When Everyone’s a Critic, No One Is

I imagine that most people view Vocal hearts as a relentlessly positive reward based system. Liking a given piece is a form of affirmation, a way of indicating that you agree with what has been written, or appreciate its style, or find it interesting, or funny or whatever. Criticism on the other hand is, by it’s very nature, a negative pursuit. To criticize a thing, to be critical of it, to be a critic, is to point out and emphasize all those things that are suboptimal, or incorrect, or illogical or whatever, in the thing being criticized. How could the Vocal like system then be a form of criticism? It is simple really, if the giving of hearts is a positive affirmation of a story than withholding of hearts is a form of criticism of it. Of course it is not that simple, many people, myself included, often times forget that the like option even exists, or are too busy to bother with the extra five seconds it might take to click the little heart. You may rightly ask, am I really that busy that I could not spare five seconds to click a mouse button a few extra times? Of course not, but I still use that excuse, and I am certain I am not alone. In any event, I do think that I am more the exception than the rule, and for most readers and writers on the site intentionally not liking, can be viewed as a form of criticism. And so what? What is wrong with that? you might be asking. Great question I might respond if you were asking and then I would point down about a half inch and say read on to find out.

Most people are simply not qualified to be critics

Hate to sound like a snob here but this is obviously a true statement. Giving everyone the power to criticize (by withholding a heart) gives the same amount of power to the biggest idiot as it does to the artistic genius, or the average joe or the adolescent, or the subject matter expert, etc. I am not saying that any of the groups of people just listed are not qualified to be critics just because of who they are, they are not qualified to be critics because they suck at criticism. Most people suck at criticism because criticism is difficult. Clicking or not clicking a mouse is the opposite of difficult.

Liking disincentivize actual, useful, interesting criticism, and dialogue between writers and readers and between writers and other writers

Why should I bother writing a critical response, or otherwise engaging with the author of an article I read that sucked when I can just click to the next article without liking it. Which is related to my next point.

Likes are soooo lazy

I mean seriously. How fuckin lazy is it to just click your mouse button to indicate you liked something you read? If you really wanted to express your opinion you could take a few extra minutes to write out a response describing exactly why you liked it or hated it. This would actually be helpful to the author in contrast to likes which are utterly and totally useless as a learning tool for a writer. Alternatively you might even write your own story describing the various reasons you had the opinion that you did (good or bad) about the piece you just read. Because likes result in less useful criticism they also lead to my next point.

Likes increase the amount of terrible writing found on Vocal

I don’t think I am going to shock anyone by stating the obvious fact that the vast majority of writing on Vocal blows. I mean it sucks, and sucks hard. It is basically garbage, and the world would be no worse off and maybe slightly to a lot better off if it had never been written. How do likes increase the amount of terrible writing? By rewarding articles that (see below)

Likes play to the lowest common denominator

You know what I mean by this. Look at the posts that get tons of views and likes. Anything with or about sex (that do not run afoul of the ever present and watching Vocal censor squads of course) and stupid listicles about how to do something or fix something that apparently most people find random advice from a stranger on the internet a satisfactory answer for.

Likes are divisive and polarizing

Because they are so black and white, you either give a heart (like it) or don’t (don’t like it). There is no room for explanation or requirement for reasoned judgement or thoughtful discussion of the issues. There is just heart or no heart. The end result of this is that political articles, even ones that blow ass, will get likes from the people who support the political position or party or whatever of the author, and people that do not support said political position will withhold likes even if the article in question is fantastically good.

Worrying about likes is irritating and annoying. Writing about them is even more so.

I have enough stress and irritation and annoyance in my life. To think that some ridiculous “measure” of popularity or quality or whatever likes actually measure is adding even one nanodrop of stress to my life pisses me off to no end. The fact that I am currently writing this story about them is bringing me close to Bruce Banner into Hulk transformation rage.

It is not clear what likes are intended to measure nor what they actually measure

My guess is that Vocal believes likes (hearts) are a way to measure or reward quality writing. The idea being that likes would measure popularity and popularity is suggested to be a reflection of quality. Only quality writing will be popular is the idea. This is obviously, demonstrably, false. However, it really is not clear to me what Vocal thinks they are actually measuring or even why they are measuring it with the current like system. I would suggest that they are actually measuring nothing at all. Likes are like a ruler without any hash marks. Sure the ruler exists, you can hold it, even place it against an object to be measured, but you can’t ever get an actual measurement because there is nothing to tell you what the ruler means, or what it is supposed to mean or what it is even supposed to do. It may as well just be a plain old stick. Similarly likes on Vocal may as well just be a plain old hand, flapping around in the electronic ether of the internet.

Yuck, ugg, that last sentence is some terrible writing. The analogy does not even really make any sense and then the word choice is craptastic. I blame likes. lol!

Author’s note: Special thanks to Samantha Drobac and Ivana Knezevic, two terrific writing colleagues who both inspired my thinking about this issue around the same time.