I've been enjoying CinemaSins - a YouTube channel dedicated to mocking "sins", or glaring mistakes if one takes a closer look, in the popular movies - for a while now. Sometimes, Jeremy - the narrator of the sin videos - produces viable critique of mistakes so obvious that one has to wonder why was the movie even made (one example being the infamous Taken 2). Then, it is interesting to watch, not to mock the movie - though, I admit, I did watch it party to validate my negative opinion of it - but to see the results of what my mind was incapable of - rewatching the movie under the scrutiny of critical thinking.
Most other videos are presented as comedy, with sins often arbitrary or non-existent ("This scene does not contain a lap-dance") in order to give the viewer a short laugh. Some times, they're so poorly thought-out that it made me cringe, but I kept watching, thinking "Maybe that's the humour I should get up to". Mostly, I kept watching because I wanted to see a good mocking and to have a bit of laughter, even if just a bit.
One might figure that this is not a thoughtful way of spending time - and indeed, one will be right to think so. The cheap few "haha"s one would get from watching most of the videos aren't worth the fifteen minutes, or however long the latest videos goes, because it's far from high-quality comedy and introspective social critique of George Carlin and Louis CK. Still, I would watch it when I'm bored, because when I'm bored, all I want is to have fun seemingly to make the bad mood go away; I have a feeling that behind that thin veil is the real intent, which is to either escape being sad or bored or to justify having this mood by reinforcing the bad loop of binge cheap laughter.
Still, watching this was a bit of fun, even though I wouldn't always agree. What got me to see it for what it really was was another channel, GamingSins, which, as far as I know, bears no association with CinemaSins and is merely a format copycat. Perhaps calling it a copycat would be a mistake, for at least Jeremy's production was thoughtful on what they comment upon: serious mistakes weren't laughed over but carefully, if quickly, explained to the audience. GamingSins, on the other hand, sounded more like a hatred spew, with acid flowing over the edges without even considering whether it was worth it.
Perhaps I wouldn't mind it this much and would still watch it mindlessly if not for another YouTube channel, Extra Credits, dedicated to observing and commenting on important points of gaming, games and the industry as a whole. If I were to compare the two, Extra Credits is a kind mature young man who would support you during your toughest days with a smile, while GamingSins is a spoiled brat who can't deal with the imperfection of the world around them and would rather point out how bad everything around. Folks at Extra Credits put value into reasonable commentary and highlighting the good; they don't shy away from the bad, but they don't put much emphasis on it, which is something that has been new to me.
I've been watching quite a few videos of theirs lately, both because they're relatively short and very interesting, raising topics I wouldn't even think about on my own. Their missions seems to be to educate, to propagate valuable ideas and important lessons that they have the knowledge to teach, and to point out how and where it might be a good idea to do better. Their brighthearted commentary would make for quite a few good lessons in modern schools.
It is after being exposed to such respectful treatment of gaming and games that makes it hard to go back to the mockery of the Sins channels, for it is thoughtless and disrespectful. It's easy to feed one's ego on putting others down - too easy, and addictive because of it. Yet, living off it is far from practical, which is something many of us never get to learn from people or from guides. Thoughtful critique is a whole new level of behavior, for it combines both the destructive/deconstructive and constructive/reconstructive aspects of criticism to bring forth something better instead of the past mistakes. Rather than to mock the old - everyone can do it with barely any effort - one makes a difference in the way those who listen to them think by raising concerns that would otherwise stay in the background of our minds.
It is the ease with which we defer to mockery that we don't see the Extra Credits way of criticising emphasized in the modern first and second world cultures. Modern culture of the West (which creeps over further to the East, as far as folks in Russia and other Slavic countries are concerned) is based on quick pleasures, and many greedy people make a lot of money off it. It stands to reason that they won't separate themselves from the steady income that satisfying our shallower urges quicker and cheaper (in exchange for quality and depth, of course) brings them: they were raised at the time when money were - or seemed to be - most important for most people and cramped to it, believing it brings them satisfaction and happiness.
It's clear to me that they didn't give a thought to their emotional and intellectual parts and were unable to relate with the planes of living higher than materialistic. It's not to say they must have neither - I'm sure they do - but the way they were raised and pressured by their peers to appreciate money or material resources in general they're now passing down to us, teaching us of their examples of success. Rarely having other impressive figures in their lives, childred learn from what they can, and when their educational material consists of shallow, tasteless interests, there must be no wonder as for why they aren't thinking "better than this".
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There must be someone willing to speak honestly of what's going on, especially when things are getting grimmer and more dire without most people noticing. Social critique is important when its intent is to shed light on the problems we don't see behind our veils of daily life: it's meant to show us things we aren't putting my minds onto because we're not machines capable of thinking of everything at once. Of as much importance is cultural critique, particularly critique of arts: we must be mindful of what we consume to feed mind as much as we are of food we put into our body - both decide how we grow and change. Bad art, at best, brings nothing to the table - and takes from it, leaving it twisted and ugly for no reason, at worst. At the same time, good art is capable of enriching lives of people observing it - and because of that, people deserve to be able to sort through and find something that will move them, make them think, tell them something they couldn't know, change them for better as a result.
What isn't acceptable is dumb mockery the sole intent of which is to put others down either personally or through their works. Calling it a critique is to stain the definition of a critique: a meaningful deconstruction of a piece of art in order to point out its flaws so that the author or anyone interested might improve upon the mistakes made. Despite people often claiming that our personal flaws will not allow us to reach better leaving, I believe we're better than this: we can make our lives better if we put the effort in - and we certainly deserve better than to spend our time binge-watching a dude online pouring dirt onto things they've contributed zero effort, time or resources to.