Did I Finally Make Fetch Happen?
Did I Finally Make Fetch Happen?
"Criticism Capture" is gaining steam!
Thanks to the subscribers who alerted me to a discussion of my Criticism Capture article on the Chris Williamson podcast. Longtime customers know that I’ve been trying and failing make “fetch” happen with a neologism all my own. I can blame the paywall, but my inability here likely has more to do with my own limitations. It’s hard to make a concept stick, especially if you’re longwinded and struggle with self promotion.
Williamson has over 2.5 million YT subscribers, though, so “Criticism Capture” has a chance of having legs. Obviously I wrote a whole essay explaining what it is, and Williamson did well to relay the gist, but let me try and summarize the idea in this space.
“Audience Capture” is the well known phenomenon whereby a creator flames out intellectually by catering to the whims of fans. My take is that Audience Capture is real, but overrated, because the more prevalent and pernicious problem is Criticism Capture (TM). And what is Criticism Capture? It’s the phenomenon whereby a creator flames out intellectually as a reaction to public criticism.
Why do I believe this? Beyond my own observations and experiences, there’s a wealth of research to suggest that criticism is more enduringly felt than praise. Thanks to our negativity bias, getting attacked just matters more to the psyche than getting a compliment.
But what does it mean to be “captured” by this reaction? It means that the critical response overwhelms your outward honesty, to a degree. Some public figures compromise their public perspective out of deference to what their peer group might lash out at. Others lean into the criticism and, perhaps as a coping mechanism, chase that negative attention to the point of derangement. Overall, and this is the main idea of Criticism Capture, the negative impact of criticism on the commentator’s output is greater than the reputational harm done by the criticism iself:
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.
So what’s the solution to dealing with Criticism Capture in the social media age? I’m not actually sure, as it’s a fiendishly difficult problem. No matter what we do, we will all be a bit captured by criticism. Sometimes, if it makes for a good enough post, and there’s a bigger idea connected to the controversy, I myself will respond to some bit of backlash.
I’m just looking for that overlap between what’s interesting to me and potentially interesting to a subscriber. At a certain point, too much me is a problem (Such as narcissistically responding to haters every day). At a certain point, too much them is a problem (Such as if I’m constantly chasing my assumption of what the audience wants). I’m looking for a balance while trying to remain authentic. In theory, being authentic should be reflexively effortless. In practice, it’s a process you’ve got to think your way through, lest you fall into a trap of someone else’s choosing.
@Ethan - congrats! And, unrelated, this seems like Ethan bait and would be curious to know your thoughts: https://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/41122997/commanders-suspend-vp-comments-players-jones-goodell
The lesson I've learned as a writer is that it's extremely risky to take notes from someone who doesn't love your work. Because if they don't see an underlying goodness to what your write, they'll just take a torch to it, perhaps ridding it of some flaws, but also, inherently of the things that make it great. A fan of yours can see what's working and what's not; but someone who is just a critic makes no such distinctions, hacksawing away and not caring if anything's left behind. The danger of criticism capture is not that you go crazy; it's that by appeasing your critics, you end up losing the people who became fans of you in the first place.
The lesson of the last decade of media has been that you shouldn't feel entitled to your audience, because they can and will leave, and you shouldn't take your critics so seriously, because even if you listen to them, they may never in fact show up. (I actually think your idea of "criticism capture" was best expressed by the "undecided whale" theory you put forward about the NBA, China, and its American fanbase.) I often think back to an Esquire post from the early teens which featured "80 Books A Man Should Read Before He Dies", and the insane amount of pushback it got because 76 or so of the authors were White men. In response, the magazine has grown woker: it's now rare for them to publish their best books of the year list that isn't at least 3/4ths women, and of the men, most of them are not white. But the magazine has grown slighter, too, each month it appeares in my mailbox; its articles seem less ambitious, less bold, less often a part of the conversation. And as a result, everyone who I knew who subscribed 10 or 15 years ago at some point chose not to renew. In many ways, what's happened to the media is just an extended form of criticism capture: a wellspring of dullness and a dearth of originality caused mostly by a deep fear of being yelled at on the internet.
The real lesson of our moment, however, is that criticism capture is often just audience capture in another form: no one likes being publicly humiliated, of course, but often the only reason people engage in sadistic, fruitless and unending forms of humiliation is because there's a public cheering them on. The currency of our time is attention of course, and the twin poles of capture illustrate the two forms of demise: get audience captured and the world watches you turn into a cartoon; get criticism captured and no one watches you at all.