We Don't Even Know Why We're Arguing
2025 so far has been a year where I’ve been attempting to become somewhat less “online.”
I don’t even use Reddit anymore, except for when I’m looking for a specific information or want to see how /r/NBA is reacting to a game. I used to just kill time looking at memes and enjoying conversations in the comments, and that all seemed fun when I was younger, but by now it feels like I have absolutely nothing to gain from it. People who spend a lot of time commenting on Reddit do not have much to teach you about life, I’m sorry. They will dress up with the Redditor’s trademark arrogant writing style the reasoning of a child. Reddit is still a great place to get answers to very specific, niche questions, but the chitchat on the large subreddits is just nonsense. I don’t miss it at all.
Still, there are many other places online you can get absorbed into ridiculous conversations. Social media platforms all apparently decided that the end-all be-all metrics were “engagement” and “how long can we keep them on our platform?” and nothing boosts engagement like a stupid comment that dozens of people will need to reply to. It’s why anytime you see a post from a big public account on Instagram, the comments you’ll see first usually seem to be from the stupidest people imaginable.
I mean shouldn’t I be reading books instead? Maybe books that offer some intellectual challenge? I still gotta work on that.
I admit that I crave discussions about nerdy topics, and the internet is the easiest place to find them.
But you know, when I look at the state of YouTube comments—which may be one of the most hopeless places of all (though we might say some YouTubers attract more well-adjusted audiences), I find myself again pondering something I’ve pondered for quite a while. What purpose do people actually have in mind when they argue about movies and TV shows and stuff online?
“This show is good!” “You idiot, it’s actually bad!” “No, it’s good!” “No it’s not!” I mean what is the purpose of this exactly?
Exchanging opinions on a work can be a fun activity. It can help everyone involved gain a richer understanding of both the work itself and art in general. However, a lot of what I see online simply comes down to, as far as I can tell, one person likes something and someone else doesn’t and they just want to make the other person surrender.
“Thing good or thing bad” is like the most basic type of analysis you can do. When your high school tries to teach you literary analysis, they’re not going to tell you to just write an essay on whether you liked the book or not. They want you to write about how the author conveyed particular themes and all that. Now, this isn’t academia, and I’m not expecting everyone to go beyond simple opinions of like or dislike, but I’m just saying, there’s only so much you can get out of this type of discussion. “Thing bad.” Ok. And…?
I notice also that people will bring up opinions on stuff, usually negative, completely unprompted. What is it that’s made you want to be such a hater? The hypothesis I have come to is that people are subconsciously using opinions on movies (or whatever medium is being discussed) as a way to feel like they fit in somewhere. You may be on the internet with a bunch of anonymous people, but if you can say “I like this thing” and a bunch of strangers agree, you feel like you have a group. Meanwhile, people who don’t agree are not in the group, and in true tribalistic fashion, you view those people as the enemy.
Then somewhere in the 2010s a bunch of culture war nonsense got thrown into this and made it all exponentially worse.
But even ignoring that, I’ve seen over the years how people seem to just parrot their opinions on stuff on comment sections all across the internet. Someone influential gives thoughts on a thing, and suddenly a bunch of kids are repeating the exact same talking points. Are they even aware that having an opinion with zero of your own thought put into it is pretty lame? I mean none of us form opinions completely in isolation, but at some point you’ve got to learn to trust yourself more, and if you’re just gonna quote somebody else, you should acknowledge that. But hey, that’s why I called them kids, because those things can take time to learn.
We all want to fit in somewhere, and liking the same stuff has always been a way for people to connect. The desire to fit in by “being cool” is a little different though. It’s not so much making a connection, it’s more “Am I being like everyone else?” Again, it’s human caveman brain type stuff. I would guess that this apparent desire to be in the “correct opinion club” is one factor in people excessively spamming a take about a movie online.
For me and I think a lot of people, there is a purely emotional, kneejerk reaction component to arguing about art online. TV, movies, games, and books for me growing up were all just cool things I could enjoy and talk about with friends. As a kid, if I actually decided to watch a show or play a game, I was pretty much almost always going to like it on some level. I remember getting the Avatar video game in 2006, and it took me so long to realize “This game actually isn’t very good is it?” In the rare case that I found out a friend didn’t like something I liked, I remember being taken aback and not really feeling I could argue about it. When I got older I got much more self-conscious and of course felt it would be embarrassing to like the wrong things or have the wrong opinions. I wonder if this is part of why it started to feel more shocking if someone had a different takeaway on a movie than me. When I was a teen there were things that just seemed universally accepted. Lord of the Rings movies = good. The Dark Knight = good (except I hadn’t even seen it yet). But then the first Hobbit movie came out, and I was pretty excited. I did enjoy it overall on my first watch. Then I heard that some people really didn’t like it and I was like “What? This can’t be…. My world is shattering.” Is there a fear that someone must become your enemy, or that you’ll be isolated, because you have a different opinion? Maybe so.
But of course I also just don’t think it feels good if you like something and someone else starts roasting it for twenty minutes. To me that simple fact still doesn’t really explain why I feel an instinct to take it so personally. Is it the disappointment of not being able to share in the hype? Do I feel like my tastes and intelligence are being insulted somehow?
Whatever the reasons behind it are, at the end of the day, I believe we all need to remember that opinions are just opinions. Someone likes something, you don’t, ok. If you’re respectful, that can be an interesting debate, but otherwise—just let it go, man.
The real interesting conversations happen beyond “thing good” and “thing bad.” When you start dissecting the layers and trying to understand what a work is saying or making you feel and how it accomplishes that. You’re never going to be able to get into that if you just think you’re having a war all the time to convert the entire internet into having the same exact opinion as you.
But of course, YouTube comments in general are unlikely to learn these lessons suddenly. Beyond just individuals behaving better, I think the only real solution to more enjoyable internet spaces is just establishing very clearly what the expectations are and having real strict moderation for when those rules are breached.
And since that’s not going to happen on a massive scale (it happens within certain communities though!) I remember that being more offline is a good goal to strive for. Although I may try to understand why people act the way they do, I can’t save em with my blog. I gotta choose me.