Criticism Capture is More Dangerous Than Audience Capture

Nowadays, it's the unforced errors in response to criticism that kill you

I went out to the woods last weekend and had conversations with friends in other lines of work. When my job comes up, the topic of criticism gets raised. They hear it’s intense out there on the Internet. So what’s it like?

Most people have occupations where they get criticized in private. To have it take place in public, as happens in media, is a different dynamic, especially in this era. I happen to think one’s response to criticism is important and almost defining in this field. The game isn’t just what you do. It’s what you do after what you’re doing gets defined by people who hate it.

One lesson of this social media epoch is that social incentives are more powerful than economic incentives (See: How Vice destroyed itself). Ostracism, or fear of it, is an especially powerful incentive. It’s why I think “Audience Capture” is overrated, and a dynamic I’m calling “Criticism Capture” is underrated.

Perhaps you’ve heard of Audience Capture, a subject I’ve written about. It’s the phenomenon whereby a creator flames out by catering to the whims of fans. One viscerally disgusting example of this is the man who turned himself morbidly obese just to amuse his followers. You could find a more recent example in Cathy Young’s article about the IDW era thinkers, which posited that quite a few of these thinkers had been driven mad by Audience Capture incentives. I disagree with Young’s thesis, but we’ll get to that later.

Yes, I’ve noticed bad instances of Audience Capture. I’ve been accused of Audience Capture. And yet, I think Audience Capture is an overblown concern. You can lead yourself astray by maxing out on what thrills your customers most, but the audience can also be an important signal. I believe that quality work tends to, over time, deliver a sustained return. I also believe it’s wrong to blame the customer for a decline in creator standards because audiences usually want standards to be high. This is especially true if quality work won over that customer base in the first place.

Audience Capture isn’t the big problem for creators. It’s Criticism Capture that’s especially pernicious. I was reminded of this when reading a comment from Subscriber Kevin on my Supposedly Controversial WNBA team name post:

Substack doesn’t let you post images in comments but a screenshot of tweets in reply to Ethan’s Twitter post of this article (and subsequent ratio due to in group memesis) is downright depressing. Going through those comments made me a bit down myself that I’m spending mental energy internally combating them (I’m a lurker will never post) and I didn’t even write the damn piece.

All these people who didn’t read the article but *Know It’s Bad* because Holly Anderson or whoever posted about it and insulted Ethan’s character while giving no substantive criticism of the actual content feels like a real epistemic break in discourse. It’s just insult after insult. At least Fire Joe Morgan or old Deadspin or whatever spilled tons of ink on why their subjects were worthy of ridicule.

I don’t know what motivates that but I would really like to find out if someone would extend an olive branch to someone who says they have “bees for brains.” Maybe they have a principled clear point but their contribution to the debate is just “can’t believe this guy is bad now he used to be good” with no real evidence to back up the thesis. I still want to know what is objectionable about this!

I guess these may be their takes now? Like we don’t have takes on the issue, instead we identify the wrong and the bad and bathe in the ratio? Digressing but it is very “Libsoftiktok” to just screenshot an article and let the cascade of followers shit on the target. I hate it all.

There’s a lot in that comment, but one general takeaway is just how natural it would be to avoid commentary that provokes what Kevin details. My audience is largely fine with whatever supposed moral faux pas I get accused of, because they’re mostly reasonable, non Twitter brain poisoned types. This level headed lot pays my bills, and aren’t especially angry or crazy. So I should be listening to them, but they don’t talk nearly as much or as loudly as angry quasi media sorts. This is why I did not read those responses that Kevin took in. I’d be a fool to think more about the enraged hysteric as opposed to the quietly reasonable customer, and yet I’d become that fool if I read that feedback. It’s just natural. I can intellectually know that people are being insane, but taking it in will still register in my mind as a problem to be solved.

I also had to laugh when seeing Kevin’s comment because I sometimes experience similar emotions. When receiving such intensely angry criticism on X, it’s hard not to nurse this impulse to craft the perfect response. It’s similar to the way how you might, in the shower, perseverate over what would have been the perfect comeback to your snide co-worker’s dismissive comment. I’ve contemplated hypothetically ideal replies when getting ripped at scale. Some are cruel, some are nice. Some are strategic, some are impulsive. In a way, they’re almost all dishonest. Nearly everybody in this situation attempts to seem above the fray they’re fighting, like that wojack of the happy face in front of the rage tears. That’s why you see so many public figures on the Internet starting off with “lol” when they really mean, “FUCK YOU.”

So I almost never bother actually responding because I remember that the ideal response is a fantasy. In most instances, whatever you come up with is only marginally better than “I know you are, but what am I?!” Maybe there’s an opening to make a point out there, but when dealing with a group of people who performatively despise you, the juice usually isn’t worth the squeeze. Yes, I feel similar to Subscriber Kevin. I think it’s crazy that so many journalists just resort to ad hominem attacks and buy into thoughtless memetic hatred. I share Kevin’s dismay over a “real epistemic break in discourse” when responses to anything outside a group consensus is, “just insult after insult.” But it’s just how it is, so is such a group really worth engaging?

It is for some. Barstool Sports proprietor Dave Portnoy leverages media attacks on his reputation by attacking back with even more angry energy, aided by legion of loyal fans. Writers and public intellectuals aren’t similarly situated or oriented, though. They’re the sensitive types.

Captured by Critique

While acknowledging the vulnerability of the public thinker, let’s give the haters their due. The ideologically furious cohort of media creators and others with high-ish follower counts, while sometimes under employed, and often seething with resentment, do have an impact. Perhaps not individually, but as a collective. Certain online communities change the conversation and, over time, the people having it.

It’s not just about professional consequences, either, or formal cancellations. Nearly every human being is hardwired to care about their reputation. I’m struck by my own inability to transcend this consideration, given that I’m well positioned not to care. My customers have afforded me financial and ideological independence. And yet, yes, at some level I care about the judgments of peers. Wish I didn’t. Think it’s dumb that I do sometimes. But a small part of me occasionally does.

Public facing people largely don’t want to admit that it does. There’s a reason why “not giving a fuck,” has become such a common compliment in the social media age. In theory, you should want to give a fuck. What kind of mindless idiot doesn’t care about the consequences of their actions? But there’s this popular wish to escape this pervasive sense of judgment in the social media age. There’s an oft unspoken understanding that this collective judgement is a barrier to basic honesty and sanity validation.

One of my disagreements with the aforementioned Cathy Young piece on what happened to “heterodox” Internet famous intellectuals is the over emphasis on Audience Capture and underselling of Criticism Capture. She and others write about how deranging it must be to have millions of fans, but Jordan Peterson is at his most unhinged when addressing his critics. Same for almost anyone in that space who appears to lose themselves a bit. The unraveling usually starts as a rebuttal to some criticism, not some embrace of inspired followers. The, “I am not what my critics are saying I am,” is the opening line of a speech that ends years later, if at all.

Obviously, these two components, Criticism Capture and Audience Capture, can work in symbiosis. I cling more tightly to my positive feedback if the negative feedback lashes me so deeply. But the point is that the latter is more powerful. Criticism triggers that fight or flight and lodges in the memory. Praise just washes over you, as that moment of happiness right before you need more happiness.

The impact of the criticism often isn’t the impact. Yes, people fear the professional, social and financial consequences of reputation harm. But often, in media, that’s not what kills you. Instead, it’s your own unforced errors in response to the criticism.

Some people change their messaging to avoid the blowback, like a wide receiver shying from necessary contact over the middle. Some disagreeable personalities, such as a few in that old IDW space, get their backs up and overcorrect. Their content starts to match the fevered pitch of their most aggressive detractors. They almost mirror the derangement, regarding criticism itself as a positive indicator.

What’s nearly impossible is for your content to just remain your content, unchanged by the response it garners. Some are better at staying on course despite this and others are worse. Unfortunately, the sensitivity that allows someone to be an observant communicator is often indivisible from a vulnerability to critique.

So what’s the solution? It can depend on who you are, but I’d recommend the following: If you’re writing or podcasting for pay, only care about your customers. That doesn’t mean pander to them and it doesn’t mean overreact to the most communicative among them. But feel free to listen to those who’ve invested in what you’re doing and feel free to discard almost everyone else’s feedback. If you’re working hard and providing an honest perspective, your customers are your people and you are their person. I’d rather resonate with someone who’s liked my honest output than someone who’s been reflexively repulsed. I guess what I’m saying is, if you’re going to be captured, better it be by an audience than a critic.