This editorial originally appeared on my own blog, Land Of The Nerds, back in June 2014. Due to CinemaSins getting so much deserved anger over the past few days on various social media platforms, I have decided to repost it on The Solute. The article in question has been cleaned up for grammar and slightly edited from its original form.

My love for the the world of cinema knows no bounds, but by contrast, my love for CinemaSins is nonexistent. In fact, I utterly despise this YouTube “comedy” channel, which has various videos examining a number of movies and nitpicking them to death for “sins”. It’s brutally cynical content that just reduces the magic of cinema to quick cynical gags, with an endlessly irritating narrator who sounds so cocky it’s a wonder he’s not related to Foghorn Leghorn. Here is a channel that thrives on sucking all fun out of all you love in the snarkiest and annoying way possible by pointing out every inconsistency, every set oddity, every missing lapdance (yes, there really is a recurring gag revolving around lapdances. That’s the sort of humor we’re dealing with folks) to its excruciating zenith. Now, obviously, the internet has been filled with cynical perspectives before CinemaSins started, but this YouTube channel feels like the perfect encapsulation of all the sort of arrogant “holier-than-thou” styles of film deconstruction that certain people feel passes as actual “film criticism”.

Look, I write negative things all the time (my utter hatred for God’s Not Dead is legendary!) but even in a really terrible film I try to point out not just positive facts but do it in a semi-respectful manner (unless you’re a film that’s racist and cruel like God’s Not Dead. In which case, screw you) All the two dudes behind CinemaSins, named Chris Atkinson and Jeremy Scott (the latter lending that aforementioned snotty narration to these insufferable videos) do is promote an overly cynical attitude to any film in their path, creating an inescapable atmosphere of suffocating cynicism. Every movie in history has flaws and inconsistencies, but the great ones make any passing flaws fade away and have you swept up in the universe and characters they’re crafting. For CinemaSins and the legions of fans they have, all movies are nothing more than entities to be torn down like paper-mache swans.

Now I know what you’re thinking; c’mon NerdInTheBasement! Why not just stop watching the videos? Actually, I have unsubscribed from the channel on YouTube and have only checked in on rare occasions. But it isn’t just everything this channel stands for, not to mention the channels constant promotion across movie sites I love and respect, that has me furious. Despite what they noted in their own video pointing out Everything Wrong With Cinemasins (which essentially boiled down to them telling their critics “Get off our backs”.), their views are held up as gospel by so so so many. The works of Roger Ebert and Nathan Rabin are no longer used as guiding points through the wide and beautiful world of cinema; conversations about film have been reduced to simply pessimism.

So do me, and all people who actually care about film, film writing, the internet, YouTube and just comedy in general; you don’t have to go cold turkey on CinemaSins, but I beg it’s fans to at least look around for additional forms of film criticism. There’s an insane amount of tremendous writings and thoughts on the world of film (many of which can be found on The Solute!) that go beyond a simple *DING* noise one can pore over instead of constantly engaging in the work of these two depressing human beings. And you wanna know the worst part about the duo behind these videos? It is an absolute travesty that people with their knowledge of cinema, not to mention experts at video editing and crafting, aren’t doing something beneficial for the art of movies. Instead, they’re doing real damage to the art and joy of film. What a waste.