Not much to report...
... on the personal or professional front (my life remains as reliably dull as ever) but I must tell you that I have engaged in a dialogue with the blogger whose less than favourable review of me I provided a link to on my previous post.
It turns out that Ben (for that, coincidentally, is his name) found out that I had started a thread about the review on the Manchester Comedy Forum (link here). I was inviting other comedians who use the forum to share their experiences of negative feedback. It was meant to be a bit of cathartic fun but my initial post caused Ben 2 some offence as I did use a very rude word indeed to describe him. Some people then went a bit far in verbally crucifying their detractors and caused further offence.
Ben 2 himself then waded into the debate on the forum, with some eloquence I might add, and we ironed the whole thing out. Basically, we agreed to disagree (he still thinks I suck and I still happen to think that I'm rather good), but both retracted certain things - basically, I apologised to him for the namecalling, but pointed out that he had no right to call my act "lazy". I work very hard on my act, always trying new bits of material and striving to tighten and polish older bits. To infer otherwise is just not true and as such I found that very insulting. He conceded that this was uncalled for, before we settled on the alternative adjective of "uninspired". Still hardly complimentary, I grant you, but a valid opinion nonetheless.
Above all, I learned (or rather reiterated in my mind) two important lessons. Firstly, anything that one does, artistically or creatively, is always going to divide opinion. Not everyone will appreciate everything you do. I personally would rather provoke polarised opinions in people than have most people think that I'm "okay" or "alright". As far as I'm concerned, faint praise is damning indeed.
Secondly, just because someone disagrees with you on something, even something you fundamentally believe in, it doesn't make them a bad person. Ben 2 turned out to be a decent enough sort and is also clearly a passionate man, a trait I admire and respect in people above just about all others.
Anyway, Ben 2's site is here. Have a read. The guy has something to say.
Peace. X
It turns out that Ben (for that, coincidentally, is his name) found out that I had started a thread about the review on the Manchester Comedy Forum (link here). I was inviting other comedians who use the forum to share their experiences of negative feedback. It was meant to be a bit of cathartic fun but my initial post caused Ben 2 some offence as I did use a very rude word indeed to describe him. Some people then went a bit far in verbally crucifying their detractors and caused further offence.
Ben 2 himself then waded into the debate on the forum, with some eloquence I might add, and we ironed the whole thing out. Basically, we agreed to disagree (he still thinks I suck and I still happen to think that I'm rather good), but both retracted certain things - basically, I apologised to him for the namecalling, but pointed out that he had no right to call my act "lazy". I work very hard on my act, always trying new bits of material and striving to tighten and polish older bits. To infer otherwise is just not true and as such I found that very insulting. He conceded that this was uncalled for, before we settled on the alternative adjective of "uninspired". Still hardly complimentary, I grant you, but a valid opinion nonetheless.
Above all, I learned (or rather reiterated in my mind) two important lessons. Firstly, anything that one does, artistically or creatively, is always going to divide opinion. Not everyone will appreciate everything you do. I personally would rather provoke polarised opinions in people than have most people think that I'm "okay" or "alright". As far as I'm concerned, faint praise is damning indeed.
Secondly, just because someone disagrees with you on something, even something you fundamentally believe in, it doesn't make them a bad person. Ben 2 turned out to be a decent enough sort and is also clearly a passionate man, a trait I admire and respect in people above just about all others.
Anyway, Ben 2's site is here. Have a read. The guy has something to say.
Peace. X
posted by Ben Schofield at 12:43 PM
4 Comments:
you suck hairy man!
You wish I would
yeah.. so I can film it
Thanks for the link, Ben, and for your comments. I think we should both pat ourselves on the back for being so mature about this! And you're absolutely right on the polarising opinions front - better to be loved or hated than simply tolerated.
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