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> So when people are heaping hate on one of my projects, I am now starting to think of it as a failure of messaging on my behalf. I tried that, but I got reall

by byuu 11y ago

> So when people are heaping hate on one of my projects, I am now starting to think of it as a failure of messaging on my behalf. I tried that, but I got really burned out. Someone writes a one-liner "I hate byuu's idea for X", and I write up an article explaining my motivations and rationale, spending three hours on it, listing a dozen cases where I explain why what I am doing is essential, and not just whimsical fancy. They ignore my response. And two weeks later, I see the same person with the same one-liner posting it somewhere else. I find most people don't want to understand your reasoning. They simply want things exactly as they want it, or they're not happy. I never get anyone willing to have an open dialogue where they're actually open to trying new things, even though I am open to hearing any true criticisms that go beyond appeal to tradition (we'd all be using DOS if that were a valid argument.) Very thankfully, in my case, I'm not selling a product, and I'm not funded by advertisements. And as such, I can get away with choosing to ignore certain types of criticism. I'm very empathetic to those who can't.

moron4hire 11y ago
Yes, it is hard. I have a very good friend who quit his job in finance three years ago to focus on photography. (It's been a significant improvement to his health and happiness, but that's a story for a different day.) He has been doing a lot of very abstract photography, lately. He shoots and develops his own film in a pinhole camera he built, and the imagery is intentionally motion-blurred. He gets heaps of praise from other photographers, and tons of vitriol from randos on the internet. It's all of the very predictable, "this is bullshit, anyone could do this," kind. That's not true at all, the images are much harder to make than you would think. But he has not replied to the critics directly. Instead he works on making the images more obviously about the sort of dream- or ghost-like qualities he's chasing. It is so easy to just dismiss a critic. "They don't understand what I'm trying to do." What's harder is building that explanation of what you're trying to do in what you're trying to do. It makes us better to not completely dismiss the critics. And you do it for the next person. You've pretty much lost a person forever if they get to the level of vitriol. Don't bother with replying to them. For me, I have a project that I care very much about. I want to make it work, because it has things in it that I want in my life. I haven't ever cared about my side projects as much as this one--which has more to say about this particular project than my past projects, I cared very much about some of them. Which is why I have to be honest about it. I can't delude myself about it, because I certainly won't be able to delude anyone else about it. I don't have that kind of social media power.
- byuu 11y ago
  > He shoots and develops his own film in a pinhole camera he built, and the imagery is intentionally motion-blurred. Oh neat, I have a friend who develops his own pinhole photography as well! Here's one of his: https://www.behance.net/gallery/12035849/Pinhole-Photography https://www.behance.net/gallery/12035849/Pinhole-Photography I don't think he builds his own cameras, but he definitely tweaks the hell out of them. I can't really understand most of what he says about it, but he clearly knows his stuff. > What's harder is building that explanation of what you're trying to do in what you're trying to do. Oh, definitely. I have a really hard time with explaining my intentions in a way that promotes their strengths without it coming off as arrogance. And dealing with negativity only seems to amplify my desire to stress the strengths, so it's kind of a negative feedback loop. Nonetheless, I gave it a shot and tried writing up another article about my niche. We'll see how it goes I guess.

by byuu 11y ago

moron4hire 11y ago

Yes, it is hard. I have a very good friend who quit his job in finance three years ago to focus on photography. (It's been a significant improvement to his health and happiness, but that's a story for a different day.) He has been doing a lot of very abstract photography, lately. He shoots and develops his own film in a pinhole camera he built, and the imagery is intentionally motion-blurred. He gets heaps of praise from other photographers, and tons of vitriol from randos on the internet. It's all of the very predictable, "this is bullshit, anyone could do this," kind. That's not true at all, the images are much harder to make than you would think. But he has not replied to the critics directly. Instead he works on making the images more obviously about the sort of dream- or ghost-like qualities he's chasing. It is so easy to just dismiss a critic. "They don't understand what I'm trying to do." What's harder is building that explanation of what you're trying to do in what you're trying to do. It makes us better to not completely dismiss the critics. And you do it for the next person. You've pretty much lost a person forever if they get to the level of vitriol. Don't bother with replying to them. For me, I have a project that I care very much about. I want to make it work, because it has things in it that I want in my life. I haven't ever cared about my side projects as much as this one--which has more to say about this particular project than my past projects, I cared very much about some of them. Which is why I have to be honest about it. I can't delude myself about it, because I certainly won't be able to delude anyone else about it. I don't have that kind of social media power.

byuu 11y ago
> He shoots and develops his own film in a pinhole camera he built, and the imagery is intentionally motion-blurred. Oh neat, I have a friend who develops his own pinhole photography as well! Here's one of his: https://www.behance.net/gallery/12035849/Pinhole-Photography https://www.behance.net/gallery/12035849/Pinhole-Photography I don't think he builds his own cameras, but he definitely tweaks the hell out of them. I can't really understand most of what he says about it, but he clearly knows his stuff. > What's harder is building that explanation of what you're trying to do in what you're trying to do. Oh, definitely. I have a really hard time with explaining my intentions in a way that promotes their strengths without it coming off as arrogance. And dealing with negativity only seems to amplify my desire to stress the strengths, so it's kind of a negative feedback loop. Nonetheless, I gave it a shot and tried writing up another article about my niche. We'll see how it goes I guess.