Hate-watching, breaking and building
Listening to the radio, there was a discussion of how the folks at NBC were worried that people were going to “hatewatch” their new version of Peter Pan.
Hatewatch. Like it’s a word.
It’s fascinating. They discussed how people wanted to watch it to tweet cynically at its expense. The builder/breaker split isn’t just present in systems engineering, it’s everywhere. It’s easier to snark than to contribute. Any idiot with a crowbar can break things. And maybe it feels good.
The PR folks were also talking about how people had trouble watching a non-ironic version of Peter Pan. That sincerely enjoying a lovely children’s story had become culturally unacceptable.
It’s hard to build. We don’t appreciate it enough. In fact, we don’t appreciate enough. It’s hard to be appreciative in 140 characters. It can be hard to take appreciation seriously. Too often, appreciation is the lead-in to harsh feedback, and the appreciation is perfunctorily delivered, gotten out of the way to get to the “important” part. So many people have been reasonably trained to be wary when the positive feedback shows up.
Let’s try to do better.