Confession: I love comments. I read them about my own work. About other people's work. About pretty much anything. Not because I love vitriol (though reading a great acerbic comment makes me happier than it should). I read them because there's often a really interesting discussion going on that wasn't necessarily intended to happen.
That's what happened with the comment above. It was posted on a failed Channel 101 pilot in the midst of a pretty heated discussion.
Channel 101, if you're not familiar with it, is a democratized TV network. People make 5 minute TV pilots for it every every month. Those pilots are screened and an audience votes on which shows make it into 'prime time' (meaning they get to air a new episode of their show next month). It's spawned an impressive group of people whose only reward is more work if they win. But people do it because they're compelled to create something and put it in front of people.
So the gist of the comment 'war' is that one of the creators tried to tell one of the other creators why he didn't like his work. That devolved into an argument about who has the right to tell other people what is and isn't good in their work, about gaming the system, and about quality work in general.
And even though it wasn't the kindest comments thread it was more constructive than 99% of anything you'd read on Agency Spy. There isn't really a 1:1 binary between Channel 101 and advertising because the people doing Channel 101 have complete artistic freedom. But I do think this comment thread, especially the comment above, shows how silly it is to argue about all this stuff. This garbage. Because there's a fine line between giving a shit and being an ass.
Oftentimes the act of making something or trying to make something isn't done for the end product. It's about learning something. Trying to figure out what's in your head and what you can make. Like I said above, I love comments. But being a commenter first because you think that's helpful or because you're not happy with your own output, rather than trying to make something, that doesn't make sense to me.