When it comes to the internet, there is one quote that is thrown around the most: "let people enjoy things". In the context of what it means, I agree. Nobody should be ashamed of liking something and nobody should make them feel ashamed for doing so. However, recently the quote has been thrown around whenever someone makes even the tiniest criticism of something they enjoy. This is a problem because freedom of expression also includes the freedom to criticize the problems that something or someone has, and it shouldn't make anyone enjoy what they enjoy any less than they already do.

People have criticized things for as long as people have enjoyed things. There has been countless YouTube videos, countless blogs, and countless online articles that criticize the issues a person or a piece of media has since the internet has been popular. There's no way of escaping the criticism of anything under the sun because everything and everyone has their problems. Everything has great traits that should be highlighted, but everything also has problems that should be worked on. Enjoying things and criticizing things are just some of the very few things that no one can escape from no matter how hard they try unless they just leave the internet for good or avoid human interaction altogether.

With that being said, there are still lots of criticisms that do boil down to "no one is allowed to like this thing because of these reasons", which is the worst type of criticism. Pointing out the issues of something or someone is alright, but once someone attacks the fans of said thing, that criticism boils down to "thing bad" and "nobody should like it". These kinds of criticisms have become more relevant on the internet and more people have often mistaken this for actual constructive criticism, which will mistake the criticism of said criticism as someone overreacting, and the cycle starts all over again.

Differentiating between the two can help others realize that criticism on things can be good for the simple reason that they just want to say a thing to improve. Criticism of media is just as important as criticism of self, since if none of us ever got criticism from our authority figures, none of us would know how to improve anything in our lives, be it our social skills, academics, professional skills, or even personality traits that are not as desirable as others.

When someone is criticizing something that you like, it should not be taken as an attack on the said thing or yourself. It should be seen as the fact that everything and everyone has their flaws and should be open to criticism as everything else. People should be able to enjoy whatever they like to, but people should also be able to criticize whatever they want to too. It is how we can understand things and the world around us better and can be helpful in finding flaws and improvements in things we all enjoy in the end.