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When opinions are shit
Oct. 16th, 2022 04:03 pmNo, I haven't given up on the Midnight Sun spork and the next chapter IS coming, but in the meantime, there's a little something I'd like to talk about.
If you've spent any amount of time on the internet, you know that people love getting into fights over opinions. You also know that people will play the "stop bashing me just for having an opinion!" card while at the same time bashing other people for their opinions.
And you know what, I understand that most of the time, opinions are exactly that - opinions. For example, Star Wars speaks to me on a deeply personal level, but I understand that it doesn't speak to everyone that way. Sauerkraut makes me want to gag (seriously, I can't even stand the smell of the stuff), but I understand that some people love it.
However, some opinions might actually be wrong, whether they be based on flawed logic or claims that are just plain untrue.
For example, on DeviantArt I recently saw one of those "Top Ten Pairings I Hate That Everyone Else Loves" memes. The person put Belle and the Beast at #1, saying they were "The most toxic Disney couple, I really hate How Beast was to Belle in the film, sequel and the third film, he sounded very rude to Belle when they are arguing, i only like Beast later in the first film and as Prince Adam."
It just had me facepalming at how this person COMPLETELY MISSED THE POINT of Beauty and the Beast. Yes, the Beast is nasty to Belle at the beginning - that's the whole POINT. Belle won't take his crap while he's being an ass and he has to IMPROVE HIMSELF before she'll fall in love with him. It's called a REDEMPTION ARC.
For that matter, the same person had Carrie and Tommy from Carrie on the list, stating that "Carrie killed a lot of people at the prom, and Tommy was killed too!" which has me thinking that the person only read/saw the very end of Carrie and didn't read/watch the rest of it because my GOD, did they miss how Carrie was HORRIBLY ABUSED by her mother and classmates and how Tommy asking her to the prom was part of an elaborate prank to humiliate her? Her powers going crazy at the end were basically the result of her anger at being abused and bullied her entire life exploding out of her. HOW SHALLOW CAN THIS PERSON'S VIEWS BE?
Or let's look at a shit opinion a lot of people on the internet seem to share. A certain portion of the internet seems to have a knee-jerk reaction to the use of CGI in movies, calling it "lazy" to use CGI for special effects. Even though most of them have probably never attempted to animate anything in their lives, they declare CGI lazy . . . because it's CGI. Yes, sometimes CGI can look off and sometimes it doesn't age well, but calling it "lazy" just because you dislike CGI in movies is a disrespect to the animators who likely had to work with tight deadlines. Guess what, CGI doesn't involve waving a magic wand and the computer does the animation for you - people work LONG HOURS on CGI animations and effects. Can some animation be "lazy"? Sure it can, but that's different from calling CGI "lazy" simply on the grounds of it being CGI. Guess what, CGI ain't going anywhere, so you'd better get used to it.
Then there's a really amusing example of shit opinions that I found on YouTube and I did a commentary on a while back.
The guy claimed that he hated all Nintendo games because Nintendo did exclusive games for their own consoles (yeah, because Nintendo is both a game company and a console company, duh), and churned out entries for their most popular franchises over and over (you know, like all major game companies do). But the cherry on top was the revelation that he hadn't even PLAYED any Nintendo games.
He also said that he disliked all Sonic games . . . strictly because of how insane the Sonic fanbase is. As I said in the commentary, by that logic I should stop being a Star Wars fan because of how batshit insane the Star Wars fanbase is.
And lest anyone think I'm just throwing stones at my glass house, let me give you an example of a shit opinion I once had.
Back when Spirited Away won the Oscar for Best Animated Feature, I hadn't yet seen it (it didn't come to a theater within a hundred miles of me), but I did an internet rant about anime being "freaky," which was an opinion purely based on prejudice. Back then, "anime" for me meant things like Pokémon with its (at the time) badly-synced dubbing. I had yet to actually WATCH a lot of anime. Hell, I actually referred to "the anime animation style" in the rant, which was of course a bullshit claim because there isn't just one "anime animation style."
Now, however, I've seen a lot more anime (Spirited Away included) and grown to appreciate the vast expanse of storytelling and visual delight it offers. Hell, I wish the USA had the same respect for animation that Japan has instead of constantly seeing it as a kids' medium (despite massive evidence to the contrary).
So yeah, I had a shit opinion.
Does this mean NOTHING is ever a matter of opinion? Of course not, but sometimes opinions are based on poor reasoning, prejudice, misunderstood facts, or all of the above.
If you've spent any amount of time on the internet, you know that people love getting into fights over opinions. You also know that people will play the "stop bashing me just for having an opinion!" card while at the same time bashing other people for their opinions.
And you know what, I understand that most of the time, opinions are exactly that - opinions. For example, Star Wars speaks to me on a deeply personal level, but I understand that it doesn't speak to everyone that way. Sauerkraut makes me want to gag (seriously, I can't even stand the smell of the stuff), but I understand that some people love it.
However, some opinions might actually be wrong, whether they be based on flawed logic or claims that are just plain untrue.
For example, on DeviantArt I recently saw one of those "Top Ten Pairings I Hate That Everyone Else Loves" memes. The person put Belle and the Beast at #1, saying they were "The most toxic Disney couple, I really hate How Beast was to Belle in the film, sequel and the third film, he sounded very rude to Belle when they are arguing, i only like Beast later in the first film and as Prince Adam."
It just had me facepalming at how this person COMPLETELY MISSED THE POINT of Beauty and the Beast. Yes, the Beast is nasty to Belle at the beginning - that's the whole POINT. Belle won't take his crap while he's being an ass and he has to IMPROVE HIMSELF before she'll fall in love with him. It's called a REDEMPTION ARC.
For that matter, the same person had Carrie and Tommy from Carrie on the list, stating that "Carrie killed a lot of people at the prom, and Tommy was killed too!" which has me thinking that the person only read/saw the very end of Carrie and didn't read/watch the rest of it because my GOD, did they miss how Carrie was HORRIBLY ABUSED by her mother and classmates and how Tommy asking her to the prom was part of an elaborate prank to humiliate her? Her powers going crazy at the end were basically the result of her anger at being abused and bullied her entire life exploding out of her. HOW SHALLOW CAN THIS PERSON'S VIEWS BE?
Or let's look at a shit opinion a lot of people on the internet seem to share. A certain portion of the internet seems to have a knee-jerk reaction to the use of CGI in movies, calling it "lazy" to use CGI for special effects. Even though most of them have probably never attempted to animate anything in their lives, they declare CGI lazy . . . because it's CGI. Yes, sometimes CGI can look off and sometimes it doesn't age well, but calling it "lazy" just because you dislike CGI in movies is a disrespect to the animators who likely had to work with tight deadlines. Guess what, CGI doesn't involve waving a magic wand and the computer does the animation for you - people work LONG HOURS on CGI animations and effects. Can some animation be "lazy"? Sure it can, but that's different from calling CGI "lazy" simply on the grounds of it being CGI. Guess what, CGI ain't going anywhere, so you'd better get used to it.
Then there's a really amusing example of shit opinions that I found on YouTube and I did a commentary on a while back.
The guy claimed that he hated all Nintendo games because Nintendo did exclusive games for their own consoles (yeah, because Nintendo is both a game company and a console company, duh), and churned out entries for their most popular franchises over and over (you know, like all major game companies do). But the cherry on top was the revelation that he hadn't even PLAYED any Nintendo games.
He also said that he disliked all Sonic games . . . strictly because of how insane the Sonic fanbase is. As I said in the commentary, by that logic I should stop being a Star Wars fan because of how batshit insane the Star Wars fanbase is.
And lest anyone think I'm just throwing stones at my glass house, let me give you an example of a shit opinion I once had.
Back when Spirited Away won the Oscar for Best Animated Feature, I hadn't yet seen it (it didn't come to a theater within a hundred miles of me), but I did an internet rant about anime being "freaky," which was an opinion purely based on prejudice. Back then, "anime" for me meant things like Pokémon with its (at the time) badly-synced dubbing. I had yet to actually WATCH a lot of anime. Hell, I actually referred to "the anime animation style" in the rant, which was of course a bullshit claim because there isn't just one "anime animation style."
Now, however, I've seen a lot more anime (Spirited Away included) and grown to appreciate the vast expanse of storytelling and visual delight it offers. Hell, I wish the USA had the same respect for animation that Japan has instead of constantly seeing it as a kids' medium (despite massive evidence to the contrary).
So yeah, I had a shit opinion.
Does this mean NOTHING is ever a matter of opinion? Of course not, but sometimes opinions are based on poor reasoning, prejudice, misunderstood facts, or all of the above.
