A nightmare-shaped good dream
I had quite the odd dream tonight. I mean, I have these every day/night, but this one was a nightmare-shaped good dream. Like a sheep in wolf’s clothing. A lot of people might label that as a nightmare and maybe my brain intended it to be one, but I was actually disappointed that my alarm in the morning woke me up from it and I couldn’t finish the story.
I was scrolling through social media, I think it was a mix of Threads and Substack (Threads but in orange? My username was movieandmix). Then, out of the blue, I get a notification that someone subscribed to me. I don’t remember the username, but it said he/him in the pronouns area and he had a profile picture of a dark forest in a storm. It was my first subscriber, so I was very happy.
He messaged me in dms, telling me how awesome my writing is and that I deserve much more subscribers etc. Part of me was suspicious by the amount of lovely comments, but the other part was mostly happy. I thanked him a lot.
Then I saw he went offline, so I went back scrolling, smiling brightly.
When my homefeed refreshed, the first note/thread I saw was by the same user. It said: “Here’s a thread of criticism. Comment everything you hate about movieandmix.” My username wasn’t linked, so I wouldn’t get a notification. I also was blocked from interacting, but I was able to read the comments just fine.
I was hurt at first. ‘Why is he gossiping about me, when he said such nice things before? Why are there so many comments, when I actually don’t have that many followers?’ But I was also very curious.
Some were hateful comments from my irl ‘friends’/family, as expected, therefore I skipped them, and mostly skimmed through the comments of unknown users. A lot were criticizing my art, but these were such subjective opinions that they couldn’t possibly have hurt me (for example, “I don’t like that they used the color blue in the background instead of red”, or “they don’t post timelapses anymore, so I unfollowed them”, or “they post too many activism reels in their IG stories”).
But those that stood out to me were things like, “the anatomy on that piece doesn’t look right, the head needs to be higher”, or “arms and legs aren’t that straight, they need muscles”. Comments that were actual criticism. Those might’ve not been at the top and also voted down by most users (cause it wasn’t the intention of the post, I’m guessing), but they still stuck with me the most.
And so, when the lock on the post was lifted for me, I thanked everyone in the comments “for their kind honesty, it actually made me really happy”. OP got furious (his profile picture turned to a gif, where there was an actual storm) and showed his true colors, attacking me and asking why I’m not mad about his note/thread. I just shrugged, asking in return, why I should be mad – I’m rather disappointed that he lied to me before, and told him I love criticism. He unfollowed me but I got 10 new subscribers instead.
I’m not surprised why I dreamt that. I’ve been asking irl a lot for criticism lately, but it always bugs me that I never get the comments I’m looking for. If I add it to the caption, that I’m open for criticism, no one dares to comment. If I ask in subreddits that are specifically made to get feedback, they usually comment very subjectively, which gives me nothing.
An idea then came to me, after waking up: Since people love to gossip behind your back so much, but hate to give honest feedback to your face, why not, if you do need feedback on something, ask a friend to create a thread for you? On one hand, I absolutely hate gossip and don’t want to give people the opportunity to practice it even more, when we should stop that behavior. On the other hand, if gossip is the only way to get proper feedback nowadays, and if you really need some, then … it’s an idea at least.
I wish the world and humans could be a little more honest with each other. The example regarding art in my dream might not serve as the best example with the message I want to give you along the way, but you’d be surprised how much feedback can change a person for the better. And on the other hand, even if people intend to harm with comments, you don’t have to take them to heart. Focus on the positive ones or just shrug them off, if you know that the criticism doesn’t apply to what you do. And if they are true, it won’t hurt to listen and to realize that you might’ve been wrong about something. It also doesn’t make you weak for apologizing – quite the opposite actually. Acknowledging your mistakes and striving to do better is strength.