The Concept of Negative Press

[DinoRexMax DinoRexMax]

It has been said before that "bitching is free" but is it really? What if everything you whined and cried about actually had the cost of backfiring and making whatever you were complaining about even more successful somehow? Because, by even giving it the notion, you are acknowledging it's existence. And therefore, offering it free advertisement. That, my dear friends, is the concept of "Negative Press".

Hate that movie? Don't talk about it!
That game sucks? How dare you have an opinion on it!
Is that a shitty song? You just sold a billion copies by even thinking about it!
There's some guy saying stupid shit on your favourite gaming forum? Well, thanks for visiting my thread.

It's like the topic is diseased, and if you so much as even think about it your just spreading it around like a virus. What am I referring to? Who am I insinuating? Is there something I'm hinting at? Fuck you, I ain't sayin' nothin', my lips are sealed.

I hate it. Because having an opinion on something is just a normal part of human communication, but part of the human learning process is first-hand experience. I can TELL you something is awful, but until you try it/use it/buy it/break it/fix it, mail - upgrade it, you won't ever know for sure if it's as bad as people say. So of course you go and watch it! Of course you spend the 20 bucks on tickets to go see it in the theatres, why wouldn't you? Otherwise, how would you know? And so, by even daring to complain about it, Person A has doomed Person B to the eldritch knowledge that Movie Z is shit, which they wouldn't have seen without it being mentioned in the first place. And don't even get me started on the downwards spiral of media being created shoddily on purpose just to abuse the Negative Press cycle, like, no shit Bikni Titty Shark Commando was going to be bad. Why did you go watch it? No shit, the 2020s remake of [INSERT CLASSIC LEGACY FRANCHISE HERE] wasn't going to eat, that was the entire point! It was...uh...a deconstructive parody of what remakes of classic franchises in the modern day are like! How could you not comprehend my vision chud?

The only solution I could think of to this plague of mediocrity, is to simply suffer in silence. See something shit? Say nothing. Let it fester in your gut like a tumour, and take it with you to your grave. Don't burden anyone with the curse and let it consume you whole. But whatever you do...

Let us remember to enjoy our time, and spread nice things instead. Cool stuff, slick stuff, radical stuff. Stuff stuff.

 

[SamanthaSamantha's icon]

"No such thing as bad press", right? I, too, hate it.

But what can we even do about it? Not only has this been going on for a really long time, but giving your opinion on something to a massive audience has never been easier... Or more toxic, deepening the issue.

For a while now, unlimited reach has met unearned clouth, resulting on engagement farming on a massive scale — why would you not engage with a topic you hate when it can get those numbers rolling? It truly is the stupidest timeline.

 

[DinoRexMax DinoRexMax]

For a while now, unlimited reach has met unearned clouth, resulting on engagement farming on a massive scale — why would you not engage with a topic you hate when it can get those numbers rolling? It truly is the stupidest timeline.

It's all just preying upon human weakness. People are afraid of looking stupid, so instead of risking having an opinion of their own, they have to adapt to the popular consensus. After all, how can you argue with [CORRECT OPINION]? It's {CORRECT OPINION], and since it's also MY opinion, by proxy, my opinion is also correct making me the victor.

So, you have all these content creators attempting to hit it big by trying to sus out the popular consensus on something, and co-opt if for their own business.
"Hey fellas, did you know, that I, CONTENTCREATOR#133215773, also think [CORRECT OPINION} is [CORRECT OPINION]? Neat, huh?"
"OI! THIS GUY HAS THE CORRECT OPINION! LET'S VIEW 'EM!!!"
Of course, as the same time, there's also the contrarian crowd who will just have the opposite opinion on anything for the sake of it. I mean, you can like both Majora's Mask, and Ocarina of Time, but Ocarina of Time is clearly the more popular game (as proven by my recent BEST of BEST list *hint* *hint*). So, in response, you'll get people liking Majora's Mask just to stick it to people who like Ocarina. And then, by extension, you get people hating on the entire Zelda Franchise, on the same merit, and stick their nose up on those they deem as console plebeians.
"Heh, you like Zelda? How gauche, only babies play Zelda games. Perhaps if you had a more sophisticated pallet, such as myself, you'd be playing high tier games like King's Field instead..."
As much as we would like, we can't control other people. We can simply recognize the behaviour in ourselves, and simply do what we feel is best.

 

[IyoTheHelpfulWolf]

The best you can do is avoid things that are very obvious engagement bait, discuss art in good faith, and avoid people who are discussing in bad faith. So much of the internet now is a race to the bottom to say the most controversial thing possible because we live in an attention economy. A bad TV series eventually falls off in ratings once people know it's bad and get tired of hate watching it and snobby people will continue to be snobby about art, but the low cost to produce, algorithmic optimization, and rapid adaptability of social media posts and videos means they potentially got what they wanted if you so much as engaged for a second with a thumbnail that reads "LiBtArDs OwNeD" or "StUpId BoOmErS". If more people refused to engage with stuff that was blatantly bad faith, even if it represented their "side", the internet would be way less toxic. In other words, don't feed the trolls.

 

[Majormachina]

I've never liked the idea of hatewatching. why would i engage in a piece of media that i know is gonna upset me? Might as well just find something i might actually enjoy instead

 

[Deleted member 908994]

I always do what I don't like; I don't look at it. It has always worked for me so far.

 

[Ikagura]

Bad buzz is buzz nonetheless.

 

[contrail_]

I'm pretty sure some advertising departments have adopted the use of cooking up bad press. There have been some popular video game titles in the last couple of years that used that on purpose after they failed to make enough sales. I'm not naming any of those, since they already got their press.
Same goes for some tv series that intentionally miscast their actors.
Very much on topic:

 

[PrismRed]

Let us remember to enjoy our time

Exactly, there you go, that's your solution, enjoy everything at your own pace.
No negative/positive press means shit unless I say so, I don't care if a media is deemed to be 10/10 or 0/10, the only CORRECT opinion is MY opinion, and it will be given AFTER I try it.

You should adopt that sort of mindset, trust me it's liberating, it is also a chance for you to discover some obscure stuff that you might enjoy.

 

[SamanthaSamantha's icon]

But there's also the problem of something good being unfairly hated on, which makes you risk missing out on something you may actually enjoy.

There are some games, movies and TV shows out there that get demolished at first, then turn into cult classics once the heat dies down.

 

[DinoRexMax DinoRexMax]

I'm not naming any of those, since they already got their press.

Yeah, see, that's the problem I'm talking about. Ad Agencies and Bad Actors have made it so we have to pussy foot around these topics lest we serve their purpose. It's a rigged game, and the only winning move is not to play.

No negative/positive press means shit unless I say so, I don't care if a media is deemed to be 10/10 or 0/10, the only CORRECT opinion is MY opinion, and it will be given AFTER I try it. You should adopt that sort of mindset, trust me it's liberating, it is also a chance for you to discover some obscure stuff that you might enjoy.

Preach, brother. I am all that I am me, or some shit...

But there's also the problem of something good being unfairly hated on, which makes you risk missing out on something you may actually enjoy.

There are some games, movies and TV shows out there that get demolished at first, then turn into cult classics once the heat dies down.

I have that problem in reverse, where I can't officially like something until the hype dies down around it. Then I can try and enjoy it peace after the fact.

Whatever the case is, that's a rather subjective idea. I mean, there's prominent examples like Symphony of the Night and Fallout: New Vegas that were misunderstood upon release and eventually got their just dues as "Sleeper Hits". But that doesn't mean that movies like Prometheus suddenly deserve to be forgiven. There's a reason certain things get that universal hate, and it's often times very earned.

That doesn't necessarily mean it's contents can't be farmed for later stories, I actually very much the expanded material they published through Dark Horse comics (back when they still had all the Fox Horror movie licences). But that original movie still eats, as does Covenant and Earth, and probably Romulus, I dunno... I might have to watch that one again.

Jon Carpenter is actually the king of this kind of situation. Outside of Halloween, every film he's ever created, from Thing, Assault on Precinct 13, The Fog, Prince of Darkness, to Big Trouble Little China, all of which were panned or dismissed by critics, and were often nominated for Razzies (movies like Vampires, Dark Star, and Vampires got nominations for Best Presentation and music, in spite of the fact that The Thing was composed by Ennio Morricone and got a Razzie at the Oscars for worst music).

On the set of the shitty remake of The Fog, he was asked by a fan about how it felt to be finally recognized for all of his life's work, and responded: "What the hell good does that do me now?". Like, where the fuck was all that love 40 years ago?

 

[Noon]

I think best opinions leave good and bad off the table.

 

[BigTony]

I think the idea that you cant have an opinion on something untill you've experienced it yourself is kinda silly. Sometimes things just suck for example no one had to play the Saint Row reboot to know it was gonna be shit a lot of things really are just so egregiously bad that you can cast judgment on them without experiencing them for yourself.

 

[DinoRexMax DinoRexMax]

I think best opinions leave good and bad off the table.

This feels like it requires elaboration, but I get your point. It's exactly what that guy in the /V/ greentext was trying to say with the idea of "You just like games because they're good". Outside of vague moral implications (this character is "good" because he helps people, this character is "bad" because he steals) saying something is GOOD or BAD cannot be an official marker of quality. You have to elaborate why, otherwise you fall into Logical Fallacies such as "Appeal to Majority".

I think the idea that you cant have an opinion on something untill you've experienced it yourself is kinda silly. Sometimes things just suck for example no one had to play the Saint Row reboot to know it was gonna be shit a lot of things really are just so egregiously bad that you can cast judgment on them without experiencing them for yourself.

That's not what we're talking about, but you're right. That's the beauty of our ever connected net society, I can just watch unbiased raw footage and gleam a basic idea of something through observation alone.

There are a number of games and movies I don't NEED to play or watch myself, to know that they're terrible, or at least, not something I would enjoy.

The problem I was getting at, was that it's difficult to talk about these sort of things without highlighting or spotlighting them incidentally. I can't even really give examples of what I'm talking about, not without incidentally informing someone about it. Like, X show or X game is terrible, but now I simply join the cacophony of voices that say the same thing, making it infamous and even notorious. It gives it a know quantity over something that's better and more enjoyable because how much easier and less subjective it is to point out the flaws in something of quality.

After all, hatred, frustration, and ennui, are universal. But everything else is an acquired taste.

 

[BigTony]

That's not what we're talking about, but you're right. That's the beauty of our ever connected net society, I can just watch unbiased raw footage and gleam a basic idea of something through observation alone.

Yo my bad I was hung over when I read the op lol

 

[Tsukishima Tsukishima]

Everything when it comes to social media is far too opinion-centric and far too deep into the hive-mind situation to recognise the problems. Everyone has to be 'correct' all the time, otherwise they themselves are corrected or cast-out and put under the rung in the community.

I myself go through this multiple times and I'm tired of the fact no one is allowed to be wrong anymore. Because admitting ignorance is the first step to wisdom.
Being automatically corrected and assimilated under this hideous and gigantic flag of someone else's opinion means becoming a slave to their 'influence' and 'authority' and no one ultimately learns in the end, which likewise enters a horrible state that uniqueness is all but a word and nothing else. What separates us from a gigantic blend and saturated tastes blob seems to just be our profile pictures these days.

It's easy to tell everyone to stop caring too, and leave it up to an imaginary higher being to sort the rest out. But that's creating a deeper and deeper cesspool of not understanding the issue that it creates.
The internet's meant to help us connect and stay in touch. So why do I, and others still feel staggeringly lonely?