i havent watched the Uglies movie so maybe it IS bad (and i read the books in middle school so maybe they WERE bad and i just didn't realize it at the time)

but the premise absolutely slaps and idk why people are pretending not to understand it. it's straightforward. this is not difficult commentary to discern. i understood it fine at 13 but full grown youtubers and other internet commentariat are acting as if it's gone over their heads somehow.

like what i mean is, for example: people keep saying "but the uglies aren't even ugly!" and like, yes, you're correct. that is the point. the Ugly characters see themselves as hideous deformed monsters because of the society they live in but the audience isn't supposed to agree with them. you're SUPPOSED to see the discrepancy btwn how the characters see themselves vs how they objectively look. they put that there intentionally!

but people keep pointing it out as if it's a like, a flaw in the writing/production somehow, like they've caught the story in a mistake. 

this isn't complicated. the government of this society makes people feel ugly and hideous so that they can coerce everyone into cosmetic surgery, during which they also use procedures to brainwash those people into staying obedient to the government. very simple. very straightforward. the commentary on real-world politics could not be clearer. i was only barely starting to develop a political awareness and i still understood it just fine. 

honestly, i am tired of this sort of social media culture where people pretend not to understand a given work so that they can "critique" it (mock it) because mocking things gains you more attention and clout than unironically enjoying things or praising what they did right. this is exhausting. aren't they tired? aren't you tired? cause i'm extremely tired.

i follow certain nerd channels and it often feels like they're reaching to find bad things to say about certain works. sometimes they don't even bother to actually come up with negative talking points, they'll just clickbait you. the title and the thumbnail will imply that they thought [movie/show/whatever] was bad and then when you actually watch the video they're very positive about it. 

and like, i can't even blame them necessarily. you gotta make a living somehow. what bothers me is that they have to do that. what bothers me is that it works. what bothers me is that internet culture has become so overwhelmingly negative that it has driven straight into this trend of intellectual dishonesty, where people simultaneously dumb themselves down so they can pretend they don't understand a certain work, while also feigning intelligence, acting like they're smarter than the work because they pointed out these "flaws." 

i'm so tired, guys. i still want a career in online content creation but my god. i guess all you can do is be the change you want to see in the world. 

to clarify, i'm not arguing for toxic, mandatory positivity here. good faith criticism doesn't bother me. bad faith criticism does, and it seems to outnumber good faith criticism 10:1. 

(I think this is also part of a larger thing where people heard "critical thinking" and thought it meant "pointing out all the negative things, like how your mom criticizes your makeup" instead of meaning critical analysis--coming to conclusions based on thinking logically about something instead of just taking it all at face value. people think that the more negative you are, the more intelligent you are, because you're "thinking critically" when they aren't even smart enough to know what critical thinking actually entails. again: i am tired.)