World of Design: The Lost Art of Making Things Up

In a previous article I shared differences between entertainment media and how it feels imagination is less often required of people today. What changed?

Picture courtesy of Pixabay.​

The most important thing that we've ever learned--the most important thing we've learned as far as children are concerned--is never, never let them near a television set, or better still just don't install the idiotic thing at all. It rots the senses in the head. It kills imagination dead. It clogs and clutters up the mind. It makes a child so dull and blind. He can no longer understand a fairy tale in fairyland. His brain becomes as soft as cheese. His thinking powers rust and freeze. He cannot think he only sees! –Mike Teavee, by Danny Elfman, from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

With most forms of entertainment you need to use your imagination because there are things missing that you have to add in. Games are part of that. You need to imagine things that aren't actually there. How much imagination you need depends on what kind of entertainment.

“A Fairytale in Fairyland”

Let's differentiate imaginative play from an unfettered imagination, which is wild imagining separated from reality, with imagination in the service of problem-solving or real-world entertainment. This kind of thinking is something we learn early as children but society gradually becomes considered “daydreaming” as adults, a negative connotation. As such, an unfettered imagination tends to be the domain of children who have more time and freedom to imagine. But even in childhood play, things are changing.

“It Clogs and Clutters up the Mind”

For example, with video games much less imagination is required than with tabletop games, because the video game can show so much more (now with photo-realism). There's a tendency these days to expect games and life in general to be highly attractive. We expect movies to be extravaganzas with lots of computer-generated special effects. We can even make a young Arnold Schwarzenegger as in Terminator Genesys.

These are all aids to imagination. As a result, imagination is no longer required nearly as much in play as it was before, due in no small part because of corporate branding. Kids don't just get a set of race cars and have to imagine the rest. Instead they get cars from the movie Cars, or go-karts from Mario Kart, and so forth.

Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy is an example of the power of imagination. Originally it was a radio program in Britain, which I happened to hear when I was living there in the late 70s. Then it was brought to TV (same actors), then it was a book, then a series of books, then a radio program again, and then a movie, and somewhere in there I suspect there were video games as well. I've always thought the original radio program was more entertaining than the movie or even than the books.

As the history of Dungeons & Dragons has demonstrated, there’s money to be made in creating content. In the past, it was expected that tabletop board games have lots of attractive artwork and bits, often miniatures. The less multimedia a game has, the more imagination required. This is in part a shift for Fifth Edition, which placed “theater of the mind” as a viable playstyle that involves descriptions only and no board or miniatures. Theater of the mind eschews props, but they can easily become a substitute for imaginative descriptions. For example, I rarely use miniatures (but do use a board and pieces); yet many people won't play without them.

“He Cannot Think He Only Sees”

When we stop using our imagination, we are no longer “thinking” but only “seeing” – processing information instead of creating it. In comparison, it seems to me that imagination is used less in gaming than it used to. The sandbox style of play in D&D is very much associated with the old school renaissance (OSR) and thereby older adults. But perhaps it’s just shifted online. Children play Minecraft and Roblox, worlds in which players are encouraged to create something from nothing.

The tension behind open world video games is that it costs money to create them. Emergent play by playing in a sandbox-style world is risky; players may have an amazing experience by interacting with randomly generated monsters and other players, or they may find it boring and quit. Given the upfront investments in these types of games, it’s critical that they have a means of getting players to keep paying and coming back for more. One way is to brand them, which is why corporations want to create branded worlds that have a unique intellectual property. In video games, subscriptions are one means of guaranteeing repeat play and therefore access to the imaginative world.

In tabletop games, designers can try to help player imagination but the ultimate decisions about a designer’s work are with the publisher, not the designer. Because aids cost money. Of course if the designer self-publishes then the designer decides how to spend money in order to get aids to imagination. Since tabletop publishers can’t “turn off” your imaginative play, they can instead produce pieces of a world that you must buy one book at a time, or explore one adventure at a time ("modules").

Modules often provide player maps and other visual aids. The popularity of modules can even be argued as a failure of GM imagination. To be fair, it's also a matter of convenience in a world that poses a great many calls on one's time. Even if you do buy an adventure, the imagination of the DM and players is still required. No two games run from the same published adventure are alike.

In my opinion, the ability to use imagination has atrophied from lack of use due to changes in media. Can we do anything to change it as individual game designers? Probably not. The best we can do is keep producing and hope that tabletop games continue to offer something no other medium can provide: unfettered imagination.

Your turn: Do you see a difference in how gamers today use their imagination in tabletop play?

 

[Bedrockgames]

But is that really a negative for creativity or simply a negative for creators meddling in "blatant misogyny, bigotry, and racism"? I don't think that creativity in and of itself is a "good" when it services or preserves harm against others, particularly against marginalized groups.

Again this isn't about this. We could, and have, had whole discussions on that topic. This part of criticism is just one facet (and what I am talking about exists all over politic and stylistic spectrums in gaming). You could take away the whole debate about 'cultural appropriation' and all the other stuff tethered to that, and you would still have the issue I am talking about. It is more about the way we process and understand criticisms online (and how you just can't get away from the judgment of social media). Doesn't matter what that is about. It makes people shape their creative output to avoid the negativity that can come from the internet.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

That isn't what I am saying @Hussar. But your post is one example of what I am talking about. How discussion can be stifled by negative framing of a position and how people can just project negative things onto a person (that have nothing to do with what they believe)

...there is absolutely nothing unique about social media or the internet which induces this. Like, do you honestly think that people never worried about how their work would be received until the television was invented, or quick-post statements came into existence? I had chosen to bow out before--not thinking there was much point in discussing--but here you are simply wrong. People have worried about how audiences would respond to their work for thousands of years. There is literally nothing new about any medium that has existed since the spoken word which has made "concern for how people will see one's work" any more or less relevant. Why do you think female authors (or male authors on controversial subjects, like political philosophy) tended to use pen names or abbreviate their first names? It's because they worried people would judge the work, not based on its content, but on preconceived notions about its creator. There's a reason it's J.K. Rowling, not Judith Rowling; why we remember DC Fontana's scripts, not Dorothy Catherine Fontana; and why the now-world-famous Brontë sisters wrote under the names Currer Bell (Charlotte), Acton Bell (Anne), and Ellis Bell (Emily). These women used abbreviations and pen names because people WOULD have judged them differently if the name on the cover had been female.

I have no hard data to measure this. This is simply perception from interacting with college students. I have noticed that contemporary students are much more skilled in in interacting with information which is formulaic. That is to say that skills in higher level math, memorizing facts, and things of that nature are improving. However, I have noticed that more students struggle with assignments which are more-loosely defined and contain the expectation that the student make more of their own decisions concerning how to approach the assignment.

Obviously, this varies if different groups of students are viewed. Those who are in artistic degrees are different than those focused on things like statistics. But, as an overall general observation (not based upon anything beyond personal interaction) it appears there are changes to the skill sets and mental approaches to information among the population.

Formulaic anything is always easier to interact with, and many students will pursue it. The expansion of education access alone will see to that. I also dispute your association between "higher-level math" and the formulaic--high-level math requires a great deal of creativity, with the "formula" only coming near the very end of the process. (I don't have a lot of experience with that area, but what I have is quite dear to me.) You're absolutely right that we, as a culture, have improved our ability to memorize facts and figures, because we've literally been gearing our education system to do that. That does not, at all, mean that imagination is being atrophied in the process--and that's the central claim.

Education is a tool--or, rather, a multitool, something that handles a wide variety of topics and skills collectively. It is useful to be able to memorize numerical figures, because our society is heavily numbers-driven: the price of goods, taxation, interest, scientific reporting. But it is also useful to think creatively: businesses value it immensely, research can't happen without it, computer programming often requires creative solutions to unforeseen errors, physical and behavioral therapy almost always require context-sensitive and creative solutions.

The thing is? It is literally impossible--even in principle--to do the thing we ask teachers to do: instill an intrinsic desire for knowledge and understanding. There is no method, whatsoever, by which you can induce intrinsic motives in others; if such a thing existed, it would be abhorrent to us, the destruction of freedom and dignity, the denial of self. Yet the goal of teaching is to do that very thing, and somehow, many students do gain an intrinsic desire to understand. That has never stopped being true.

However, with the advent of the internet and the vast sums of human knowledge and experience that it places within our reach, there IS a new importance placed on an old skill: filtering. We have before us ENORMOUSLY more information than any population of human beings has ever had. Our scientific journal output is growing exponentially every decade, our medical knowledge is off the charts and still growing, new tools and techniques and ideas are appearing on time scales of months rather than decades. Thus, one of the most important skills to develop is how to pare down the TSUNAMI of information into a usable stream--and that's exactly what you're seeing, students with highly developed senses of how to zero in on the relevant details of a question. You are seeing the academic equivalent of prewriting at work: building the foundation upon which something new or different or interesting can be constructed.

It is on this rock that the creative minds of today build their towers. In years past, when knowledge was far less interconnected and accessible, we had to make do with what little was on hand--or that we could request, if we found a useful reference in a book and could wait the weeks it might take to learn if another library had a copy of that reference. Today, I can laser in on a topic so specific you'd think it was untenable and still find a stack of books three feet high that are all relevant. There is a reason that nearly all good research today begins with a literature review, rather than a bold idea pursued without context. (Which is not to say that bold new ideas never get pursued; they're just rarer now than they were even half a century ago, though some of that depends on which field you look at!)

Do not presume that thought stops with the literature review, rather than starting with it. Further, do not assume that because a literature review is the starting point, that all we do today is reshuffle the ideas of the old masters; because many of these fields are technical and difficult, it behooves us to know what has been done so we can focus on what hasn't yet. And while my thinking above mostly applies to areas of research and academia, it totally applies to creative arts as well. Greater awareness of what people have done is an enormous part of what makes vibrant and interesting creative work today--both to help people develop artistic sense, and to reveal pathways that many would never have considered without such education. (For every person who is "inhibited" by knowing what "can't be done," I guarantee you there is no less than one person who is liberated by knowing what can be done.)

this is more in the realm of what I am talking about. I think, and again like you this is just my personal perception, that the internet has taught a lot of people to test the wind before they speak and to anticipate criticism to the point that they have difficulty thinking for themselves.

What does this even mean? Are you truly saying that people simply halt all creative thought solely because they're afraid of backlash? If so, I think you are deeply mistaken about this--and Twitter itself is my proof. LOTS of people run their mouths on social media, regardless of political affiliation, values, nationality. Twitter is living proof that humanity is often quite happy speaking without thinking first! But it is also a place where really incisive thoughts are often found too. Being limited to only a few hundred characters is difficult, and that difficulty induces creativity in getting a message out.

I can't help but notice a lot of guitarists sounding wonderful and great, but kind of the same. And I can't help but wonder how many less polished, but perhaps more interesting performances, we are not seeing because online music is so obsessed with perfection (which is understandable because when you put out something creative for the internet to see and judge, it is there for all time and viewed potentially by millions).

What does "sameness" mean in this context? What does "perfection" mean in this context? Are you certain this sameness isn't because these creators are still new and thus still finding their creative voices?

I think what is called for is the creators managing how they deal with feedback. Unfortunately though feedback and criticism can impact people even if they don't want it to (because the internet and social media are largely inescapable---a guitar player who puts out something that gets a negative response, could end up in becoming internet famous for that one thing).

Creators have always needed to manage how they deal with feedback. It is simply more obvious that they have to do so. Social media is not at all "inescapable" and I'm not sure why you would think otherwise; if someone chooses to engage in a field where self-advertisement (like entertainment media), it is not the tool's fault that they chose such a field.

You are, however, correct that "internet famous" is a fickle yet inconsistent thing...as fame has always been. We just learn about it faster than before, which also means we learn about new things faster than before. Some forms of "internet fame" linger long after their origin; consider how Alanis Morissette's Ironic has retained an almost lich-like unkillable infamy despite now being over two decades old, and "I can has cheeseburger"/"Doge" memes are practically a language unto themselves at this point. Other forms are flash-in-the-pan--who still remembers Left Shark or the 'O RLY?' owl? But this is exactly the same as what fame has always been, fickle and inconsistent, where one actor is typecast because of a movie they were in and another finds wide appeal, or where a singer becomes famous for "parody" songs and silly compilation polkas while actually producing mostly original work in the form of style parodies (I'm looking at you, Weird Al!)

All that radio, television, and now the internet have done is accelerate these behaviors--as they have accelerated everything, because they are quicker, more thorough means of communication. The ephemerality was always there. The ridiculous "fact is stranger than fiction" nature of it was always there. It's just faster and easier to spot now.

So I think there is a combination of hyper criticism, omnipresence of social media and a tendency toward cruelty (where people and artists are not seem as human but as a target for dunking----even if the language around dunking is itself sometimes wrapped in laudable terms) that can negatively impact creativity.

You have gone quite a bit further than your previous statements, here, and that's important. You are not just saying that there is criticism (which is what you were saying earlier in this post)--you are now saying that there is hypercriticism. That's not just the existence of criticism or a lot of criticism--it's that there's something special and new about how harsh, detailed, or comprehensive modern-day criticism is compared to the criticism of the past. You're going to have to do a lot more than just assert this. You're going to have to actually defend the idea that people really are more cruel today than they were in the past--or else admit that it's not that humanity is more cruel, it's that the internet makes the cruelty that already existed more visible than it was before, exactly as I have argued.

Further, you are asserting that social media turns creators into dehumanized targets "even if the language around dunking is itself sometimes wrapped in laudable terms." Which...uh...what exactly does that bit mean? This circumlocution is difficult to interpret; what do you mean by dunking "wrapped in laudable terms"? Are you somehow saying that dehumanization is being turned into a good thing purely by sophistry, that people can make purely hurtful attacks and get away with it solely by careful choice of how they phrase it?

And since I know you like TL;DR bullet points Bedrock:
1. People afraid of backlash have existed since the beginning of time--female authors in particular have feared it until very recently. Social media has done literally nothing to change this fact one way or the other.
2. Do not confuse the ability to filter information--selecting only what is relevant to the task at hand--for formulaic thought. It is a critical step on the road to doing good creative work today, even in the arts.
3. Are you truly saying that fear of backlash makes people incapable of creative thinking? Because that is pretty patently false, and Twitter itself is proof enough, with all the things, both bone-headed and brilliant, that appear on it.
4. What does "sameness" mean in this context? What does "perfection" mean? Are you sure you aren't just seeing more young artists still learning?
5. Creators have always needed to manage feedback, they just get more of it, faster. That's not a difference of kind, it's a difference of degree.
6. What is this "hypercriticism" you speak of, and how do you see it happening? How are people-in-general any more cruel today than they were in the days of letters to the editor?
7. What on earth does "even if the language around dunking is itself sometimes wrapped in laudable terms" mean? Are you asserting that people get away with verbal abuse of creators purely by using careful phrasing?

And please, for goodness' sake, don't weasel out of this by saying "oh well it's just what I've seen." You're making a case. You're absolutely putting your ideas out for other people to listen to and heed. If you're going to shrink away from any actual discussion of your ideas because "oh well it's just my experience, man!", then why engage with anyone who responds to you? Why even post on a forum--a place for discussion of ideas--if you don't actually intend to discuss your ideas? It very much comes across as hoping to reap all the benefits of people agreeing with you, while wanting to dodge any consequences from people disagreeing with you: looking only for validation, not discussion.

 

[Bedrockgames]

...there is absolutely nothing unique about social media or the internet which induces this. Like, do you honestly think that people never worried about how their work would be received until the television was invented, or quick-post statements came into existence?

Of course people worried before, but the difference is obvious. People always worry about that. My point is the internet changes the scale, the constancy and makes it very hard to navigate. I don't think this is particularly controversial to be honest. Anyone who has spent time on facebook and twitter, knows the feeling I am describing if they are working creatively. And it isn't a feeling I experienced before the internet when I would express myself creatively. In both instances, of course peoples reactions were a factor. But the internet is clearly different

Because something has always been a problem, doesn't mean the nature or scale of the that problem remains the same.

Also I think your invocation of female authors isn't the best analogy to this issue. That is in fact a very interesting topic but the problem that caused Rowley to use initials so people to didn't know if she was male or female, that isn't about content. That is about people judging a writer based on their identity rather than their work. That is a whole other problem, one the internet has indeed made worse in a variety of ways. But that isn't about the criticism of the content as much as it is about prejudice (which obviously can have an impact on what people say).

 

[Bedrockgames]

..

And since I know you like TL;DR bullet points Bedrock:
1. People afraid of backlash have existed since the beginning of time--female authors in particular have feared it until very recently. Social media has done literally nothing to change this fact one way or the other.
2. Do not confuse the ability to filter information--selecting only what is relevant to the task at hand--for formulaic thought. It is a critical step on the road to doing good creative work today, even in the arts.
3. Are you truly saying that fear of backlash makes people incapable of creative thinking? Because that is pretty patently false, and Twitter itself is proof enough, with all the things, both bone-headed and brilliant, that appear on it.
4. What does "sameness" mean in this context? What does "perfection" mean? Are you sure you aren't just seeing more young artists still learning?
5. Creators have always needed to manage feedback, they just get more of it, faster. That's not a difference of kind, it's a difference of degree.
6. What is this "hypercriticism" you speak of, and how do you see it happening? How are people-in-general any more cruel today than they were in the days of letters to the editor?
7. What on earth does "even if the language around dunking is itself sometimes wrapped in laudable terms" mean? Are you asserting that people get away with verbal abuse of creators purely by using careful phrasing?

1) Backlash is way more common now, more easily started and is much more inescapable. I don't think anyone looking at how the internet has shaped modern culture, and who has lived through the transition to our present age of social media, can honestly look at the internet and say this isn't the case. If you can't even see this as a starting point in the conversation, our assumptions are so vastly apart, I don't think they can be bridged.

2) This was someone else's post

3) No, I am saying overwhelming fear of criticism and of backlash, which I think social media does produce, makes people reluctant to take creative chances. And this stifles creativity. And that there is a clear difference in scope, intensity, avoidably of internet based criticism. It can be managed. But if you don't manage it, it will impact your creativity negatively

4) If you don't know what sameness means here, I really don't know what to tell you. I think it is obvious, and I genuinely don't understand why we'd be debating the meaning of pretty basic words in the conversation

5) This point seems rather disingenuous to me. It is a whole different medium, that connects everybody all the time. It is as different to previous forms of feedback as face to face criticism is different from widely disseminated printed criticism. Here the degree matters and it shapes the nature of the feedback as well

6) I am not going to break each and every one of these things down for you. We all know how people are behaving more cruel over the internet (I am sure most people here have had the experience of being talked to in ways people just wouldn't do face to face, or even in letters). The hypercriticism is obvious too and been widely discussed. If you reject this point, you are just not living in reality. Sorry

7) I am saying that people can get away with abuse by careful phrasing, often employing moral or political language. When you identify a person as a viable target because of some claim that they've morally transgressed, it is easier to dehumanize them. You see this ALL THE TIME on the internet. It isn't just 'this person is wrong and I disagree with them', it is 'this person is bad and I want them to stop existing'.----and to be clear: this isn't just the product of one viewpoint, it exists all over the internet across numerous ideologies, political positions, and moral positions. There is an intensity to disagreement on the internet, I simply do not encounter as often in other mediums.

I think most of what I am saying is pretty obviously true to most people. And I am not even saying social media and the internet are all bad for creativity (I pointed out many ways they are good). I am just observing, there are ways the internet can stifle creativity and creators really need to manage how they handle feedback online once it starts impacting their creativity.

Also this is my last response to you because of this comment:

And please, for goodness' sake, don't weasel out of this by saying "oh well it's just what I've seen." You're making a case. You're absolutely putting your ideas out for other people to listen to and heed. If you're going to shrink away from any actual discussion of your ideas because "oh well it's just my experience, man!", then why engage with anyone who responds to you? Why even post on a forum--a place for discussion of ideas--if you don't actually intend to discuss your ideas? It very much comes across as hoping to reap all the benefits of people agreeing with you, while wanting to dodge any consequences from people disagreeing with you: looking only for validation, not discussion.

Happy to have conversations. With all due respect, this characterizations of my posts is not what I am doing at all. Happy to disagree. But not going to serve as you or another poster's whipping post, or allow people to just put words in my mouth or project things onto what I say. I feel I have been most polite in this conversation despite receiving a lot of snark and attacks. I definitely don't have a problem with people disagreeing with me, nor do I 'dodge' the consequences of people disagreeing. I always try to very clearly and honestly give my opinion on a topic. I just am not going to serve as a punching bag and I am not going to answer lines of question that seem bad faith.

 

[Thomas Shey]

..And please, for goodness' sake, don't weasel out of this by saying "oh well it's just what I've seen." You're making a case. You're absolutely putting your ideas out for other people to listen to and heed. If you're going to shrink away from any actual discussion of your ideas because "oh well it's just my experience, man!", then why engage with anyone who responds to you? Why even post on a forum--a place for discussion of ideas--if you don't actually intend to discuss your ideas? It very much comes across as hoping to reap all the benefits of people agreeing with you, while wanting to dodge any consequences from people disagreeing with you: looking only for validation, not discussion.

Especially since it now seems that any line of discussion that disagrees and presses for support is "arguing in bad faith." That, in and of itself, seems to be arguing in bad faith from where I sit, since it allows the one presenting the opinion to avoid having to ignore absolutely any criticism of an idea and either shrug it off, or blame it on the respondent. As you say, it comes across as looking for validation and rejecting anything else.

 

[Bedrockgames]

If I was looking for validation I wouldn't take positions like this on EnWorld. I get lots of push back against my ideas. And that is fine. But I also avoid obvious rhetorical traps, bad faith arguments and dog piling. If someone engages me in good faith, I give them a good discussion. When posters take an aggressive posture and you can feel the hostility behind their questions, I am reluctant to answer their line of questions. It is really that simple

 

[EzekielRaiden]

I have literally zero hostility toward you, Bedrock. I don't know the first thing about you, other than that you post on this forum and have said things in this thread. I do, however, dislike the argumentation style that couches clear assertions behind the impossible-to-discuss veil of "opinion" or "personal experience." For example:

I think, and again like you this is just my personal perception, that the internet has taught a lot of people to test the wind before they speak and to anticipate criticism to the point that they have difficulty thinking for themselves.

You are making a strong claim: Fear of criticism means people have difficulty thinking for themselves. But you then couch this very strong claim--one that would be very difficult to argue for--with the assertion that "this is just my personal perception." In other words, you have gotten the very strong claim onto the page and into discussion, but in a way that shields it from any possible criticism or dispute, because how can I argue against your experience? Yet you then build on that "personal perception," adding further arguments and assertions that work off of the strong claim.

If your argument boils down to, "I've seen people be extremely mean on the internet, and thus think that's a problem," there's really nothing to say. People are sometimes mean. The internet allows you to interact with a VASTLY larger number of people. The odds that at least one of them will be unpleasant for whatever reason are astronomically high. This point is completely right, it just...doesn't say very much.

But if your argument is, "The internet fundamentally makes people meaner, and causes such fear of criticism that it prevents a large number of creators from even thinking creatively at all," then you're simply wrong. Full stop. The internet has not made anyone more mean; it has made mean behavior more visible. We can SEE how petty and mean-spirited and hurtful other human beings HAVE BEEN to one another. It's not hidden in the corners anymore. It's there, up front, for everyone to see. And that means it's now a problem we can do something about. Instead of this being a secret dark side of technology that we have to re-align ourselves to process, this is technology revealing an ugly truth about ourselves that we must now reflect on and adapt to. Humanity was ALWAYS as nasty and vicious as the worst YouTube comment threads and Twitter blowups and snide Tumblr posts. That nastiness is now visible to us, and the question becomes how do we change ourselves--not how do we fix this medium that revealed these truths about us.

Are you familiar with the game League of Legends? If not, it is a popular MOBA (multiplayer online battle arena) game, usually with two teams of five players competing to defeat the other team's NPC armies and infrastructure first. It is also notorious for the toxicity of its community. Yet when its community management team started collecting statistical information on the community, they were shocked--the numbers didn't indicate a particularly bad community. In fact, they seemed to indicate a really really GOOD community! I don't remember the exact numbers, but well over 90% of all accounts never receive infractions at all, and of those who do receive infractions, the vast majority never get a second infraction. In theory, that means that 90% of players should be perfectly normal folks, right? Nothing to worry about! Except...that's not how the statistics work.

See, each time you play a game with a group of people you've never met, you're in theory rolling nine dice. Nine chances to see if one of them isn't a great player. And let's assume that 95% of players are never jerks at all. That's like rolling 9d20...and hoping that not one die comes up 1. The odds of getting no ones in 9d20 are 63%--which means your odds of getting at least one infraction-getting player per game are about 37%. More than one in three games will have a jerk in it, even though 95% of players aren't jerks. Now run that over the course of, say, three or four games, which is somewhere between an hour and two hours of play in most cases. Suddenly, 25% of your play experience is awful nearly every time you play, because only 5% of the playerbase is jerks.

THAT is why the internet makes it seem like people are so much more cruel than before. They aren't. You're just interacting with MANY orders of magnitude more people than you ever interacted with before. A meme showing up on the internet, a tweet getting out online and getting picked up by the masses, may be seen by literally millions of people. If even one-tenth of one percent of those people is just feeling really awful, or dealing with serious mental issues, or simply has a bad attitude, you're talking about THOUSANDS of angry voices. It has nothing to do with humanity overall suddenly being more inclined to be cruel. It has everything to do with the numbers of people reached, and (to a lesser extent) the ease of response. (It's not like people didn't submit nasty "fan" mail to authors before!)

And this doesn't even touch on the other half of your claim--that this criticism prevents creative thought. Because...yeah, that's just...not correct. There is absolutely tons of creative thought going into all sorts of things, and at best all I can say is that you have been looking in the wrong places if you think internet criticism is meaningfully reducing humanity's capacity to have creative thoughts.

 

[MichaelSomething]

If you can't stand being opposed on the internet, you can always find an online place where everyone agrees with you! It's super easy to find/create one these days!

 

[Bedrockgames]

If you can't stand being opposed on the internet, you can always find an online place where everyone agrees with you! It's super easy to find/create one these days!

That isn't what I am talking about. I actually avoid places where people agree with me all the time. It is good to exchange thoughts with people you disagree with. That doesn't mean you get to set the terms of how I engage the conversation though. People keep reducing my posts to this straw man. Look at what I said. If I didn't persuade you with what I said, that is totally okay. I am not coming in thinking one of us is right, the other wrong, and someone has to leave adopting the other's point of view. I am giving my perspective on how the internet and social media have impacted my creativity, and how I see it impacting other peoples'. People seem to want me to take that a lot further and provide an in-depth analysis, or point by point proof of something that, I have been saying this whole time, is highly subjective. At the same time, I do get the sense that most people understand and know what I am talking about and there is push back for some other reason (and for something that really doesn't have much to do with what I am actually saying).

 

[Aldarc]

What is "creativity" for you? Because you seem to be using it in an incredibly vague way while trying to also argue that it's being negatively impacted in a concrete way. It seems to range from everything between actual creative works, risk-taking with publishing, or talking to audiences.

You previously likened it to an overly-critical boss, but I suspect many of us would liken it instead to a lazy, chauvinistic employee who could coast by work with a lax boss who acted like one of the bros and being able to say what they want but then they suddenly find themselves frustrated when their new boss or increasingly ticked-off colleagues expect that the employee actually adhere to standards in their work product and ethical behavior.