It's so interesting how far we've developed as a species. I sometimes feel that even for all the technological advancement that we have presently, language is perhaps one of the big things we've become used to that we overlook.
Imagine in 95 BC one of the earlier cave dwelling prehistoric human species trying to explain to his lady that NO, he didn't come home late on purpose today but was ganged up on by a pair of baboons.
Try doing that with grunts and inarticulate sounds 😆, you get my point.
Language is a very important part of our civilization as we call it. It makes it easier to pass across information, ideas and our thoughts easily.
For all the civilization that we have, I just realized there's a fine line between constructive criticism and hate speech.
I found an example of such a scenario online a few days ago. I was on a page when I saw a post asking us to check out a new song of a new artist that had just dropped.
The link was there, but I decided to check a few of the comments to see if it was worth listening to and that was where I saw the whole drama happening.
Apparently a large percentage of the people under the comment section didn't like the song and choose to advise the artist to do better.
Then there were others who liked it and claimed those who didn't were simply hating on the hard work of another person.
This was a dilemma because both sides were speaking their minds. One side claiming they were only criticizing it so he'd become better while the other side claimed doing music wasn't easy and the artist needed all the support he could get.
For the artist, I felt this situation was a disadvantage. If people don't vibe to your music and instead choose to lie just to support you, they've essentially accepted a mediocre work.
On the other hand telling him you don't like his song could also potentially make him loose confidence in his craft.
This is where that thin line between constructive criticism and hate speech comes in.
I looked at a few of the comments and felt it might not have looked like hate in some cases if only the words had been chosen carefully instead of an all out attack.
Although personally there were times where I've listened to some stuff and I just want to clean out my ear immediately after. There's just so much awwwwn syndrome out there that it can also get annoying.
It doesn't mean I know how to do better music, it just means I'd love to enjoy something of quality since we can't all be in the same profession.
It would be right to criticize a shop for selling you an expired product and no one would accuse you of hating, but it would be wrong to insult the cashier's mum for the same problem.
We've had language for hundreds of years and I believe people are still trying to find a balance between both sides of constructive criticism and hate speech.