“I can’t believe she posted that on her public Instagram.”
“You actually like that band?”
“Not to be like that, but his major isn’t a real major.”
How many times have we all heard someone pick apart somebody’s music taste, relationship, looks or major within seconds of it coming up in conversation? These quips happen so often and so fast we don’t even register it as unkind — whether it’s aimed at us or someone else.
Being critical has become synonymous with being witty or interesting among young people, and UT students are no exception; it’s made social interactions more exhausting than they need to be.
We feel the need to have a “take” on everything rather than just enjoying it. We judge people’s hobbies, interests or even excitement about things. This is a pattern, not a one-off.
“I totally have those friends where, because ‘it’s only a joke,’ they feel like they can say certain things when really, at the end of the day … it’s not funny,” biology junior Ruby Beck said.
Unlike enthusiasm, being critical doesn’t cost anything. In fact, it reads as discerning. Enthusiasm requires caring about something and, worst of all for people our age, risking looking uncool. However, shared disdain is the easiest way to bond with others. It’s much lower effort to nod in agreement that something was cringe or ugly instead of convincing everyone it wasn’t.
“Two people can use criticism of another person to show that they are on the same team,” sociology professor Robert Crosnoe wrote in an email. “It is less about the criticism of the (other) and more about the connection between the two.”
We sit together rolling our eyes at everything and call it having taste just so we are able to do it together.
It all comes back to social comparison theory — the idea that people evaluate their personal and social worth by comparing themselves to others. Then, negativity bias comes into play, which is the tendency people have to remember and register negative information, feedback and experiences more than positive ones.
“We use social comparison to figure out who we are,” Crosnoe wrote. “So if you are confronted with this kind of negativity, it could affect how you view yourself in harmful ways.”
UT is full of chances to meet new people and try new things, so this judgmental culture comes at the loss of other positive experiences. It makes earnestness feel risky. You feel like you have to hold back your interests or excitement because you’re bracing for someone to mock them.
“If there’s at least one person I know that’s gonna judge or say something rude about something new I do or try, then I probably won’t do it, which sucks,” Beck said. “Even if there’s 100 people that are positive about it.”
Not all criticism is bad, and honest feedback can be helpful, but there is a difference between sincere input and people who think judgment is a personality trait.
“For many people, the pain of losing exceeds the magnitude of the joy of gaining,” Crosnoe wrote.
Default negativity toward everything and everyone doesn’t make you better. It just makes you closed off to positivity. Choosing curiosity over criticism may cost the small price of effort and the risk of being uncool, but college is the one time in your life you have adult freedom to try new things while still being young enough for it all to be low stakes.
Thakkar is a government junior from Winter Park, Florida.