Which do you find generally more annoying, haters or hug boxes, and why?

Personally, I hate hug boxes more. At least haters are entertaining in how pathetic their feeble attempts in making you mad are. Hug boxes are just plain annoying. The worst part is you can't tell them to piss off because then they'll bitch to their 200+ friends about how you hurt their widdle feewings and, over night, your rep on that site is fucked.

Your thoughts?

Hug boxes only create positive feelings, and even though they do not encourage improvement (if there can be any), I would still prefer to be followed by a group with positive aura.

Haters tend to only make you feel like shite, especially if you're being hated on by multiple individuals. Don't even wanna think about how it must feel to do something you think is good and then get shitmixed by some negative peeps.

Guess I'd pick the hugbox.
Although the hugbox crowd can seem awfully similar to haters to someone who is just being neutral, giving solid critique/feedback to the artist etc.

Hug boxes are more annoying.
Hug boxes contribute absolutely nothing except warm fuzzy feelings, you will see them on DA and FA for literally everything no matter how shitty the art is.
Haters actually tend to point out the flaws in stuff, even if its completely blown out of proportion and over-exaggerated.
And generally you can tell how successful you are by the number of haters you have.

Hugboxers

TheHuskyK9 said:
Hugboxers

:P

Both are better not existing. But i will say haters because some literally are just cyber bully ass holes who need a Chuck Norris jab to the face. Some are just mean because they feel like it and no actual explainable reason. Thats pathetic and deserves punishment. Hugboxes just need to LEARN that kissing ass is not really helping them and give polite but truthful criticism. hugboxes do nothing but slow progress and make some people arrogant. Haters are the worst to me in short.

Hm. I wouldn't participate in either, but I probably wouldn't even bother reading hugbox comments. Super-positive atmospheres make me mentally gag with their near total lack of objectivity, whereas negative cesspools may contain some valid criticisms and some intellectual honesty, I guess? Even though praise can still be intellectually honest, I have a much harder time judging the quality or caliber of blanket praises than I do the gamut of negativity in posts, which is how I usually engage myself with threads and comment sections rather than actively participating.

Further, the divisive nature of negativity makes comparison against personal beliefs simple, and the need to establish credibility when presenting perhaps unpopular, critical viewpoints, for them to be taken seriously, makes evaluation of criticism practical. For those reasons, and as others have already touched upon, a hugbox does not particularly promote any growth for me as a reader. On the other hand, negativity actually stands a chance at triggering some self-evaluation, introspection, and maybe even changing or refining my views, as I am demonstrating with this post :). Lastly, I can understand content creators receptive to any feedback having the opposite preference.

Also, I liked reading the shitcomments a few years ago in Horriblesubs's comment section. Now it's mostly blegh Skype chat-level comments. Can I just confess that it's fun being a spectator to dissension, infighting, and random hostilities? Nothing like a dose of anarchy to liven things up! As for e621, I find it sufficiently disillusioned with or self-aware of its constituent fandoms on the whole, so the reading here is fine.

This question may be close to asking whether someone is a glass half full or half empty kind of person. Or picking the greater of two evils.

Hug boxes r dumb and so r circle jerks and I can deal with haters because I can go hard

Dunno, even when some haters can give some thought opinions, I have found that most go there and bitch about it.
Hug boxes in the other hand, don't give thougth opinions as well, just praise whaever they like.
Personally I would be better with none of them, or with a balance that contrarest each other, because sites filled with haters are not friendly towards new users, it's like entering into a mine field, you can go prepared for it and evade them, or run into it and get them in your face. However hug boxes barely allow to progress since they praise everything and stuff tends to stay the same for a long time.

memeboy said:
I can deal with haters because I can go hard

Alright ease up there lil wayne.

Is a hug box a vagina?

I'm not a fan of either extreme:

Hug boxes - cloying, fake and saccharine. Forced "niceness" at the expense of any normal opinion. If you're not happyhappyhappy-touchy-feelie-overly-nice-apologise-about-everything-with-200-smilie-faces-etc then you aren't welcome and will get hated on. Conformity to the point of cloning. It's obnoxious but mostly I find it boring and useless.

Haters - caustic, toxic, critical without basis, extreme and virulent. Also useless because it's just miserable frustration taken out on the nearest and easiest target(s). Hater style criticism usually has no redeeming value because it usually doesn't give context, is subjective to the person's latest pet peeves (which can change month-to-month) and is often heavily exaggerated. It has about as much to do with the subject matter as your latest bowel movement did. Haters also make poor company. It's like standing too close to a cactus with a chip on its shoulder: eventually they will bump into you just for fun no matter what you do/don't do.

Haters aren't much different from hug boxes, even down to the fact that they only barely tolerate their own kind. Both are also vicious and merciless, especially when acting in groups. And they are in constant competition to out-do each other. It's a 24/7 game they play and sometimes I feel like they're the same creature, just with opposite polarity. Hug boxes make me want to strangle them; haters make me flinch or laugh (depending on how real life has been at the time). But both feel like a colossal waste of time.

I'd rather take "normal people with normal reactions for 200, alex". I prefer constructive criticism, honest reactions, heartfelt support or disinterest, and/or actual discussion about whatever. To the hugboxes that's "hating" and "mean"; to the haters that's "weak and kissing up". But since I'm not in it for blood or saccharine handouts, the normal range works really well for me.

furrypickle said:
I'm not a fan of either extreme:

and more stuff

More or less this. Both are bad and the best idea is somewhere in the middle.

Endless ass kissing is just as dangerous as toxic comments for stagnating an artist. Hugboxes can leave someone soft skinned when anything negative pops up while too many haters will leave someone disillusioned/cynical. It's all about balance :o

Hugboxes, haters can cause serious problems with projects cofcof KFP:BLTN cofcof

You need plenty of positive feedback from people who are smarter/more experienced than you and also don't hesitate to seriously critique you (thoughtfully enough that it doesn't gratuitously deflate your ego.)

Hugboxes and circlejerks are both equally useless, because neither have any productive purpose, they're just repositories of futile emotion. Facts are what help you improve, feelings do not point at facts. People who are hugboxing or circlejerking are barely even seeing the subject of their praise/criticism, they're just getting their jollies from emoting.

So I sort of agree with furrypickle, just adding 'surround yourself with people who constructively outclass you'.

My distaste for hugboxes is why I'm a mod here and not FA or...well I don't know the names of any other sites that feature that kind of thing. Sugary bleeding heart bullcrap does nothing but make you weaker and more spiritually fragile. Not talking about support groups for cancer/domestic abuse/what have you. Those serve a purpose. Not "Mleh, my art only got 4 favorites please shower me in false sympathy."

As for haters, I guess I'm not really sure what a hater is. Someone who's cynical? Louie CK is cynical but I wouldn't call him a hater. Does hating onions make me one?

ippiki_ookami said:
Does hating onions make me one?

Just picture an onion cutting itself.
You monster.

ippiki_ookami said:
As for haters, I guess I'm not really sure what a hater is. Someone who's cynical? Louie CK is cynical but I wouldn't call him a hater. Does hating onions make me one?

Well haters are people that have a need for saying what's wrong/remove all hope in everything done by someone, not like harrasment, but more like always finding a tiny thing to say something is bad/poorly made/etc.

I.e: drawing of cartoon onion.
Hater: "Thats bullshit, onions have more than 3 layers".

Same onion artist draws another onion that almost looks like a photo.
Hater: "Thats bullshit, if I wanted a photo of a onion I would search onions in google"

Same onion artist draws generic onion.
Hater: "Thats bullshit, no skill, it's just a generic drawing of a onion".

NoctemWerewolf said:
Well haters are people that have a need for saying what's wrong/remove all hope in everything done by someone, not like harrasment, but more like always finding a tiny thing to say something is bad/poorly made/etc.

I.e: drawing of cartoon onion.
Hater: "Thats bullshit, onions have more than 3 layers".

Same onion artist draws another onion that almost looks like a photo.
Hater: "Thats bullshit, if I wanted a photo of a onion I would search onions in google"

Same onion artist draws generic onion.
Hater: "Thats bullshit, no skill, it's just a generic drawing of a onion".

Dem onions

TheHuskyK9 said:
Dem onions

Onions so mean, always makin' me cry. ='(