How do you handle negative feedback?

[KiabIce]

I'm curious. I'm wondering because I don't really have thick skin yet.

So how do you deal with negative feedback? For the better?

[XiuLyn_12]

Personally, I'm still unable to maturely process when receiving negative feedback.
If I receive hate comments, I get down. But I used to be worse! I'm a lot better now. I took my time to let it go and move on now.
If it's a critique, I would learn to understand their point of view and do better!

[Kuma]

There are different degrees of "Negative Feedback"

Some go from "I don't like this" and others reach "I hope you f%$&#$% die"

Critiques are welcomed and half the time or more they tend to point out something I might have missed and I love that, because I can learn from it. But mean spirited comments with little to no substance go into a filing cabinet in my brain tagged as "I don't care."

Never engage with actually negative comments, those people are baiting for a fight. Ignore them. Actual critiques, even if they might be quite hard to swallow are the ones you should be thankful and learn from them.

[Scarlet_Cryptid]

This doesn't cover criticism from close friends and family (the trick there really is to know who you can and can't share your art with -- I don't share mine with my parents, for example), but it's a good starting point.

[BoomerZ]

Couple things:
1. Know where it comes from. A person that has never made a comics shouldn't be giving advice on how to do so. They literally don't know what they don't know. Also the person that just doesn't like your style of artwork, that really means nothing.
2. Know the difference between a real criticism and just being mean. Most of the time real criticism is on something you can change. Meanness is just to hurt. You have to be able to tell the difference and don't default to the person is just being mean. After evaluating the comments, then judge. Be fair in the judgement.
3. If the person doesn't like the way you did something but you purposefully did it that way, maybe that just isn't your audience. You really need to take this to heart and be honest with yourself though. Don't use the excuse of "it's just my style" for actual mistakes.

[TheLemmaLlama]

I'll take a bit of a different approach and talk more about how to handle it emotionally:

• It's okay and normal to have thin skin!

Don't listen to people who call others 'babies' or 'snowflakes' with a 'fragile ego' who just need to 'toughen up' and need to be 'knocked down a peg' with a 'reality check'. Or that 'good artists learn from criticism and don't feel attacked by it'.

It's absolutely unnecessary and counterproductive to shame people for having feelings. If you feel hurt by feedback that says your work is less than stellar, you did nothing wrong, and it says nothing about your talent or worth as a creator! The only thing that matters is how you act in response; for instance, if you ask for feedback and then lash out at someone who accidentally phrased theirs a bit rudely due to lack of social skills on their part, then yeah, that's a bit douchey of you, but if you just want to yell at them and call them an asshole but don't actually it, you have every right to feel that way :] Which I guess leads onto my next point:

• Don't give substantial responses to your critics until you've calmed down a bit

And if you didn't ask for the feedback, you're not obligated to respond to them at all, ever :] But if you want to discuss the feedback and points you may disagree with them on, doing so when you're still emotionally reeling from the critique is likely to make you look defensive, and people who like watching creators squirm are going to latch onto that. Only give thorough responses if you've carefully considered the criticisms and have firm points of rebuttal, otherwise a simple "Duly noted, thanks for your time!" will do

• You don't need to consider the criticism and put it into action immediately!

It's unfair imo to expect creators to look at a critique and immediately go 'oh, you're absolutely right, I did do X Y and Z wrong, you have opened my eyes!' If the criticism was especially harsh, it only makes sense to look at it once you've recovered from the sting of the delivery, and be more objective about what they're actually saying.

But even aside from that, it takes time to absorb criticism. It's similar to how you can't just read a tutorial and immediately be able to put it into practice perfectly; you can't just listen to someone telling you that you did X, Y and Z wrong, and immediately understand why, or do it right this time even if you agree. I've had criticism I've received years ago that made me go 'wtf this guy doesn't know what they're talking about', but now see the sense in. Just because I dismissed it then doesn't mean I didn't learn from it!

Take your time. The critique isn't going anywhere.

[DualDragons]

Negative feedback I can handle as long as I know it is coming. Unsollicited criticism on the other hand ruins my day most of the time because it comes out of nowhere and I hate it when people do it. Not long ago it happened as well and I just had a emotional sink from it

[DokiDokiTsuna]

Badly; very very badly. ^^; I actually made a topic about this issue some years ago on this forum, and since then I think I've gotten worse instead of better...which is why my policy is usually silence. =P If it makes me mad when I read it, I take it out of my feed and move on, and hopefully maybe someday I'll read it again in the future when I'm less irritable.

Of course, normally the course of events DOESN'T end up being "oh, this person had some valid points, I'm glad I took some time to cool down and consider their opinion".
Normally it's "wow, this person is an ignorant fool; I'm glad I didn't respond to them 'cause they didn't deserve it".

From the outside looking in, it probably seems * suspect * that most of my negative feedback comes from bigots and clowns (ergo it just happens to be morally correct for me to ignore all my critics), but I swear it's the truth. O_O I'm just that unlucky.
Recently "I'm going to head-canon your characters as the correct gender, just fyi" has become a thing that is okay to say to me apparently...I think I'd actually be really happy if someone came to me with a criticism that wasn't completely selfish and/or useless to my work.

This doesn't cover criticism from close friends and family (the trick there really is to know who you can and can't share your art with -- I don't share mine with my parents, for example), but it's a good starting point.

I kinda disagree with the 'Rude Expert' panel-- sure, someone who's mean to you can certainly have a valid point, but you don't have to give them any consideration, not even 'begrudgingly', if they clearly weren't willing to give any consideration to you.

Being able to convey thoughts and opinions without berating/insulting people should ALSO be part of becoming an 'expert' in your field, and I think this idea that people who are 'talented' or 'superior' are no longer beholden to lowly things like common decency causes a lot of problems in all spheres of criticism. If they're so great, we should be holding them to a higher standard, especially when they're punching down at younger, less-experienced artists.

If the best mangaka/cartoonist/animator in the world wrote a nasty callout post about my work, and I decided to just insta-block them and pretend they never said anything, I think I would be totally justified in doing that, and I would feel ZERO guilt about whether or not they "might have a point".

[Ordinaryaverageguy]

Wish I could speak from experience but I don't get enough feedback to have that kind of experience.

[sable40k]

In areas I'm trying to improve in, I'll always try to listen objectively and see if they have any merit. Even amateurs can often tell when something is off, even if they can't quite describe what the problem is. And even if it's someone going off, it's useful to remember that they're probably just angry about something in their own life.

But on the other hand, people should realize that advice isn't always wanted. For example, not everyone is out to constantly improve, carefully curate their online presence, etc., and I think that should be perfectly fine.

[simonitropunk]

Here are my points in dealing with negative feedback:

1. Never, EVER, take it personally. Even, if the person is attacking you, just don't make it personal.
2. Hold your ground... take few breathes and channel your emotions.
3. DO NOT verbally attack that person back because that would make it worse.
4. Once those are handled... read or listen to the person who given you that negative feedback.
5. See if any of that feedback would apply to your work and take some that's been told but ONLY if you want to. There should be things to be considered.
6. Even if negative, the best way to respond is to thank that person.
7. Positive or negative, that person took the time to read your stuff and who knows... by showing improvements and all, that person might come around.
8. However, keep in mind.... there will always be people that will never like your work and that's totally fine. There's an option to ignore the ones that don't mean much to you.
9. Always move forward... good or bad. Keep moving forward. Art is a mindset and a mindgame than anything else

I hope, my points do help.

[Stargazer31]

I've never actually had any...

[Legendofgenii]

I think giving out constructive criticism is a skill, which a lot of random strangers on the internet just don’t possess.

Always take unsolicited criticism with a pinch of salt.

[Lensing]

I only read feedback when I asked for it and it always helped me a lot, I always make sure that I said thank you
to the person who took the time to help me and I try to apply it on my future work when I understood the feedback.
I made very good experiences with uploading full pages to comic groups on facebook, I had some great, free
advice from professional artists.

As some of you know, I´m a musician, I never read youtube comments because that´s the place for feedback
I don´t need. I also don´t read album reviews because I honestly don´t care. I get feedback after concerts
but it´s usually positive. I´m getting singing lessons and the negative feedback is necessary because what´s
the point of taking lessons and the teacher doesn´t tell you the mistakes?

[TedGravesArt]

I've had some humdingers over the last 20 years or so. Some are just trolls, those are relatively easy to shrug off because the intention behind them is so transparent. But not all are intentionally rude. Those are harder to shake.
When someone clearly just doesn't grasp the subtle rules of being sociable and goes straight to their most direct thoughts, that can be useful, but also the most hurtful. Most of the time they don't even know they're being so awful. Usually I'll ignore them, but go through an internal rage cycle for several days while I try to work out how to deal with the situation socially in the future (inevitably assuming the responsibility for the other person being an asshole, but that's a me thing that I'm trying to work on), but usually end up at my only option being to work harder out of spite.
I remember this one time many years ago someone commented on a drawing I was really proud of, saying that the woman I drew looked like a man. I don't think they meant to be rude, but they were just bafflingly clueless on how to interact with other humans, and I took it far too personally. I don't think I ever responded to them, but I ended up doing this months long deep dive on gender anatomy and drilling it over and over and over until I had it absolutely locked.
I was hurt, and that gave me drive.
I want to be clear, I am in no way saying that being so cluelessly direct and having an egregious lack of tact is at all positive. It's a failure, plain and simple. But you can turn that negative garbage into something motivating. It's all in how you spin it.

[powerplantanimations]

I'm used to it as a writer. At least, in the comic medium (and YouTube medium as well). For some reason, I get slightly agitated when I'm writing a novel, but when a friend tells me "this sucks" I take it like a man. I think it's because novels are the one thing that I can never quite get down. I know a relative has been pressuring me to do it so I wouldn't have to rely on artists and they're RIGHT... but...

MAN That Stick Figure Isekai was a huge blessing. I'll eat a cactus if it means thanking God.

But seriously, as a comic writer, I've taken some heavy hits which helped me develop. I'm open to any feedback no matter what. Whether it be insulting or whether it be someone trying to hurt my feelings (even if they're using slurs!), I want to get to the bottom of why they're feeling negatively about the product. After all, I'm not writing That Stick Figure Isekai just for me.

I'm writing That Stick Figure Isekai for...

Another reason for this mentality was that my illness (when it was at its peak) would make me criticize people harshly because I just get so hateful so I can understand WHY people are being so rude. I remember criticizing my favorite YouTuber on his work because the rain was so bad and my head was just inflamed (I couldn't use words right) and the dude outright kicked me and thought I was some nobody (even though we've gotten friendly for quite a while). We're cool now after I explained everything, but I didn't care for his mentality.

The person on the other side of the screen could be going through some stuff that prevents them from functioning correctly.

I think this is something every writer should always keep in mind.

Once you do, you should take every hit online and improve.

[AmazementComics]

The best way to respond to art criticism in art world is: not to respond at all. But, to remember what was criticized, why and if the critic is someone who’s opinion is valued and trusted, to try seeing it through their eyes, so you as an artist can improve. Critic in art is crucial, especially constructive critic, that helps the artist grow. Sometimes it could be beneficial to discus some aspect with the critic, but that is about it.

On the other hand, not all criticism in art is made equal or comes from the qualified or valued critics. A lot of people who are unqualified to judge come into position of criticizing the art piece and voicing their opinions (fans and non-fans of all ages, over the internet and off, journalists that aren’t specialized in art but still write about it, artists from one field jumping into criticism of other field without full understanding of it, etc.). When you get a critique akin to “this sucks”, Sometimes, it's really just an amateur you're dealing with. Such criticism is best welcomed with shrugging of your shoulders and turning to sip another sip of coffee, because it means absolutely nothing and the world is still turning without a hitch.

[VibrantFox]

before i had a habit of taking everything to heart and thus responding pretty poorly or becoming very defensive so...bad

nowadasy tho I've come to just take everything with abbig ol grain of salt and weigh what i feel is most valuable. asking myself questions like "is this a useful critique or just someone spouting bs" "was this criticism/critique invited or asked for" "how much do i value this persons input" and so on have helped a lot. that and ive just kind of hit a point where unless its someone whose got full grasp of my personal situation what my goals or ambitions are or what my workflow is etc then im just gonna nod smile and move on

plus theres teh fact that advice or feedback isn't one size fits all so again its not always going to be worth it to absorb every little thing someone says to you so it helps to know how to take what you need and whats of value and just leave the rest

[demetrinewdinosaur]

The answer to this is easy for me. I don't deal with it.
Ha because I don't have any. Because I'm you know... awesome.
(Or because I don't really have any feedback)

Seriously though? I guess it depends on the type as said below. If someone is super negative and isn't even constructive, then I would try to learn from the points that are valid and say screw the rest. If they don't have the insight and ability to be decent it's not worth the energy. But I would not let them be wasted entirely and would learn something if there is a chance.

If it's polite but it just seems that you're getting ripped apart, ask yourself what level you are on, and what level they are upholding you to. If you are open to learning then growth can be had. And a true author has to go through more edits and rewrites than is fun. So maybe that's just where you are in the process.

And lastly, nothing Is black or white, so I guess how to deal with feedback for me would be based partly on what kind.

to sum it all up though, I personally try not to take things personal and if I do, I try to overcome my discomfort or annoyance or whatever emotion, by strengthening myself or by being better, so it no longer holds true. And If I can I will use their feedback against them- I mean use their feedback to reach my goal of growth.

phew.

[demetrinewdinosaur]

Amen to that.
this 20 characters thing always gets me... Think I hit it now.