Jeremiah Tolbert

The always-​​interesting Amy Sunderberg seems deter­mined to start flame wars in her com­ments today by point­ing out pop­u­lar geek things she doesn’t like.  Go give her what for.  Defend your turf!

This got me think­ing about the whole “your favorite band sucks” phe­nom­e­non on the inter­net (a quip from Metafilter’s forums).  Which is that I find it much eas­ier to find out what peo­ple are up in arms about and actively dis­like than I am able to find out about what they really love.  In any dis­cus­sion, it seems like the neg­a­tive com­ments weigh more heav­ily, and are more inter­est­ing.  Is this because I’m a pes­simist by nature?  So I’m drawn to crit­i­cism more?  Or is it my time in col­lege where I was taught to be a ‘crit­i­cal thinker’ (which when improp­erly used can turn you into a crit­i­cal jerk)? Hell if I know, really.

If I have to be defined by my tastes, I would rather be asso­ci­ated with the things I love than the things I hate. 

So maybe we should just pre­tend that some­one is attack­ing the things you love, and write from that spir­ited defense per­spec­tive more often.  Pretend I just said your favorite book, movie, or band sucks.  Tell me why it doesn’t.  I dare you!

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