I Stopped Hating and So Can You!

This is her most personal article yet

About a month ago, I wrote this:

Pretty much every month I will see a note that’s like “Substack is just social media for intellectuals.” Of course this is a terrible and wrong thing to say, but Substack sort of is intellectual social media, just not in the way people think. It’s like this: many social media platforms exist so you can seem cool, Substack exists so you can seem smart. Substack doesn’t exclusively attract intellectuals, it mainly attracts people who have an unchecked idea of their own intelligence…

Substack is made up of people who are sick of anti-intellectualism, which would be fine if the internet didn’t reward the annoying. Combine a distaste for the anti-intellectual with the inherent performance of the internet, and you wind up with a bunch of people tripping over themselves to signal their own intellect. So many popular behaviors on Substack are just a response to anti-intellectualism. One particularly annoying way this often manifests is in the person on here who rushes to declare themselves A Hater. I do not respect The Hater.

Maybe now you are thinking that I’m the type of girl who cries, “Let people enjoy things!” Or maybe you’ve read, like, literally any of my previous articles and you are instead laughing at me because you think I am a huge Hater. Maybe you haven’t read any of my previous articles but you are still laughing because I literally began this article with a complaint and also the name of my Substack account is “Girl Yelling at Wall Magazine,” a title that would suggest I’m a little bit of a Hater.

My entire life I have been The Hater to others. I have lied and downplayed my Hating instincts. I have been accused of being a contrarian more times than I can remember. Sometimes I will share my opinions with people and they will assume I am joking. Genuinely once a week I get asked the question “Okay, what do you like?”

I am not bragging about this and I’m not complaining, either. I might be describing this like it is a big deal to me, but it isn’t at all, especially not anymore. During periods of my life when I was very down on myself and life in general, being a hater had me trapped: I felt awful about being a Hater and simultaneously fetishized my Hating. I believed my Hating isolated me from others and made me annoying and unfun, but I also leaned into it because it allowed me to feel better than other people.

I guess, by many people’s standards, I am still sort of a Hater. I don’t think that will ever change. And, for the record, it is very fun to hate. I am good at making people laugh in real life by going on angry rants. It is also easy to get attention on the internet by being a Hater.¹ But my relationship to my hating is very different now. I no longer take pride in it. I’m happy enough to not use Hating as a tool to feel superior to others, but even if I wanted to try, being a Hater would no longer make me feel smart or special. Hating doesn’t impress me now.

I guess I think Hating is often not conducive to critical engagement. Self proclaimed Haters take pride in their “critical thinking skills,” but I think it’s more impressive when someone is able to critically think about art in a positive way. Don’t get me wrong, it drives me crazy when, for example, movie critics use the same ten words to praise a movie in a way that makes you wonder if they even watched it, much less understood it. But there is no place for Hating in good critical analysis, be it positive or negative.

I didn’t have a Substack a year ago, and that’s a good thing because I probably would have been writing terrible articles about how The Substance is annoying and Anora is unimaginative. I still think The Substance was annoying and Anora was unimaginative, but if those movies came out today I don’t think I would feel any urge to write about them, except for the paragraph or two I write for every movie I watch. I am no longer at a place, as a lover of movies, where I feel the need to validate my own understanding of art by writing poorly about movies that are plain dumb, even if everybody else is telling me the movies are awesome. If a movie is actually stupid, there is often nothing to say. FOR THE RECORD: I plan on writing more negative reviews for individual articles. For example, I really liked writing negatively about Marty Supreme (a movie I even liked a little!) but there will be no Hating (unless it’s necessary for me to make a joke or have fun).²

Because capital H Hating is fun! I just don’t appreciate the way aspiring Thinkers on the internet prop it up as some sort of antidote to anti-intellectualism. First of all, when it comes to hating, the real Haters will speak softly and carry a big stick. Whenever someone is so excited to declare themselves a Hater, the extent of their hating is usually “doesn’t like Taylor Swift.”³ And okay, that’s fine, but it doesn’t exactly qualify you as a Hater: do you know how many people hate that woman?

I don’t want to project my own shortcomings onto anyone else, but when I see people on the internet define themselves by their Hating and Critical Thinking Skills, I want to ask is this all in good faith? Or do you just want to feel better about yourself/look smart? Is Critical Thinking when you parrot things you read on the internet, or is Critical Thinking when you set aside your ego?

I am not a perfect person and it is only easy for me to recognize the bullshit of others because it’s my bullshit too. Everyone in the entire Western world has an ego problem and I am no exception: I’m a loser but I want to fool the internet into thinking I’m cool or at least smart. And this is not a plea for criticism to become less personal. The idea that a good critic should completely distance themselves from their subject has always rubbed me the wrong way. All of my favorite critics have a very clear and defined worldview that they use to judge art. I call Pauline Kael an insane bitch like once a week, but I still would much rather read any of her stuff than the writing of some guy in his 20s with a Criterion Subscription who really looks up to Sean Baker and David Ehrlich, you know?⁴

If you’re not moving like him 24/7 don’t call yourself a hater.

I’m just saying, like everyone else, I want to read writing from someone with a unique point of view. I never want to get the sense that someone’s criticism is influenced by their desire to signal something about themselves- morality, coolness, intelligence, whatever. Hating is fun but not when losers use it as a shortcut to seeming enlightened. DON’T LIE ON THE INTERNET. I believe that one great Substack article can change the world.

1. THANK YOU FOR 100 SUBSCRIBERS!!!!

2. I am being veeeeery careful to not completely burn all my bridges. Who knows if I will get angry/mean again.

3. Another variation of the fake hater: “Doesn’t like Subway Takes.”

4. To be clear this is not a knock on either Mr. Baker or Mr. Ehrlich. Although, man….how do you mix up Antoine Fuqua and F. Gary Gray and get away with it…