Writing on the internet isn’t a new experience for me. I’ve had Bear blogs, Wordpress blogs, think I’ve had one or two Blogspots in the past. Most of those though were by me, for me, with no-one else working on them or editing them. All except for one.

I don’t remember the site name, we’re talking easily ten years ago now, but I do remember what it was. A review site I got introduced to through a friend, who also wrote for it. Every month I’d get a handful of DVDs - movies, TV shows, even WWE once or twice. There was no word limit, just a style guide and a deadline for each one. Some of it was fairly average, including an Alan Moore thing I barely remember except for a line or two. Some of it was really really good, and some of it was really, really bad. That‘s the bit that sticks with me the most.

There’s a scene in the Sorkin drama Newsroom where the guy who runs the digital news desk came back from being on the run after feeling the state to protect a source to find everything he’d worked for trashed by some dude who’d rather fill it with badly written listicles like ‘the most overrated movies of all time’ and fill it with the Matrix and Avatar. It’s great scene; Neal dresses him down thoroughly and calmly, before leading the way forward. Peak Sorkin, I watch it probably once a month on YouTube.

And then I realised I was that dude, and I relished in it. When I got the chance to write a bad review, I went full steam into it. There was one in particular, some little indie movie that I hated every second off. Typical British late night BBC3 style crap geared towards a certain crowd. I think I spent three or four hours making sure I could be as savage as I could be. It was the only that ever got heavily edited before it went live.

I don’t necessarily regret writing a bad review, and I wasn’t consistently as savage. There were movies that were just boring - I didn’t particularly enjoy Ben Stiller’s Walter Mitty for example, except for the last scene with Sean Penn. I also made a point to not just judge it on the movie. I’d look up what trivia I could find, any interviews, background on the cast and director etc.

What I do regret was being bad at it. I gave into tired edginess and let it sway me into just being downright terrible. I was a CinemaSins loving, mid-20s cynical sarcastic git, and I was more than happy to let that shine on the page while I ripped apart someone else’s work. What’s worse, I proud to do so.

As I write my reviews here, it’s something I’m trying to bear in mind. Smart Notes in particular was tough. Like I said in my opening sentence, I was all geared up to be harsh, which is fine if it’s deserved but not if I’m just doing it to feel good. It took me a good while to write, and few edits and proofreads to check over, just to make sure I was being fair and balanced and not giving into my worst impulses. Interestingly, I also ended up scoring it higher as a result, and was left wondering how many of my earlier scores could have benefitted from the same treatment. Would I have been so direct and brutal? Could I not have found something?

I’ve learned a lot from writing bad reviews badly, and hopefully I keep that lesson in the front of my mind.