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Message: <blockquote data-quote="EzekielRaiden" data-source="post: 8128131" data-attributes="member: 6790260">...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.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.)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.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?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.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.</blockquote>

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