Member-only story
Why I Stopped Leaving Negative Comments Online
On envy, resentment, and the value of comments
I want to begin this piece with a brief detour and a personal confession. I have always wanted to make art. I have always admired artists, writers, musicians, and poets. At the same time, though, I have always found it very difficult to admire someone without comparing myself to them.
I think one character who illustrates my state of mind particularly well, at least until I went through the change I am about to describe, is Antonio Salieri in the film Amadeus. Salieri spends the entire movie being eaten away by a very complicated envy of Mozart. He admires the Austrian composer while also deeply resenting him.
That archetype became very obvious in me during the pandemic. In 2020, I wrote a song about everything that was happening. I recorded a video, posted it online and, as always happened with my musical efforts, nobody watched it and nobody cared apart from my closest friends and acquaintances. The problem was that, in that same week, another girl from my state had exactly the same idea. She also recorded a song, except hers became a success. She even appeared on local television, giving interviews and talking about how she had signed with a record label.
