and Amped
wrote an essay for io9.com entitled “The Two Stages of a Hollywood Soul-Crushing”. He describes some of the experience of having a novel optioned
for a movie, then the slow “soul-crushing” experience of never seeing it
happen.
I found the essay informative and light, and
felt Mr. Wilson used exaggeration well to emphasize his point. I could be
wrong. Maybe it wasn't exaggeration and he thought he really would be riding
wave runners with Mike Myers. But either way, I don’t feel it deserves the
vitriol being spewed in the comments section (and here's a whole post about how awful the essay is over on Badass Digest).
There are two main points I’d like to make:
First, if you say something along the lines
of “this author’s work is pure garbage” and then don’t provide any supporting
statements for your position (i.e. constructive criticism), then you’re a
troll, plain and simple.
Second, no matter what you think of his work
(I’ve never read any of his books BTW), why would it upset anyone that he’s
disappointed his book—which was optioned to be made into a movie—wasn’t made
into a movie? One clever commenter used the First World Problems meme but did
it wrong. That has to do with trivial problems. I would submit that watching
something you’ve created get so close to reaching a whole new audience before
crashing to a halt is not trivial. What’s more, the author states explicitly he
can’t expect any sympathy and doesn’t ask for it!
I’ve never understood the argument which
boils down to “this guy can’t complain because his life is better than some
other guy”. I understand no one (including me) likes a whiner, but that wasn’t
the purpose of the piece and it—to me at least—didn’t come across as such.
Then there’s the problem of infinite
progression so someone who has a legitimate problem isn't allowed to
voice it.
Person 1: “I don’t care about anything anymore.
I think I might be clinically depressed.”
Person 2 “Oh, boo-whoo!
At least you’re not starving. Some people have no food so they have to eat there shoes. Then they have no shoes.
Person 3: "So what? I was just eaten by a shark."
Person 4: "You're lucky. My life sucks so hard, I wish I could get eaten by a shark."
And on and on, ad infinitum...until no one is allowed to complain about anything. And how stupid is that? Everyone needs to get something of their chest once in a while, even if it's not the most important thing to everyone within earshot. Or in this case, eyeshot. (Is that a real thing? Eyeshot?)
It’s possible some people are confused.
There are certain situations when it’s justified to tell someone to STFU. A celebrity
complains he can’t shake the paparazzi but goes to Chateau Marmont (a known
paparazzi hang out) every night. Or someone complains about something which is literally
trivial (e.g. I can’t believe they
put lettuce on my fish sandwich!). But I—as well as most of the planet—can
count on no hands the number of times I’ve been contacted by Steven Spielberg about
anything, ever. So maybe we’re not in the best position to judge the level of
disappointment and discouragement that comes from a deal like that falling
though.
Just my two cents. Or adjusted for inflation, 0.0002 cents.
FIN
