If I find a particular piece of media upsetting I just quickly move on and do not look again.
But there is some media I engage with that I was disappointed by, but care about (whether because I enjoyed it by itself, or because it’s the sequel to something else I liked). I’m invested, so I bother to complain instead of just walking away.
And it’s a lot easier to complain, and to latch onto other fans’ complaints, than to properly explain why I liked what I liked besides a quick “well this was nice”. I just don’t have enough knowledge to write 3 paragraphs on how they did it and why it works, only enough to say “I really liked X.” In my opinion and experience, it takes more knowledge to write a lot about the success of something beyond “wow this succeeded!” than it does to write about the failure of something and your quick guess on what went wrong.
I’ve been on both sides of that equation before!
If I find a particular piece of media upsetting I just quickly move on and do not look again.
But there is some media I engage with that I was disappointed by, but care about (whether because I enjoyed it by itself, or because it’s the sequel to something else I liked). I’m invested, so I bother to complain instead of just walking away.
And it’s a lot easier to complain, and to latch onto other fans’ complaints, than to properly explain why I liked what I liked besides a quick “well this was nice”. I just don’t have enough knowledge to write 3 paragraphs on how they did it and why it works, only enough to say “I really liked X.” In my opinion and experience, it takes more knowledge to write a lot about the success of something beyond “wow this succeeded!” than it does to write about the failure of something and your quick guess on what went wrong.