the way stuff lives on in the Internet

One of the first things I ever put up on the Internet that wasn't a comment on somebody's site was this guest post on The American Scene where I complained about Dana Stevens, who was then quite new as Slate's movie reviewer. I suppose it satisfied my only rule when it comes to my writing; I was myself in it. Unfortunately, I wasn't all of myself, or I hope I wasn't. Looking back I wish I could have summoned more understanding, particularly for someone trying a new venture, and trying to fill big shoes. I guess I understand why I wrote quite as cuttingly as I did, beyond the fact that it was fun. Stevens used to write with a kind of forced snark, and it's always hard to resist the temptation to be snotty towards them who have been snotty first. But of course, that's when it's most important to be kind. Most people won't ever understand that.

I've been thinking about it because I've been thinking about online reputation. It's a subject that has been written about endlessly, so I won't belabor it. But it's interesting. To my dismay, for quite awhile there if you Googled "Dana Stevens" I believe that post was the first thing to pop up, which probably tells you more about errors in Google's search algorithms than anything else. As a bit of Internet karma, it was eventually replaced by this post, attacking it. And, I believe, that post showed up in the first page when you searched my name, as well. The post isn't so much an argument as a statement of different tastes, but like I said. Internet karma. Anyway-- I realized that the post was out there to stay, and that as much as it probably wouldn't be read, ever, it had something to do with me as long as it was.

What makes this hard is that I don't really think what I said was wrong, or entirely wrong, and I think many of my criticisms from then were true, and I think a few hold. It is, though, certainly overheated and certainly overcritical. I overshot the mark and in doing so made my criticism less accurate. I've said many very wrong things on the Internet, and what I try very hard to do is to apologize for mistakes and apologize for them for real. A real apology, a principled one, to me contains three elements: it contains the words "I'm sorry," free from qualification; it expresses that what was said was incorrect, without qualification; and it admits that I shouldn't have said it, without qualification. It was wrong, I shouldn't have said it, I'm sorry-- that, to me, is how to apologize. But as I said, I don't think that the post was all wrong, and I certainly have written things I regret more. On balance this is a little issue, mean but not disqualifyingly mean, snotty but not cruel. I don't have some great regret about it. I just wish I was a little more understanding, a little more restrained, a little more grown up. That's all.

Not that Stevens would care either way. But I made my statement, and now I'm making this one, and it's enough.

Incidentally, and again, to the interest of no one, I do think Stevens has gotten better with time. I thought then and I think now that she had Edelstein too much on her mind at first. This is similar to what is (still) the most controversial opinion I've ever expressed online, at least in terms of volume and vitriol of email, which is that Ta-Nehisi Coates was "called up" too quickly to the Atlantic in his blogging career, that as much as he was an experienced journalist, his blog was too new and that would inevitably color his early work at the next level. Despite all the discord that causes, I believe I was right. In any event, Stevens has gotten better. I have serious general concerns with Internet movie criticism. I think, broadly speaking, it is too negative, animated by resentment, and concerned too much with how critical statements stand in relation to those of other online writers. But Stevens has her own voice now, and while I do suspect that she "arranges" her opinions-- judges, that is, to build a corpus of perspectives on movies and filmmakers that makes a statement, rather than just reacting to the work-- that's mostly just my baggage. I've always read her reviews but now I admire them more and more.

To my dismay, Edelstein, I think, has gotten far worse. It seems to me that he read too much of his own good press, and worse, fell pray to Film Critic Weariness Syndrome, where every critical or middling review demonstrates that the reviewer approaches his or her job with a showy exhaustion. (I'd tell any movie critic suffering from the disorder: you can just retire.) It's too bad.