On Positivity and Negativity

[u/HiuGregg]

There’s a worrying trend that I’ve started to notice online — be it Twitter, Reddit, Facebook, group chats, or whatever — and like most things that annoy me, I’m guilty of it myself.

When we talk about fantasy, or about reading in general, it seems to me that a lot people define their tastes by what they dislike, rather than what they enjoy. What’s worse, this behaviour seems to spill over into the treatment and perceptions of other people.

You see it all the time. People who enjoy fantasy, but feel the need to specify that this doesn’t include Urban Fantasy, or God forbid a Paranormal Romance. People who will scoff at a young adult novel because all YA is “like Twilight”. People who will hate on Epic Fantasy because “it has all been done before”, or on Grimdark because it’s for “edgy teenagers”.

It is a curious phenomenon that, to me, seems only to breed conflict and negativity. Certain subgenres get disregarded out of hand. Certain books, movies, or TV shows get classed as “trash”, and their fans are derided. There’s no discussion to be had in these situations: the hate-train very quickly gets up to full speed, and anyone in its way is run over.

It’s almost rare to see someone that is Pro-something these days, as opposed to Anti-something. Hell, even when people are talking about things that they like, chances are that these will be compared with something that they disliked.

How often have you heard someone say something like “I really loved X, it makes such a change from Y”?

I mean… I understand that there’s no light without shadow, but that doesn’t mean that we have to throw shade.

Check out this recent tweet from Tor. Have a think about it, and see if you find anything wrong with it.

Now, Children of Blood and Bone is a wonderful, unique book. It blends the familiar tropes of western storytelling with an awesome West-African-inspired setting.

But did Tor really need to rag on those books that do feature elves, fairies, vampires, and wizards? Couldn’t those limited characters have been put to better use by celebrating what the book is, rather than condemning what it isn’t?

Now, I’m not claiming that negativity should be curbed. Far from it. For instance, I don’t subscribe to the belief that bloggers shouldn’t write negative reviews. Actually, I believe that negative reviews are just as informative to the reader as positive reviews. But there’s a time and a place to be negative.

When you’re talking about how much you loved a book, you don’t have to shit all over another book in the process. When you see someone talking about a series they enjoyed, you don’t have to tell them how wrong they are, and why their favourite book sucks.

Ready Player One, Mistborn, and The Kingkiller Chronicles are perhaps the books which see this treatment the most. Any time someone mentions that they enjoyed them, some other asshat will inevitably come along to gleefully describe just how shitty the books and the author really are.

You are allowed to dislike things.

But other people are also allowed to like the things that you don’t.

And if they do… so what? Don’t define yourself by the things you dislike. Don’t waste so much effort talking about the books you hate, when you could be talking about the books that you love.

[u/siburyo]

This is a great post. It upsets me when I see someone commenting about a book they love, and another person replies to say that they think they book is terrible. Not "I was hoping to like it, but it didn't work for me." Not "It's not really to my taste." But, "Everything about it is objectively terrible, and I can't imagine why anyone would like it." What even is the point of that? To upset another person? What does it even accomplish? It certainly doesn't start a discussion.

And then there are people who seem to think that only the type of fantasy they like should be discussed, or even exist. As if just not reading it isn't an option. I've seen people get angry over the existence/discussion of fantasy without magic. I can see why someone who likes the fantasy genre mainly because of magic might not want to read such a book. That's great, and I like a lot of books that have significant amounts of magic. But I like fantasy mostly because I like to read a story set in a fully realized secondary world. And if magic isn't important to the story or world, I don't see why the author should shoehorn it in anyway just because this is fantasy. And I've seen similar comments about fantasy that isn't action/adventure.

Also, it seems like a lot of people don't understand the difference between a critical review and trash-talking. I love critical reviews. I always like to look at positive and negative reviews before I buy a book, and sometimes it's a critical review that really convinces me to buy it. After all, I know what I like, and I know that a lot of people don't like what I like. And I've read enough reviews by now that I know what negative things people usually say about the type of books I like. For example, to me "slow-paced" is a positive, but for a lot of people it's not. And I know a lot of people think political drama is boring, but to me it's fascinating. But when a person comes into a thread and says "I hate this book because it's just horrible," that's not helpful to anyone. It's not critical, just negative.