critique itself?

But the long deployments take a toll on the crews and Marines, who had planned for a normal rotation and are now months past their initial scheduled return home.

“You don’t sign up for an easy time, you know any deployment is going to be uncertain,” said Joe Plenzler, a retired Marine Corps officer. “But extending deployments like this, when it feels really open-ended, that starts to bleed into retention. How much more likely am I able to convince my family to do another enlistment and stick with it?”

now, the answer to this isn't to RETVRN- the problem isn't that we've deviated from the economic norms of the 50's, it's that we have *failed* to deviate from those norms after those economic norms outlived their usefulness. the answer to the problem is to move forward, not backwards. but if you deny the current state of capitalist decline, you'll be politically out-maneuvered by the retvrners.

regarding that second point:

there absolutely are tiny houses? the other parts aren't really true either but the tiny houses one is especially untrue- it was a major point of discourse a few years ago that realtors were trying to sell people on tiny houses, and also that these tiny houses *still* were unaffordable.

so bouncing off that, I think it's really funny that we're seeing a right-wing argument that essentially amounts to:

Well, I guess if he's got you this upset he must be on to something, right? Isn't that what they say? Regardless, I'm curious: would you be holding this same energy if Charlie were a woman? Even one you disagree with? Or is there a permissibility to (often brutal) violence against men that you simultaneously refuse to acknowledge while also cheekily playing into?

Just some food for though, "pal".