Have you ever received unfairly harsh criticism?

There are a few different types of criticism I see online.

There’s good constructive criticism by people who genuinely want to teach, which is actually helpful.

There’s constructive criticism by someone who has zero interpersonal skills and delivers the feedback harshly (which hurts, but can still be helpful).

Then there are the trolls. The haters who have issues in their own lives and cast it out onto others under the veil of internet anonymity. These are the worst and although we know their “criticism” is invalid (they are easy to spot), it still hurts. A lot. A few years back I was making a little comic by taking screenshots of a game and adding speech bubbles, extra story to it. It was really fun to make because I was playing a game and making a comic of it at the same time! I posted it to the game’s subreddit and someone commented on multiple posts saying whoever made it had to be retarded. Literally lost years of self confidence, even though I knew it was a troll, stopped making the thing. (The good news is I stopped wasting my time with that and started writing again, so… silver linings and all..)

If there are repeated negative comments treat them as a troll and ignore them. If they have anything valuable to say you can get that same information from another source without crushing your heart. Often, if we convince ourselves that one thing they said if valid… then our minds trick themselves into thinking “we’ll maybe other things they said are true too” and that’s just not worth the psychological damage.

Yeah, it's unfortunate. Sometimes people just want to get the last word in too... Sadly, often the best thing we can do in these scenarios as creators is just say "thank you for the feedback" or not reply at all and leave no room for further discourse. If they are continuously commenting negative things even after that... then that's getting into troll territory (even if they aren't doing it on purpose) if you ask me, especially if they are repeating the same feedback.

I still remember that one time when an artist I really respected and thought to be my kinda sorta online friend told me, with this kind, i-want-the-best-for-you, caring framing:

"I'm sorry, but your drawings are just not pleasant to look at. I think you should just stop drawing. It's for the best."

And I mean, sure, I was a little kid (so were they) and my skill was indeed lacking, but... I did stop drawing for like a year after that. Stopped trying for even longer.

And it's this haunting frigging memory that pops up in my mind every time when I start feeling insecure due to lack of response or whatever. My brain is like "Well yeah, this is 'cause you're still drawing what's unpleasant to look at, what do you expect!"

But most of the time, like with the majority of negative things that's been told to me and got stuck in my mind, I turn it into spite. Pleasant or not, it's mine and I personally like it. Suck on that, self-doubt.

(that attitude makes me very hostile to actual constructive critisism now, however. That's... a bit of a problem)

I've never had someone critique my works in a harsh manner before, so I can't really say anything else except maybe people compliment me too much? It's a cycle I can't get out of because people want to stroke my ego to get free works, I guess. It got me into a depressive state every time someone compliments my works whether it's genuine or not. Not that I'm looking for critiques either, it's just a weird experience I have time and time again. Maybe I just post too much fanarts or maybe I am good, I don't know.

But I have been studying other people's works more and been really comparing my older works that people "compliment" and really test the limit of how bad I was during that time. It's a lot of mental cartwheel but it pays off in the end, I think if someone were to critique my works now I wouldn't be mad because I am aware I will always improve.

Honestly... no. Uh, I've never had unfair harsh criticism, but just kinda bad criticism. Nothing too mean.

Oh yeah. In college, my favorite animation teacher (who I made the mistake of fanboying over because he was a second-generation Disney animator) took a riotous dump on my final project. There were absolutely some good points, but a lot of unwarranted personal boas was sprinkled in there too. It was a real kick in the pants as I was on the way out the door and just about to enter the labor force and the big-a** scary world.

And words can hurt. And that's okay. Thankfully I was strong enough at the time to put it all in perspective and separate the good points from the bad, but I still couldn't help it from letting his unfair points overshadow my mood (and self worth) until I got enough distance from it all. It sucks that a kind word rolls off me but a negative word sticks in. Survival mechanisms can be cruel.

But when I can, I try to take criticisms as growth opportunities. The legit criticisms I use to grow my art, the illegitimate criticisms to grow a tougher skin and become a more empathic person (and hopefully become a better friend or mentor). Growth is uncomfortable (both physically and emotionally), and I try to give myself the time and space to validate my feelings until that particular work on myself feels resolved (for the time being, at least).

Also, thanks for opening this conversation up. I really enjoy these types of threads and am so happy to see everyone's journey.

Many times but dealing with the ego blow isn't nearly as difficult as resisting the urge to clapback at them.

Two that stick out in my mind.

The first was about my art. I don't have a lot of disposable income so I learned to make my covers and promo images on Canva. I do good work and am happy with what I've made. I had a former friend that I met online in the forum whom I thought I could trust to give it to me straight. Every image I showed her her reaction was always very "Good job, sweetie". No ego stroking that we all pretty much are low key asking for when we show off our work.

She then started to repeatedly tell me that my work was too "vague". My main series, The Museum, was written to be in the same vein as Warehouse 13 and The Librarians. However there are a lot of other movies/series that focus around a magic artifact that could change the course of history. Every image I picked never seemed to convey the message. I digitally painted a pair of high heeled shoes in a pool of blood for a story about a murderous Cinderella - she shamed me for doing high heels and a fairytale retelling. She then sent me a ton of unasked for pictures of historic shoes and feeding me ideas of "better" plots if I had to do a story about shoes.

Her criticism felt unfairly harsh because she refused to read my work. All she knew of it was what I had told her in our conversations. The rest was speculation on her part. Even comparing me to her artist felt rough because her artist is a professional comic artist who takes commissions on the side. But she talks about her like she's her own personal artist that she keeps on private retainer.

After all that backstory, the other was just a bad review. The reader was making assumptions on my work based on the summary and first few chapters and called my work derivative. That hurt.

Most of the criticism I have received has been pretty mild, any big writing flaws in my stories weren't brought to my attention and I only realized them after the fact. There "your hand lettering is bad" which it was, and "this font choice sucks" which was true, and then there's "I saw a few spelling words, or is it done intentionally?" Which I think means I'm bad at spelling, which I am, but how ironic is it that someone telling me I'm bad at spelling said it like this?

If you're wondering, my big writing mistake that no-one pointed out to me was for this daily comic I did during the first covid lockdown, it was about this social hermit giving advise about surviving lockdown while going insane. The big writing flaw was that the main character was Biracial, his nice, dead mom was white, his emotionally cold father was black, his estranged boyfriend was black and the supernatural entity that showed up in his hallucinations to help him out of his terrible mental health was a self insert of me and therefore white.
It isn't super great that all the white characters were helpful figures in the MCs life while all the black characters failed the MC in some way, If I could go back I would show that the mom probably instilled the MCs hermit tendency and re-inforced their social anxiety, and I'd make my supernatural hallucination more of an entity than a defined person. That way everyone failed the MC, not just the black characters.
It's not surprising no-one pointed it out, my audience then was just schoolmates and family and thus, also white and even then my hand lettering was so garbage no-one could actually read it. Its important to examine your biases, I think that comics should be diverse, but that you should be concious about who is diverse in your comic. Lest you do something stupid, like me.

When I was in grade five, one day I drew (or maybe just colored) a bird, and I remember being told by my teacher that the colors I used (red and blue) didn't go together. I don't think I said anything, but in my memory I must have had a strange look on my face, because if I am able to keep my mouth shut, keeping my thoughts off my face is a skill I still don't have. I wasn't hurt by that criticism at all: owing to an immense stubbornness and the inability to conform to anyone's expectations, I shrugged it off and kept right on coloring. I was somehow quite confident in the understanding that my teacher's opinion about color compatibility did not make sense, and wouldn't have mattered if it had.

I remember also being told in sixth grade that I “needed to get a life” by a classmate because I showed him my comics at the time. I haven't had much opportunity for real criticism, though I appreciate an honest critique, especially if it is backed up with specifics. When I do receive negative feedback I usually consider it fairly dispassionately: I am always looking to improve myself as an artist, so I welcome an outside perspective. If it is a helpful and constructive critique it may affect my artistic choices. Even if I disagree with the premise of the critique, it is still useful because it forces me to examine those choices, and strengthens my rationale for making them. Because of the experimental nature of my work I take a very fluid approach to technique and hold my vision loosely, allowing the drawing to lead me. I'm very adaptable in that regard: perhaps a bit too much, so criticism is helpful in that it brings a more conscious awareness to those instinctive choices. I feel I need this to grow as an artist: now that I've spent 17 years developing some level of technical mastery in my medium, I find myself more mindful of philosophical and aesthetic concerns.

Praise is often much harder to handle, though I have learned to accept it graciously: I can't stand false modesty. I find the concept of talent quite problematic. In the end it is just someone's opinion, and it gets in the way in terms of expectations. When I am at my most inspired I always have a profound sense that the work is coming through me, more than originating within me. It is easier to separate myself from my art when it comes to criticism, but praise comes with the pressure to live up to the hype, and ego definitely gets in the way when trying to establish that creative connection and get my head in the zone where art lives.

Criticism is helpful if genuine, and admiration for my work can give much-needed encouragement. The only feedback I can't stand is indifference: the casual dismissal or the tepid “How nice.” Art is meant to cause a reaction: even if it is negative, it has made the viewer think about why, and that's a good thing.

Sort of, regarding my comic.

A person left a comment on my instagram saying they couldn't get past the first few chapters and couldn't be invested in any of the characters — which, yeah I know my beginning is very rough since I was very new to storytelling & I've asked a few friends of mine for critiques before so I was aware —

but then went on to say I didn't deserve my following and they'd much rather have other titles be promoted over mine.

Which was very mean-spirited and made me wonder if the account was some salty creator's side account.

I take my friend's critiques because I know I can trust their level of expertise and they know what my intentions are with the plot/characters to frame their critiques. A random stranger on the internet? Eehh.

Alright. I think I should probably share my piece on this since I was a subject to pretty bad criticism that made no sense (had a guy that was like this HUGE BLACK HOLE that CONSTNATLY wanted me to fail, making me suicidal a couple of times)....

This is also coming from the perspective of someone who had this disease that made me VERY intolerant to things. Non-stop, I couldn't stop hating on stuff. I couldn't exactly write good either back then because my brain was scattered. I was your typical armchair critic. Of course, what I did was obviously wrong. I grew out of it. But I did develop this fascination for people who like to make mean-spirited comments.

Whenever someone says something unfair or harsh I just pull-up a chair and am like "alright, I'm giving you the benefit of the doubt... what's up?".

I try not to laugh at their comments. I try not to insult them back. I want to know how these people think. Because at the end of the day... I wanna know the people I'm attracting. They clicked on my comic for a reason. I wanna get as much data as possible if I'm going to continue being a professional writer.

Also, you never know. They might end up breaking out of their spell and end up being great writers themselves. Even after me finding internet debates to be silly now, I still could never subscribe to the belief that people online are just "some randos". A lot of the writers I met were randos on the internet too and if it wasn't for one of them my writing wouldn't be the way it was.

A school friend of mine. We're not exactly friends, just sharing a class at the time.
I used to draw a panel of my OC, post it on Instagram, and tell the story in the caption. I'm really into fantasy at the time, so my OC doesn't look human. Once in a while, I post some fanarts as well.
Then this classmate of mine came to me and said, "I'd rather you post fanarts instead of your weird characters."
I'm not sure if it's considered a critique, but I was very hurt. Not long after, I archived all my OCs' posts and only posted fanarts. I don't make fantasy stories anymore too.
I knew I shouldn't be bothered by her comment, but I was too young to accept such criticism. Now, I don't care what people think. Although I'm still not doing fantasy.

May I see your character in a dm (if you don't mind sharing)? I love fantasy and sci-fi.

Like you said, I am also not sure if it counts as criticism or just an opinion. But it would hurt anyone young to be told such things. It would be like someone telling you "your dress today looks much better than your usual clothing. I would prefer if you stopped dressing like your usual self."

For an adult it would be like meh whatever but for a teen or a young person it would hurt a lot.

It is a hard situation as it feels like they didn't insult you conciously. But it is good thing that now you don't care about such comments.

Yep, got used to it ages ago. Helps to remember a lot of it comes from people who have never created anything themselves, or people who just want attention and get a kick from insulting people online. Honestly, it's just kind of funny, like the one comment that told me my story was bad and I should have drunk bleach instead to spare people my story. I loved that one because they couldn't even spell bleach properly, lol.

People have kind of backed off, mostly because I don't really care for their insults. Now a days, I mostly get people telling me I should word things differently. I would appreciate the advice if they didn't usually give me alternate wording that is worse, so that's fun.

It's hard at the start, but you get used to it. Skin only thickens after getting hurt so much, and it's easier to get through the rough times when you really love what you do. The only criticism that gets to me now is my mother's but that's universally crippling, lol.