A Public Service Announcement for those who engage in cultural criticism

There is an awful lot of snark out here on the interwebs. I am not immune to it, in the least. In fact, I have been accused of being nothing but snark and self loathing. While not being an accurate representation of who I am or what I put out here, I allow for a certain amount of subjectivity when it comes to the reader' s mindset.

A lot of what I write is poor man's cultural criticism. I have some academic background in this, as well as a voracious consumption of media of all forms, and a jaundiced and cynical eye when it comes to mass media. I am also able to contextualize a lot of it. (i.e.: X film is directly linked to Y film because of n moment, which is what being a completest is helpful for)

That being said, and part of my superficial doucheiness, is all about preferring quality over quantity and preferring craft to mass production (which may be selectivity, and may be subjectivity, but art, like food, does have objective value, so...it may be pretension as well.)

Anyway, I am moving off topic...

Taking time to criticize someone else's work takes a certain amount of disconnection from the process of creation without being so disconnected that you cannot take someone to task for taking the easy way out.

But this piece from the Awl summed up what is wrong with current criticism as well as what could be right about it.

What Makes A Great Critic?

What we really need is a critic who has got something interesting to say. Who is writing something that we would like to read. Whose aliveness just comes out and grabs you by the throat and makes you think, or go pop-eyed with amazement, or throw your monitor across the room in a fit of rage. As a lover of good criticism, I am asking, or demanding (more like begging, really), that this passion and immediacy be the first quality that should recommend a critic to public notice.

What if the cozy and rarefied world of conventional reviewing is on its way out for a good reason, namely, that people aren't the slightest bit interested in reading that kind of writing anymore? Not because it's "serious" or "intellectual," but on the contrary, because it ain't. Maybe part of the problem is that we are no longer content to have the conventional book given a conventional reading by a conventional critic?

Give it a read, if you have time, and consider what you are saying (as I will) when you are pontificating about culture, be it in print, on the series of tubes, or at the bar after one too many.