Quote:
Originally Posted by BWTraveller
Basically what you said, "This feels too much like OP/harem/magical girl/mecha to me" or possibly "when I said (insert item here) what I meant was..." followed by a more concise explanation. Simple, straight to the point. At most, as my slight alteration shows, I'd make it more my opinion. But then, that's not a matter of "here" but rather just something I typically try to do in general, as I've been part of some seriously messed up arguments in the past in part, I think, due to coming across as saying things as absolute and making it sound like people who disagreed with me were clearly morons to not realize. I might be far off on that, but still it's resulted in me at least wanting to emphasize that my views are my views and not necessarily any more valid than others'.
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FWIW, I generally agree with you. A lot of times (not always) when you get a strongly negative reaction to a statement (like the OP talking about fans getting defensive and "downvote! downvote!") it's because the person is stating their personal opinions as absolutes, and not leaving room for nuance or perspective. I've seen this over and over on this forum over the years. In a broad sense, people are generally accepting that different people have different opinions and perspectives about stuff, as long as they feel their own perspectives are also being respected. People sometimes act like fans of a work can't stand criticism, but almost always it's because of the way the criticism is phrased or framed, not the simple fact that someone had a negative opinion.
Consider this thread, where the thread-starter is accusing people of "blatantly lying" about the content of shows. That's a harsh accusation, and it's because to the thread-starter these questions are more broad and "black-and-white." But it's not accepting of the fact that, to fans of the genre, there's a lot more nuance to how they apply the descriptions and labels to distinguish works from one another. So there's a major difference of perspective here, but the thread-starter assumes that everything should be cut and dry the way they see it. So when people take this kind of "absolutes-only this shouldn't be a matter of opinion" stance on things, of course it leads to conflict. And the way to bridge that gap is for both sides to 1) realize that a massive difference in perspective exists, 2) respect that difference, and 3) try to understand each other and arrive at an understanding. So I think phrasing like "This feels to me like <x> to me..." or clarifying what you meant to explain your perspective is the right approach in general, even though it might not always work out. The conversation has to be based on mutual respect, so more helpful to assume the other party isn't "blatantly lying" but just either didn't understand you or has a very different point of view on what you meant.
In other words, people need to be better at diplomacy. It seems like a lost skill in many online circles these days.