I did something "annoying" this past weekend. I watched two Nigerian films on Netflix. The second was somehow, so I went on Twitter to criticize it. Somehow, the director/film-maker saw the tweet. HOW???? I did not use any hash tags or tag anyone. I wrote:
When I saw that he replied, I felt a little bit guilty. I realized I might have been too blunt or too critical. Imagine putting a lot of work into something, and then logging on to Twitter to see it thrashed in only 140 characters. I began to understand even more the power of our words, especially on internet. It's easy to hide behind our computers and phones and type harsh words against someone else. Of course, if I had thought he would see it, I don't think I would have put that out there. Creativity involves a lot of work, and it's mostly not as appreciated as it should be. I myself, I work on a magazine, I blog, I sometimes write posts on more acclaimed websites like Bellanaija, so I can understand how painful it would be, if someone commented somewhere that my work was a piece of crap.
Yet, this movie was not all that it had been hyped out to be. This wasn't just a case of a movie falling below expectation. It was more than that for me. I felt like if I could dedicate two hours of my time that could have been used to churn out papers to watch a movie, why could that movie not have been spectacular? How do we balance it out then? Telling the absolute truth, yet not damaging someone's feelings or discouraging them. I told my siblings about this gentleman's very polite response. I appreciated his response because in the world we are now in, any and every criticism is taken as hate and no one wants to be corrected. But to so graciously read and accept a criticism, I thought it was a great thing to do. I decided to respond politely, while not deviating from the truth still. This is a film-maker whose works have been recognized internationally, so he should be used to criticisms now.
I had done my bit of good Lol. He still responded again!
"Lol my dear it is alright. I am laughing now actually. yeah that is the whole point actually. Confusing life from down here o."
That's my kind of guy. Take the good with the bad. We typically only want to be celebrated and never criticized. But life can not be like that. There's always the good and the bad. Hopefully, people will learn to be nicer to each other on internet. And I also hope more celebrities and regular people take a cue from this man. This right here is how to accept criticisms. Not every time call someone a hater, sometimes listen, and learn.
The other Nigerian movie I watched was October 1, which was phenomenal. I did not tweet about that or commend the film-maker lol. As soon as I saw the less-than-amazing-one however, I jumped on Twitter to make noise. Isn't that how messed up life can sometimes be?
Indeed, "technology is a box."
Love,
I
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