>>76967278What I don't get is why there has to be a 100% approval rating for creators to not throw a shit-fit or give up. Someone cries "pandering", and suddenly the world's against them. Or they assume they must be killing it because the "haterz" are mad. They could have hundreds of people who LIKE what they've done, hamfisted or not, whether they have a personal stake in the idea or otherwise - and the creator will always lose their head over a minority of readers, or start soapboxing about how hard it is for them to make such and such choices.
Maybe it's just my personal hangups. I never bought into the idea that the word "pandering" was a synonym for "appeal". I remember when small-time politicians would pander for votes by saying how much they understood why people were mad, and how they totally agree, and that they need to succeed so that others can have a voice - and they'd keep doing that until they got the job they wanted, but they'd never live up to the promises. They might throw you a bone every now and then, but it'd never be proportional to the flack you took for supporting them, or the splashback you'd catch when they made mistakes in their new job, and it would never be from them acting in your interest before they came under pressure from the public, only afterwards.
So when I see people talk about "pandering", I associate it with an emptiness in the work. It comes off more like they're saying that the creator doesn't know what they're talking about; that the creator might know the jargon or the gist of the life they're representing, but they're just going through the motions. And, considering how some creatives flat out state that they're engaging in tokenism because "they've got to start somewhere", I don't think it's an entirely useless criticism. But even if it was, the responses can be over the top.
