It happens constantly. You put your work out on the Internet or in some other forum, and some overly negative or simply rude person rips it to shreds, leaving you to wonder if you were really that far off the mark. Here's how to deal with the haters.
Coming to you from DSLR Guide, this video essay examines the subject of overly critical people and how we can deal with them. My personal theory on haters is that they're most often the inexperienced or uninformed trying to legitimize themselves both in their own minds and among their peers. I see it a lot with young composers who rip apart perfectly fine pieces of music because they for some reason have the misconception that discourse is only valid if it's negative. I'm not sure how that belief comes to be in the minds of so many people, but it happens constantly. Regardless, whatever the reason for all the excessive negativity out there, it's important as a creative sharing your work with the world to know how to pick out what's worth listening to and how to filter out the rest of the noise without being overly affected by it.
Lead image by Ed Gregory, used under Creative Commons.
Have I been negative recently? Yes, during a Canon 600 series presentation when one of the presenters, who is a wedding photographer, turned up with his flamboyant over the top money making presentation.
Just for the record, I have seen a YouTube presentation of a Professional Photographer going out on a miserable overcast day in the North of England, with nothing more than an eBay purchased basic photographic gear so that he can encourage others to take the habit of taking photographs, and he did it with lots of smiles and humour....
Love this response. Well said.
I know that I have spent several years teaching photography to beginners (and experts alike), and I have never tried to be condescending or rude, but I get accused of being rude, condescending, insulting, demeaning, uninformed, ignorant, negative, woefully misguided, trolling, and other such things, when I type on social media. Usually it is because I say something such as, “that, although a widely believed thing, is actually incorrect. Here is why it is incorrect, and her is how it really goes.” So I disagreed, stated why I disagreed, stated what I think, and why I think it…. And that somehow makes me a hater.
People can speak in a condescending tone of voice, but they (usually) cannot type in a condescending manner. One cannot read ones tone of typing.
We all get things wrong, especially when we were taught wrong in the first place. I was taught many things which were wrong, and, when continuing to teach what i was taught, was corrected by many a people who were kind enough to point out the error of my ways, without name-calling, or empty arguments, but with facts, and illustrations. I merely try to do the same, but is often —even after independent research, verified facts, mathematical calculations, and original experimentation with documented thesis, apparatus, method, observations & conclusions— accused of cut & paste repetition of incorrect information like a typical Internet troll.
Our perception of constructive criticism is often based on our perception of the critic/messenger, and not the actual critique/message.
Thanks for the share. Some good stuff to consider in there.
Nice video...
When someone puts their stuff out there on the web they shouldn't take everything said in comments very seriously. Maybe drop the most loving and the most hateful comments and pay attention to the ones in the middle?
But the premise of negative feedback being hate just sort of dismisses what may be a valid comment as hate.
Just like when someone makes a negative/hateful comment but is brushed aside with "can you do anything better? If not, I ignore you" I guess is is a way to protect yourself.
I can tell the difference between a good cake and a bad cake but I don't bake very much.
Not being of the Facebook IG generation I don't post much of anything sharing or looking for approval. My friends IRL give enough "hate" I don;t need it from strangers. LoL
Maybe today a lot of people learn online from often self proclaimed youtube "experts" and not in a classroom situation where I guess the instructor would be called a hater if they were tough on the students.
I may have made less than 100% glowing comments in the past but I try to say one or two nice things before bringing up negative points.
Life is too short to hate people online. Of course death threats are not from haters they are from psychos.
Are you talking about me or the man in the video?
There are different ways of criticising, some of them are constructive ones (or trying to be constructive) like: "I would light it differently", but there also unconstructive ones like "You sux badly, don't try make any photos anymore". Where first one can have some value in it (not always, but still), in second case it's just useless hate speech that leads nowhere in general.