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Social media and outrage culture
Dec. 30th, 2021 12:22 pmThe weird thing about social media is how people expressing their opinions often leads to outraged reactions instead of people just...disagreeing and leaving it at that.
This doesn't include when people have objectively bad takes (e.g. they say something racist, ableist, etc.). Roasting people for that is understandable.
But, for example, I watch Alexa Donne's YouTube videos. She's an author who puts a lot of helpful information about writing and the industry online. Some people seem to despise her because they don't agree with what she says—but it goes beyond disagreement and dislike. They say she's "holding herself up as an authority" and implying that she's being condescending because she's sharing her opinion.
This...kind of boggles my mind. If sharing your opinion means arrogantly "holding yourself up as an authority," then...what? No one can share their opinion in good faith?
Authors who share their thoughts and experiences publicly do so with the hope that they might be able to help other authors. But there's no objective truth in publishing; there isn't a single opinion that no one would disagree with. But you can disagree without being like "the person who said something I don't agree with is a Bad Person."
For example, I believe in being honest about how hard publishing is and the obstacles people face, because constant, unrelenting positivity never helped me while I was in the query trenches. But some people might disagree and say that hearing about the negatives would discourage them from publishing. Neither is right or wrong; it's just a difference of opinion. And if someone disagrees with me, they're free to just go on their way...instead of roasting me on the internet for having an opinion they disagree with.
It boggles my mind even further when it's authors engaging in this kind of behavior, because of everyone, authors should be used to receiving opinions that they disagree with. At every stage of publishing—getting feedback from CPs, querying agents, submitting to editors at publishing houses, editing, and receiving reader reviews—there will be people who give you feedback that you don't agree with, and part of being an author is learning to move on instead of confronting, arguing, and subtweeting those opinions.
Hell, moving on from opinions you don't agree with is necessary.
I was part of a short-lived writing group once where I got stuck reading a 100K+ word fantasy that I despised. (That sounds harsh, I know. For the longest time, I never joined writing groups because I was afraid of getting stuck reading a book I didn't like.) I despised it because I didn't know where the plot was going, I didn't like any of the characters, and the writing style didn't gel with me.
I'm a non-confrontational person and I don't like ripping apart other people's work, because I know how it feels to be an author who receives a negative review. But while I would've been happy to give feedback based on the first 50 pages and synopsis and left it at that, by the time I had been reading this book for several months, I was so sick and tired of this book that my feedback started to get very direct. (Imagine reading a published book that you hate but not being able to DNF it—that's how I felt.)
The thing that I remember most about this writing group was that the author kept arguing with me when I gave my feedback, trying to point out that I was wrong or misunderstanding the book. And all I could think at the time was, I honestly didn't care whether the author took my feedback into account or not (because I didn't care about the book), but the last thing I wanted was to be stuck arguing with them about my feedback.
And, ironically, that author was the one who gave me feedback on my book that I completely disagreed with (namely, saying that my genre romance novel was "too predictable" because "we all know the two romantic leads will get together eventually"). But did I argue with them? No. I just privately disagreed and moved on.
You can disagree with someone and move on with your life instead of arguing with and vilifying them for their opinion. That's all.
This doesn't include when people have objectively bad takes (e.g. they say something racist, ableist, etc.). Roasting people for that is understandable.
But, for example, I watch Alexa Donne's YouTube videos. She's an author who puts a lot of helpful information about writing and the industry online. Some people seem to despise her because they don't agree with what she says—but it goes beyond disagreement and dislike. They say she's "holding herself up as an authority" and implying that she's being condescending because she's sharing her opinion.
This...kind of boggles my mind. If sharing your opinion means arrogantly "holding yourself up as an authority," then...what? No one can share their opinion in good faith?
Authors who share their thoughts and experiences publicly do so with the hope that they might be able to help other authors. But there's no objective truth in publishing; there isn't a single opinion that no one would disagree with. But you can disagree without being like "the person who said something I don't agree with is a Bad Person."
For example, I believe in being honest about how hard publishing is and the obstacles people face, because constant, unrelenting positivity never helped me while I was in the query trenches. But some people might disagree and say that hearing about the negatives would discourage them from publishing. Neither is right or wrong; it's just a difference of opinion. And if someone disagrees with me, they're free to just go on their way...instead of roasting me on the internet for having an opinion they disagree with.
It boggles my mind even further when it's authors engaging in this kind of behavior, because of everyone, authors should be used to receiving opinions that they disagree with. At every stage of publishing—getting feedback from CPs, querying agents, submitting to editors at publishing houses, editing, and receiving reader reviews—there will be people who give you feedback that you don't agree with, and part of being an author is learning to move on instead of confronting, arguing, and subtweeting those opinions.
Hell, moving on from opinions you don't agree with is necessary.
I was part of a short-lived writing group once where I got stuck reading a 100K+ word fantasy that I despised. (That sounds harsh, I know. For the longest time, I never joined writing groups because I was afraid of getting stuck reading a book I didn't like.) I despised it because I didn't know where the plot was going, I didn't like any of the characters, and the writing style didn't gel with me.
I'm a non-confrontational person and I don't like ripping apart other people's work, because I know how it feels to be an author who receives a negative review. But while I would've been happy to give feedback based on the first 50 pages and synopsis and left it at that, by the time I had been reading this book for several months, I was so sick and tired of this book that my feedback started to get very direct. (Imagine reading a published book that you hate but not being able to DNF it—that's how I felt.)
The thing that I remember most about this writing group was that the author kept arguing with me when I gave my feedback, trying to point out that I was wrong or misunderstanding the book. And all I could think at the time was, I honestly didn't care whether the author took my feedback into account or not (because I didn't care about the book), but the last thing I wanted was to be stuck arguing with them about my feedback.
And, ironically, that author was the one who gave me feedback on my book that I completely disagreed with (namely, saying that my genre romance novel was "too predictable" because "we all know the two romantic leads will get together eventually"). But did I argue with them? No. I just privately disagreed and moved on.
You can disagree with someone and move on with your life instead of arguing with and vilifying them for their opinion. That's all.
