Why Everyone is a Critic Now (And Why That’s a Problem)
We are living in the golden age of the opinion. If you buy a toaster, you are asked to rate its toasting consistency on a scale of one to five. If you take a taxi ride, you are expected to judge the driver’s conversation skills and vehicle cleanliness before you even step onto the curb. If you read a book, watch a movie, or eat a sandwich, there is a digital platform begging you to broadcast your thoughts to the world. We have transformed from a society of consumers into a society of critics. Every single interaction we have with the world is now framed as a potential review. While this democratization of feedback was intended to empower the little guy, it has created a culture of constant, low-grade judgment that is bad for art, bad for business, and ultimately bad for our own enjoyment of life.
In the pre-digital era, criticism was a specialized trade. If a movie was released, you waited to read what a handful of professional critics thought about it in the Sunday paper. These were people who had studied film history, who understood the technical language of the medium, and who attempted to offer an objective analysis. Today, the barrier to entry for criticism is non-existent. All you need is an internet connection and a pulse. This has shifted the definition of criticism from “is this piece of work well-made?” to “did this piece of work cater to my specific personal preferences?” We see this on platforms like Goodreads or Yelp, where a classic novel might receive a one-star review because the reader found the vocabulary too difficult, or a Michelin-star restaurant gets trashed because they didn’t have ketchup for the fries.
The problem with this shift is that it centers the consumer’s ego rather than the creator’s intent. We have confused “I didn’t like this” with “this is bad.” When everyone is a critic, the cultural conversation loses its nuance. We stop asking what the artist was trying to achieve and instead demand that the art conform to our pre-existing worldviews. If a movie challenges us, confuses us, or makes us uncomfortable, the modern reflex is to punish it with a negative score. This creates a feedback loop where creators become terrified of taking risks. If a filmmaker knows that a difficult ending will tank their Rotten Tomatoes score, they are more likely to opt for the safe, happy resolution. The tyranny of the user review pushes culture toward the middle of the road. It encourages “blanding,” where everything is designed to be pleasant enough to avoid a one-star rant but rarely bold enough to earn a true five-star legacy.
Furthermore, the internet has destroyed the concept of the “average” experience. The rating economy is binary. It is driven by the extremes. You either have the “best experience of your life” (five stars) or the “absolute worst trash ever made” (one star). There is no incentive to leave a three-star review for a meal that was perfectly adequate. The algorithms that power these platforms favor high emotion and controversy. This trains us to hyperbolize our reactions. We can no longer just watch a mediocre TV show and move on; we have to go online and declare it a crime against humanity. This constant state of hyperbole is exhausting. It warps our perception of reality, making us believe that everything is either a masterpiece or a disaster, with no room for the messy, okay middle ground where most of life actually happens.
This critical mindset also robs us of the ability to be pure fans. When you enter an experience with the mindset of a critic, you are looking for flaws. You are scanning the frame for plot holes. You are tasting the soup looking for the missing salt. You are a detective at a crime scene rather than a guest at a party. This detachment prevents immersion. You cannot get lost in a story if you are mentally drafting your Letterboxd review while the movie is still playing. We are sacrificing the joy of awe for the cheap thrill of feeling superior. Criticism, in its modern form, is often just a way to signal intelligence or taste. It is a performance we put on for our followers to show that we have high standards.
There is also a significant empathy gap in user-generated criticism. When we type a review into a text box, we often forget that there are human beings on the other end of that score. The author who spent three years writing that book reads the comment that calls it “garbage.” The chef who woke up at 4:00 AM to prep vegetables sees the review that says the food was “inedible.” The anonymity of the internet allows us to be cruel in ways we would never be in person. We treat creators like faceless content machines rather than people. This toxicity burns out talented people who simply decide that the emotional toll of being constantly judged by thousands of strangers is not worth the effort.
We need to reclaim the lost art of simply shutting up and enjoying things. Not everything needs a score. Not every meal needs to be documented. Not every opinion needs to be published. There is a profound freedom in consuming something and keeping your thoughts to yourself. It allows you to form a relationship with the art that is personal and private, untainted by the need to perform for an audience.
The Audience Member Returns
The next time you finish a book or walk out of a theater, try resisting the urge to reach for your phone. Do not look at what the aggregate score is. Do not draft a witty takedown. Just sit with the feeling. Allow yourself to be an audience member again. Allow yourself to be confused, or bored, or delighted without needing to quantify it. When we stop trying to be the judge and jury of everything we consume, we might find that we actually start liking things a lot more. The world is full of critics, but it is desperately short of people who are willing to just sit back, watch the show, and say “thank you” for the effort.
