No More Hot Takes

J.K. Rowling

Nobody likes to admit they’ve been wrong. Neuroscience has shown that being proven wrong triggers your brain’s pain receptors, shifting recipients into self-defense mode. We will defend our beliefs as violently as we’ll defend ourselves against somebody chopping off our arm. I haven’t encountered anybody researching from the other angle, but I suspect the reverse is also true: taking down somebody’s cherished beliefs makes us feel like avenging knights.

I started this blog because people started sending me free books, because they determined my opinion was worth something. Some bean-counter deep within the catacombs of Corporate USA decided that well-written opinions from non-professional critics could move product, and my reviews were sufficiently well-written to be worth money. This made me, perhaps, a bit big-headed, convinced that the world deserved my opinions published in a centralized location.

To paraphrase P.J. O’Rourke, the internet is great because it gives every pissant their own anthill to piss off of. Popular blog platforms like Blogspot, which hosts me, and other sites specializing in user-created content, like YouTube, are full of people who review books and other products. Opinions written by dedicated amateurs are gold for parent companies like Google (which owns both Blogspot and YouTube). To say nothing of publishers.

Most such opinion-mongers aren’t subtle. Though I try to keep my reviews to 750 words—conventional newspaper length—many will spew thousands upon thousands of words per book. YouTube reviewers, who seemingly review mostly self-published books by other YouTubers, often make “reviews” longer than feature films, criticizing on a line-by-line basis. I wonder who actually reads or watches these reviews, many longer than doctoral dissertations.

William Shakespeare

If you actually have consumed these reviews, however, you’ve probably noticed something I have: these reviewers make bank by hating everything. Apparently the key to success at online opinion marketing is to hold disdainful views and practice fine, granular fault-finding. The negative Hot Take, in which reviewers offer proof—proof I tell you—that whatever you like is secretly terrible, and you’re probably terrible for liking it.

Consider the recent dogpile on J.K. Rowling. Lord knows I have. Her Harry Potter novels still engage and enthrall children because they address an otherwise unmet storytelling need. But as she’s descended into her own mean-spirited id, multiple critics, professional and amateur, have swarmed her, nitpicking her writing. Most home in on two claims, that her writing justifies slavery, which I would refute, and that she’s frequently antisemitic, which I can’t deny.

However, I find this swarming deeply thorny. When this many people claim moral and intellectual superiority to the author of the bestselling novels of our generation, they aren’t just deconstructing Rowling. Like anti-Stratfordians, who claim they uniquely have insights proving that Shakespeare didn’t write Shakespeare, they’re claiming to be smarter than the author whose works have uplifted audiences of millions. They’re also, by extension, claiming to be smarter than you.

Billboarding our ability, as critics, to find fault with very popular works, is a form of self-aggrandizement. We want to establish our credentials on the bones of more popular, more established creators. The Internet, where Hot Takes and “you won’t believe this” listicles make bank, has proven itself a great host for this self-aggrandizement. Internet reading rewards surface-level literacy, short attention spans, and grandstanding at other people’s expense.

Don’t misunderstand me: I’m frequently guilty of this tendency too. As a critic, it’s fun to offer Hot Takes where we ballyhoo ourselves. I’ve complained about this recently. By proclaiming how I’ve uncovered the shortcomings in some unbelievably popular novelist, playwright, songwriter, or whatever, I gleefully declare I’ve triumphed over that person. But tacitly, I also claim I’ve triumphed over you, for enjoying their product, you philistine.

Stephen King

Mean-spirited reviews are fun to write, and sometimes, they’re justified. Sometimes, professional creatives get so suffused in their field that they lose contact with regular audiences; consider how many novels Stephen King wrote in the 1990s about novel-writing and novelists. But when attacking powerful people, it’s necessary to remember that it’s not only about bringing down misguided potentates; their fans also trust them, for their own reasons.

We’ve reached the annual cycle where everybody takes stock of their lives and makes plans for the future. I must acknowledge that, at this life stage, maybe I’ll have a creative career, and maybe I won’t. But I can use the platform I have, however limited, to raise up others. Not just fellow creatives, but those who love and trust them. And I must use that platform responsibly.