What do you think I mean when I say something sucks? (Patreon)

Three definitions of Critical:

Expressing adverse or disapproving comments or judgements.

Expressing or involving an analysis of the merits and faults of a work or literature, music, or art.

Having a decisive or crucial importance in the success, failure, or existence of something.

I am definitely the second and third.

And yes I do express distaste a lot. I have perhaps maybe once or twice described a piece of bad art as “ethically abhorrent”, or a “genuine sin”, or “a great example of Satan’s plan to consume attention and energy without respect for beauty or truth”.

(There’s a link between quality and morality, I’m working on it.)

(More accurately Robert Pirsig already worked on it, and I’m trying to harness that work)

(For some reason crypto venture capitalists are the only people that actually reference Pirsig’s work and I want to give it to… intended audience unclear. The universe?)

"Analysis of merits and faults of a work”

That sounds about right. I’ve long sustained art is not all just opinion.

There is effect. There is communication. This can be successful or unsuccessful on paper. This is quality. The interaction between a subject and object. Not inherent in any product or perception, it’s the interaction of the two. I want mass quality, I need strong communication through my work to many people. Ascertaining quality by consensus makes sense because it is literally “more quality”.

In search of More Quality, synonym High Quality, I obsessively evaluate why things work and why they don’t. If I say something sucks it’s because it’s making it’s way through the Analytical Quality Gauntlet (AQG) that presides where my brain should be. Watching a good movie can water my soul, but it also makes the AQG gears spin until they melt. Then bad art coming near me is kind of like a flock of seagulls accidentally flying into the firing range of an air defence system.

Lots of blood and feathers.

But I mean it with love. Can I? Can people understand that?

I don’t hate bad art. I just love good art. So I want to pick it all apart and know for sure. The mystery always dominates, the intangible unknowable holiness that is excellence, it can come in any form and we all know it when it does, but it has left a lot of clues.

“Having a crucial importance in the success, failure, or existence of something”

Yes. Knowing why it’s great and making it as great as it can be is crucial to my existence.

It’s critical that I am critical. It’s a law of nature, I wouldn’t exist or have a reason to exist if I wasn’t going to make beautiful things and then rip them to pieces.

I don’t consider my Youtube channel my art. It contains my art. It is comedy, first and foremost. There is writing and editing.

My Youtube channel contains my mediums of comedy, writing and video editing.

Actually, comedy is not the biggest medium involved. It’s the biggest practical application, the most consistent thing that occurs, the bit you can rely on and use immediately.

But the biggest medium in the Youtube channel is Brand. An accurate avatar. The jokes ones makes about the character in those videos are the same jokes you’d make about me.

I hope when people hear me say something sucks they don’t think they’re hearing my opinion. I don’t think my opinion is worth much. But looking carefully at the pieces of something and seeing what they do, I think that is worth very very much.

Opinions are supposed to be fun to share, but I don’t find much fun in it. I find fun in peeling something apart and making something better out of its excavated corpse.

I’m kind of just a fleshy storage unit for the AQG. I might be on the extreme end of things, but I think everyone can benefit from a little AQG action. I don’t think you like things for no reason, and if you’re critical of them I believe you will find more to love, justification for your love, a way to love more.

You don't just love the art, you love the eternal things contained within it. 

And when I think something sucks, it’s because I’m working on how to perfect it.