“Support comes from those who do.
Critique comes from those who did.
Criticism comes from those who can’t.
Envy comes from those who won’t.” – Ed Latimore
MP3: 15MinPhi Critic
Ah yes, you know who and what I’m talking about. You’re doing whatever it is you’re doing: perhaps for your employment, or other things as a hobby or an outlet of your imagination. Maybe you’re outlining how to get da gurlz, or various combat tactics hand to hand ranged or otherwise. Could even be a pic of a cute woman that actually made herself presentable that you’d like to share with your group so they don’t have to look at what the vast majority of “women” look like today. Now you may ask yourself: just who would have something negative to say about a picture of a cute if not damn right hot girl too look at, something even most women appreciate?
The critic.
These come in many flavours, but as I’ve been mulling over this topic, they seem to me to come in 3 main categories. We’ll sort those out a bit later, but the overarching question is this: what’s their motivation? Well first off the bat is that whatever they’re criticising is something that goes at least slightly against whatever they believe in. Let’s say, perhaps, you run a website or a blog or a live show/podcast. And it’s content is possibly not all sparkles and puppies and rainbows and is in fact not exactly something made to please the average denizen of planet earth. Well said average denizen will either find interest in the content and/or be offended by it: you have to have some sort of interest if you’re going to take offence after all, because why give the time if it doesn’t catch your eye in the first place. The second of course is that they’re criticising from a place they perceive to be “safe”, most notably if not exclusively these days on the internet. Back to the example of the blog or podcast: if someone is critical of your work, are they saying it in person after consuming it? Chances are they’re not. And this ties in with the third thing that allows them to do so: data subscription aside, it’s free. Aside from time which very few truly appreciate the value of, it costs nothing to criticise. Again just to pull a wild example out of my ass here, someone has something to say on, for example, twitter about a post someone made on their site: how much do you wanna bet if every click of the enter button in the comments section cost them at least what they pay for a latte at Starbucks? My guess is at best it’d be limited to just once a day, probably using the free WiFi at an actual Starbucks.
“Pictured: a threat before it blocked me.”
This isn’t to say that every criticism or critique is completely negative and comes from people that inherently dislike your content. Case in point: Aaron Clarey. Aside from being one of the reasons I got into the whole blog/podcast/livestream thing (so I may just know something about the above examples!), he’s given me quite a bit of feedback on things I’ve done to the site and on the show, often fairly harshly. Not that it’s a bad thing, as for one I earned it and second that’s how actual guys tend to operate with other guys they care about. But where is he coming from in terms of being able to levy any kind of critique? Oh nothing, just a guy that’s written several books, has a blog spanning almost 2 decades at CaptainCapitalism.blogspot.com, and runs an online consulting agency called AssholeConsulting.com. Let’s just say he knows his stuff about broadcasting on the internet. Along the same lines is a guy in Fort Collins known as The Great One, whose has gone as far as taking a look at how my website was built and has gifen me pointers on how to transfer it to a more not SJWey platform. He also happens to have had an online presence for nearly 20 years at CynLibSoc.com, and like Cappy has a canon of work stating the obvious (SEE WHAT I DID THERE!?). There have been others that have had actual constructive criticism of what I do with varying degrees of knowledge and experience in the field, but suffice it to say these two knuckleheads know what the fuck they’re talking about, the most personal sign being I listen to their content on a regular basis, so if they have a grievance or other things to say about my work, banter about how I do things the way I do them for a reason, I shut the fuck up and listen.
But people like Cappy and The Great One are a rather noticeable exception to the amount of feedback I get in regard to not only the site, but a lot of the things I do, which leads me to the first type of critic: the Adversary. This requires it’s own post, but in a nutshell they’re the type of person that finds a way to oppose whatever you’re passionate about or working towards. This may sound like a bad thing, and depending on whose acting as your adversary it may well be. But more often than not they’re offering you the type of resistance training you need to keep in shape let alone grow and get better at whatever it is you’re doing. In my case the person is Liberal Alpaca Wrangler, who reada/listens to some of the stuff I produce and almost always has some sort of critical feedback to it no matter the topic. It should be noted that she’s also a lady in her 50’s native to Cascadia, the conclusions of which I’ll leave you to come to. But all shots fired aside, she’s on my side when it comes down to it, and whether she’s aware of it or not has been the inspiration to more than a few articles and shows I’ve done here at the very least. And personally, our friendship aside, I think it’s important to find someone like that who at best has feedback you never considered or saw coming, and at worst instinctively breaks out the ad hominems to whatever the subject is. There are quite a few examples to this as you can imagine, the one coming to mind is my background and experience as a pick up artist getting da gurlz. Yes, I know that title is in the mud these days, as all titles made to classify groups of people tend to go to, hence why I only claim the ones I personally earned. But study and practise it I did, to pretty decent success I might add, only some of which I’ve aired here and other places. According to her at one point however, only “stupid” girls would fall for some of the things I said I’ve done and recommended. Now I don’t know what her dating experience with women is like and I’m not really here to guess. But as I said to her: she would have to explain how both of the longest term relationships I’ve been in, and a fair amount of others come to think of it, we’re with some of the smartest women I’ve ever known. Hot Russian Ex being the biggest example: came here from across the planet with a few hundred bucks, broken english and sparse clothing, and now works for herself in the field she’s wanted to work in for longer than I’ve known her; she even has a degree that on paper outclasses mine, for what that’s worth. Bowl Of Chaos is the other more recent one: whatever the hell she was up to did she fucking put her money where her teeny tiny mouth was. Case in point: fitness and nutrition, which she was figuring out when I met her. Now I’ve claimed the title of #worldsgreatestnutritionist for myself, and one I think I can say I’ve earned. But she taught me some things even I didn’t know about. And in both of their cases, blisteringly fast thinkers on their feet, and pretty good debaters on top of it: there was more than a few times I got caught off guard on something we’d end up arguing about. Call me crazy, but I don’t think this exactly qualifies as shopping for dates at the back of the short bus.
“Anyone that can strike up a conversation with this guy ain’t exactly hammering a square peg into a round hole.”
Which brings me to the second class of critic: the Authority. This particular flavour of critic comes from a supposed superior knowledge or experience compared to yours, more often than not unstated if not unfounded. Now if you’ve followed my work, you may have noticed I often have a picture of an easier on the eyes than the average woman somewhere mixed in to whatever I’m posting about, particularly on instagram. Now most people that check out my works more or less appreciate the inclusion of female beauty, French Fries picking on me for posting the more scantily clad ones nonwithstanding. But this particular breed of critic has had something to say about them as well. Case in point: Carl Hopf, aka the Official Hot Chick Critic of thegoddamnbacon.com. Not so much lately as he’s been absent from most the online stuff as of late, but he’ll invariably throw his thumbs up or down into the comments section, often with specifics mixed in regarding said chick. One thing I ended up finding of note is that he has a tendency to not like the ones I find that are more of the africanised persuasion, which I’ve found quite interesting, but he makes his preferences well known.
Another guy critical of not just the average model I put up but even some of the women I’ve dated, surprisingly enough, is none other than Schulaner himself, whose bright enough to actually figure out who they were (with a bit of help from me of course). Now I’ve had my fair share of criticism of partners I’ve had in the past, most notably the aforementioned Hot Russian Ex and Bowl Of Chaos. Most recently from the next door neighbour who obviously would know what they look like, and as an aside from French Fries who early on said the women I end up sleeping with wouldn’t look like the women I was posting pictures of. She was rather quickly silenced after I sent her a pic I had of Hot Russian Ex from way back when we were dating in LA that she took and sent to me; it’s still somewhere in my ancient desktop. But Nick of all people has been rather critical of just about every woman, semen infused by yours truly or otherwise; about the best reaction I’ve seen from him in regards to female attractiveness is “…Eh….” I even remember a Clarey Show a while back where Riley Reid was brought up and Cappy was asked to rate on a scale of 1-10, of which I think his answer was simply “would bang”, and using a quick and dirty grading with my own objective measurement for the female body I came out with a 7.5-10 before the tattoos, maybe even a 7 on a bad day. Nick’s response: “Just what women are you seeing on the average day of you think Riley Reid is hot?” Again, I’m not saying Riley Reid is a smoke show, see my ranking above. But she ain’t quite ugly either, especially given she is or was at the time the #1 pornstar on Pornhub, not that I would know anything about that. It should be noted that Nick just graduated into drinking age recently, and while he’s attending WSU and lives in a college town, he grew up in the South King/Pierce County, which isn’t exactly a place with the hottest women in the local population. Now perhaps Spokane or Pullman is an untapped mecca of female beauty I haven’t heard of and that’s where he’s getting his comparisons from. But I for one would fucking love to see what kind of notch record this guy’s racked up in maybe a 6 year dating career that gives him the experience and seasoning to rank Riley Reid as outright ugly and my selection of women an “… Eh….” at best, which even the most critical of other women don’t do who aren’t even in the market for dating women, let alone Carl or anyone else for that matter. Call me crazy, but if you’re gonna be critical of anyone’s dating or eye candy selection with any kind of seriousness, you might wanna have a decent selection and past of your own to back you up.
“Pictured: a representative of the hottest Indian on the local reservation, aka “… Eh…. ”
Which brings me to the third and most toxic by a long shot: the Antagonist. Often acting in groups, their goals have nothing to do with any kind of improvement on your part and everything to do with tearing you down. Usually it starts with one subject matter, but usually devolves into pretty much anything they can get their hands on. Recently after making my stance known in regard to the marches here, several twitter accounts including a local rock band took to calling and accusing me of all kind of things they could think of: mall ninja, stupid, noodle limbed, not black, virtue signalling, virgin incel, you name it. Now clearly if you’ve seen pictures of me let alone me in person, you’ll know that’s nowhere near close to the case, to speak nothing of the nearly 2 decades of combat training and experience I’ve gone through. So where are these Accusations coming from, especially given a lot of them have nothing to do with me possibly tearing through a mob of marching soy boys bare handed? As per usual with most trolling and name calling, Vox Day called it: Rule 3. Social Justice Warriors always Project. Whatever they accuse you of is that they themselves are guilty of. The guy that says you have skinny arms when you clearly don’t? See if they have any pics of their own, let alone are able of lifting even close to what you’re able to. They think you have no combat experience? How many active duty tours or release of liability waivers have signed up for in their lives? They placed bets on whether you’ve seen a pair of boobs in real life? Care to guess if they’ll pony that up if you provide proof? Hell, you may be reading this and have some criticisms about how it was written: aside from the fact that you’re basically admitting you don’t have a counter argument to the actual content, just where’s your canon of work that shows you know how something should be written, or that can be judged compared to this apparently long winded ramblings to myself? Everyone’s a critic, until it costs them.
“Yeah, already gave myself a tour, fuck you very much.”
Which brings me to solutions. The first part is of course to identify what kind of critic you’re dealing with, because they all call for a different response. In the Adversary’s case, most options are on the table, as whether they realise it or not, they’re purpose is target practise and stress tests for your own philosophy and worldviews; better for your friends to point out and exploit any holes in your strategies than your actual enemies on the battlefield. So in the case of an actual debate, either you can have the intellectual debates with them just to make sure your arguments can hold their own, or you can practise the Combat Martial Arguments tactics I wrote about a while back to deal with some of the other types of mental combatants without wasting too much of your time in the process. (https://thegoddamnbacon.com/combat-martial-arguments-the-reality-of-dealing-with-nitpickers). As far as the Authority goes alongside the other two, they tend to go after your accomplishments and other similar targets of value, such as women you date and physical abilities. The answer is right there in the name: question their authority. They think what you bring into bed ain’t all that hot? Just who are they shacked up with, and what’s their past notches looking like on a 1-10 scale? They say you have skinny noodly appendages? Where’s their body pics showing off their glorious physiques? As stated earlier: they think they’re qualified to question how you write or do your show? It takes more than being a consumer to qualify you to criticise that which you’re cumsuming’ come back with some of your production, and then we’ll talk.
Finally, the Antagonist, which is really a nicer way to say Troll. You can try to have the intellectual debate with them: chances are they won’t even be entertained while they call you names and accuse you of whatever they’re guilty of. You can put up your qualifications and evidence proving them wrong: they’ll get ignored and the above will still apply. In other words, it’s not worth going on the defensive with these kinds of mortals, because their only purpose is destruction. In the most recent cases if not almost all of them, if I didn’t know what to look for to tell if there’s human sentience on the other side of their avatars, I’d swear they were the retard side of cleverbot; these pathetic excuses of human existence are so far removed from reality, so invested in their particular flavor of Retardism and clown world, that they won’t comprehend any form of real world experience or arguments or evidence that goes against any of their perceptions. So why bother? Unless you’re the type of personality I am that likes to poke the murder hornet nest to watch them react for your own entertainment and that of others that follow you, are they even worth your time? Do they deserve any of your attention let alone any retribution of your doing? The reality is that, given how far removed they are from it, is that nature will eventually punish them far better, harder and more thoroughly than you could ever dream of doing, so you don’t need to lift a finger; just watch the show if you can. If you feel the need to even entertain them, some of the above tactics apply: make them prove they are worthy of your time. Whatever they criticise, make them prove they’re qualified to be taken seriously. They think they’re bad ass and can take you on? Make them sign a death waiver first. They want you to make an actual argument that would take up a significant amount of time they’ll likely ignore anyway? Charge them for said time (in my case: PayPal.me/PayBacon or Venmo @bacon-maldito). In other words, bring reality back to the realm of language, and almost invariably they fold or disappear. For me, the sound of crickets chirping is one of the most satisfying and relaxing sounds to sip some 1792 bourbon and smoke an Alec Bradley White Gold to. What’s yours?
“Preferably before a lady like this comes over to take a lap nap.”