I've gotten good at not letting things I see on the internet bother me, but occasionally something will still slip through my defenses and reach the part of my brain that stores the raw anger. Here is one of them.
Yes this is a pretty dumb thing to get angry about in the grand scheme of things. But it touches on enough of my personal hang-ups and involves my favorite artistic medium, so let's spend some of my day off making a post no one will read about why exactly the tweets are bad. Good job Mike.
1. The fundamental nature of art (and yes, TV is art) is to tell the truth. Specifically, telling the truth in a nature that more direct methods cannot achieve. Inherent to this truth-telling is a confrontation between the artist and their surroundings. Which can sometimes be not "pleasant" or "insufferable" or can create constructive "drama." Categorically denying those aspects of the creative process is antithetical to art itself.
2. Every single one of the terms he uses is not just subjective, but incredibly subjective. One person's "pleasant" is another person's "insufferable." Furthermore, these concepts generally do not define people, but describe portions of their behavior that apply to almost everyone in at least some contexts. Assuming that you can definitively judge a person's worth in these areas based on a few tweets is foolhardy.
3. Social media (and the internet writ large) has no real "rules," and we've received zero formal (or even informal) education in how to navigate it. Applying your own rules to your own perceptions of others' behavior is absurd and arbitrary.
4. It's mildly perverse to consider that harmless non-work personal activities are subject to a veto by your potential workplace. I would even say it's majorly perverse given the arbitrary nature of the first three points. The larger idea that everything in your life is in service to you job/career is corrosive and toxic.
5. Outside of job/career-specific concerns, sanitizing every aspect of life to appear palatable to some supposed other is probably unhealthy. For one, it will likely lead to some level of paranoia and/or the feeling that one is always being observed. Also obsessive cleanliness makes everything dreadfully boring.
6. Furthermore, categorical self-censorship can lead to a level of "phoniness" that is so pervasive as to decrease trust in others independent of other systemic causes. Put another way, if your social media persona can't pass a Turing test then are you even human?
7. The guy illustrates his point using a gif from a show where people bicker and backstab constantly. A show which is widely regarded as the pinnacle of modern TV, precisely because of how good it is at depicting those things. And yet you explicitly don't want to recruit people who best understand that behavior? Very dumb!
8. I'll end on a generous note. The neoliberal phase of capitalism has strangled the joy out of life. The primacy of work makes it hard to make meaningful human connections outside that sphere. TV writers in particular work long hours surrounded by a small group of others. In this light, I think the urge to hire "nice" and "agreeable" people reflects the more fundamental urge to connect with others (and to do so as efficiently as possible). Also, given that capitalism creates so much conflict on its own, it's understandable that people would try to avoid such conflict in what amounts to their unconscious rebellion against capitalism. But in doing so, you're letting the dictates of the system define your relationship to others. And while this may still lead to some fruitful connections, it's ultimately a dismal view of how to treat others. Especially those weirdos behind the screen.
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