Everyone seems to be a critic these days. Having a social media account plus even the slightest semblance of a following apparently makes your film and music opinions worthy of being broadcast by the masses nowadays, regardless of your expertise in the arts. 

What the internet and society’s shrinking attention spans have found, though, is that nobody cares all that much about professional jargon and in-depth analysis. Just like audiences watching a movie or listening to a song, online consumers want one thing: to be entertained. 

Rate Your Music became infamous for being a hellscape full of pretentious junkies who love to leave their two cents on obscure underground releases; they find joy in making it known that their taste in music is not to be compared with the mainstream. My hypothesis is that this overly critical collection of music reviews is what inspired Letterboxd’s unique approach toward democratic film commentary. 

Scrolling through some of the highest-rated films on the app, the top results aren’t bursting at the seams with acclaim, but rather with humor. Under the 4.6/5 star-rated “12 Angry Men” (1957), the most liked review is a comedic ranking of the best and worst characters in the movie. Below “The Godfather” (1972), another classic with 4.5/5 stars on the site, the top review reads, “haha they made that scene from zootopia into a movie.”

The purpose of these sites isn’t the issue, as they give people a place to discuss art and, by doing so, proliferate the culture surrounding creativity. This helps independent creatives who might not be getting coverage from mainstream media. 

The problem lies in the fact that the ability to review media across social media platforms has caused the content of a review to supersede the importance of the actual piece. People are consuming art with the sole intention of leaving a review instead of attempting to understand the work outside of social media. 

Letterboxd users far too often find themselves more focused on refining their next punchline than enjoying the film in front of them. Rate Your Music-heads tend to deep dive into one aspect of production or lyricism on first listen and fire out their review without ever having a holistic experience of an album. 

When art is diminished to nothing but a meme for social validation or a way to tell the world why your artistic palette is superior to everyone else’s, the purpose of art in the first place is destroyed.

Any art that’s made with creative intent deserves to be respected at least for the craft behind it, even if it’s not your cup of tea. Art is nothing but an expression of the human experience, and that’s an ultimately subjective condition. 

That does not mean all art is good –– I’ve listened to enough Drake diss tracks and watched recent Marvel movies to know that’s not true. Art’s merit isn’t defined by its commercial success or perfect outcome; it’s determined by the purpose behind the artist’s creation.

True art isn’t a commodity that’s made solely for commercial gain or someone else’s satisfaction. It has to come from a place of actual sincerity –– speaking about something the artist has to say, not necessarily something they know will be heard. 

The same is true for quality reviews. Good criticism isn’t written for likes or laughs; it comes from the critic’s genuine need to respond, to think and feel something about the work because the reviewer needed to get it off their chest.

As college students, we’re certainly no strangers to pretending we know way more about a subject than we actually do. But it’s worth remembering that online clout isn’t a substitute for credibility. 

In an era where opinions are currency, don’t consume for the sake of consuming and letting your consumption efforts be known. Consume to understand, relate and build respect for the artist and the art form –– which itself is an art that’s at risk of getting lost in the social media age.