an inflection point for every artist is when feedback becomes useless. i cannot pinpoint the moment but i can describe what it looks like before and after.
feedback is useful
before you write a symphony you should probably learn to play an instrument. many millions of people know how to play instruments. as you figure out how to strum, move the bow, or blow with the right amount of pressure, more experienced players can help you get better, faster.
once you become a musician (or woodworker, electronics engineer, whatever) you can write a symphony. it may be good, but probably not a masterpiece. here again, more experienced composers can help you get better, faster.
with enough ability and experience you can produce something that at least satisfies your own taste. maybe exceeds it. you might call it your best work, and it might even afford you a living.
more experienced creators will continue to offer criticisms, good and bad.
feedback is useless
most people do not publicly document their projects. but imagine if everything you create has a website with upvotes, downvotes, comments, and threaded replies.
thanks to the law of large numbers, any competent piece of work will attract a spectrum of feedback from “this sucks” to “this is amazing.” at which point feedback is useless, because it is unhelpful.
in defense of eccentricity
i’ve used this word pejoratively more than a few times, but after consideration i’d like to retract at least half of those statements.
if every time you make something and share it you get a 50/50 reaction of positive and negative feedback, you learn to ignore external opinion and only do what seems right (pure, creative, interesting) to you alone.
most people are not fortunate enough to follow their own light so they mislabel the independent approach as eccentric.
not about tough skin
some people interpret the ability to “handle critical feedback” as having tough skin, which is generally as a good trait. it means you don’t cry when your boss says something you shipped, sucks.
but what we really want as artists is not mere resistance to feedback, we need immunity from it. granted of course that what we make is consumed enough to satisfy our taste && our bills.
if you develop an immunity to feedback before you know how to write a symphony, you’re cooked. so you must listen for some time. perhaps thousands of iterations, making tweaks to your style until the criticisms are matched (if not overwhelmed) by praise.
a real life example
this morning a customer posted good vibes about one of our email notifications:
the notification is opt-in, default disabled. currently 9,613 users of 36,054 total have it enabled. i read their post, smiled, and was reminded of another customer’s feedback about the same feature:
eccentricity: activate!
i am the creator of this email notification. it satisfies my own tastes for how an email should look, when it should be sent, and why. i then tested the hunch at scale:
so yeah, i’m throwing all negative feedback about it in the trash.
having taste
taste cannot be taught but it can be learned. without it you’re a slave to feedback. with it you’re free.