Bad Faith Titles
The art internet can often feel like a seedy underbelly of capitalism at work. I suspect similar things happen to many other hobbies if I just bother to look. You'll see the same set of supplies hyped over and over, followed by throes of people decrying them. The supplies in question might have actual merit, or they might not, but it's scarcely relevant because the clicks are what everything is about. I especially dislike the usage of provocative words like "lies" and "pretend", though sometimes it's almost as if these content creators believe wholeheartedly in their personal tenets (or they just really love clickbait titles, both would make me avoid their channels entirely).
Thing is, supplies are really, really personal. I've said it before. I will say it again. What works for one person may not work for another. My style is different from yours, my preferences differ as well. There is no holy grail, no one size fits all. If you dislike something everyone seems to love, you're not stupid or any lesser. You're also not the harbinger of universal truth, the superior being who discovers what others don't. Can we express our opinions without bringing down others? I like it when the reviews are focused on personal preferences, why it works and doesn't work for the person specifically instead of "here's why the others are wrong", even ascribing active maliciousness with allegations of deceit.
My other hobbies are relatively light on supplies, so I didn't get to explore this much before restarting art. I've had much success with things other people seem to hate, only to find out that I live in the exact climate to make this paint behave beautifully. I've had bad experience with something other people rave about, and apparently it didn't bode well with the technique I was trained in. How often do we think of geographical aspects when consuming art product reviews? Cultural? I don't think they're common enough for reviewers consider unless they have had experience living in different countries.
Throwing snide comments at something you don't get is neither clever or critical. Sometimes, it reveals just how little research is put on the review. Sometimes, it seems like "not everyone works the way you do" is a concept terribly hard to grasp. "This is how I feel and I alone cannot represent objective truth" is a disclaimer easy to include but difficult to deliver properly. Afterall, I suppose when you review products, you want to appear as an expert.
Given that I have gone past the acquisition phase, it's time to scrub my history clean and remove these review sites. They blur into each other after a while, anyway. Fortunately, there are still places focusing on techniques and actual learnings instead of shouting matches and sensationalisms. Time to save the links. With the way search experience is getting downhill, I can't hope to find them again if I forget.