supericelight replied to your photo “[image description: a horizontal seven stripe pride flag. Colours in...”
OP, are you open to criticism on the flag design?
I really hope you instead mean critique, feedback or evaluation. Because yes, I am open to all three of those things, although that doesn’t necessarily mean that I’ll agree with you or implement it--just that we can talk and see where it takes us. But I’m open to your feedback, if it’s given in a spirit of kindness, support, encouragement and wanting to make things better for all dia aros--because that’s what critique (especially unsolicited critique) should be about. And for all I know, you’ll have an awesome idea that will make me clap my hands, shout yes and run to Photoshop! I’m absolutely not against any of that!
But ... I am not open to criticism of my creativity, and I’m not going to pretend that I am.
Criticism is not critique, feedback or evaluation. Criticism has never been critique, feedback or evaluation. Criticism is not supportive of creators. Criticism does not help creatives. Criticism is about voicing someone’s dislike; it’s not about helping creators grow. (It’s often meant for the audience, not for the creator: a critical book review, for example, is for the potential reader, not the author.) There’s a reason we have the phase concrit or constructive criticism and use that instead of criticism alone when we’re talking to the creator: that constructive part is important! Artistic criticism is the last thing the aro-spec community should be asking of anyone else, because it does not make an environment safe in which people can make and express--and we’re all subjected to a world that isn’t interested in our art, our storytelling, our media, our symbolism, just through being aro! We need support from our own!
I know this may seem like semantics to some, with no meaningful difference between those words. I can also tell you that, as a creator, I’ve had people ask if I’m open to criticism and then tear my work apart. People who offer feedback instead, using that specific word? Are so much more likely to be working with me to take something and offer advice to make it even better--and discuss what works as much as what doesn’t, which is often more important than a list of everything that’s wrong.
Artistic criticism doesn’t help creatives learn or grow. It doesn’t help our confidence; it’s just a message that someone else thinks our work isn’t good enough. It just teaches us fear, and fear is not conductive to self-expression, to creation, to community building, to experimentation, to interaction--to everything we currently need as aros as we’re trying to figure out who we are and what we need in the rush of suddenly being able to make our own language and symbolism.
Try looking at it this way, please. You came onto my post and said nothing nice about what I’m trying to do. If you’re so interested in the term dia aro that you want to use it but you’re unsure about the flag design, wouldn’t it have been good if you told me that to encourage me? Or what if you said that you have a suggestion for improving it and am I interested in seeing it or working with you? Or if you asked me questions about the choices I made, because there are accessibility (in addition to logistical and symbolic) reasons why I made the flag I did? Maybe if we both discuss our needs, we can find a compromise that’s more accessible for both of us? Instead of just asking if I want criticism, which is not the most encouraging thing to pop up in my notifications?
I’m not saying that I haven’t screwed up in this myself. I have. I have definitely, absolutely been less kind, less thoughtful, less considerate, less supportive, less encouraging ... and, because of all that lack, ultimately less helpful than I should have been in how I respond to someone else’s work. I have criticised instead of critiqued. I’ve assumed that someone else’s design choices came from a lack of awareness of my accessibility needs instead of the creator’s own accessibility needs (because competing accessibility needs are a thing). I’ve also felt at times alienated or even ... not quite attacked, but undermined, unsettled, by folks playing with language or symbolism that I don’t like or think necessary. (Part autism and difficulty with change, part the internalised antagonism we all have for micro-identities in a world that preaches such things are bad, part the fear every aro on Tumblr has about the need for community uniformity because we’re so many different ways of being aromantic.) I’m starting to acknowledge this in myself, but it has meant that I haven’t offered past feedback in the best, kindest mind to be offering it, and that is a problem I will work on if I’ve got the slightest pretension to decency. Frankly, you all deserve better than some of the ways I have responded to your creativity, and I will do better in the future.
It’s hard, if something really distresses or annoys you, to be thoughtful about how you approach it. But I think it’s true that most of us are not thoughtless in the things we make for and offer up to our community. There’s meaning and feeling and aromanticism in what everyone is making and developing. Perhaps we can all stand to shift from an approach of offering criticism to an approach of offering advice and collaboration in our dealings with other aro-specs, especially as we’re all trying on new names, terms, colours and symbols.
Let’s make it a goal to help our aro kinfolk develop their creations so we can expect good, encouraging, supportive concrit that leaves nobody afraid or discouraged. And part of that is how we frame feedback and the offering of it--so people can trust that we’re not going to hurt or discourage them in our responses, but that we want to support their creativity by giving them options they can consider for improvement.
How about, from here on in, not using the word “criticism”?
