Flexing back the critical muscles

I still remember the year 2008 like it was yesterday. 

Back then, I was at an interesting point in my life. It was a point where, no matter what I was watching, listening or reading, I just wanted more. When I would start thinking whether I liked something or not, saying I liked it or not started to seem too trivial. 

Why did I feel the way I felt? 

What made me feel that particular way? 

How can I dig deep into this things?

Those kinds of questions led me to the one thing that ended up being very influential in my life: Reviews

Reviews are always something that creates specific reactions from different people. Some people rely on them for big purchases. Others just to know what to read/see/watch. Others just see it as a waste of time and only a way for "wrong" opinions to be expressed (even though reviews are, for the most part, subjective opinions). 

To me, I absolutely see that kind of value of all those things with reviews. However, to me they are also so much more. 

To me, reviews are the one thing that helped me in 2008 become bilingual. 

You see, as someone that is a Spanish speaker at heart, when my hunger for reviews started, I was having a hard time finding anything in Spanish that could satisfy the critical analysis I was craving for. In fact, at the time, that kind of content in my language was almost non-existent. Eventually, I decided to take the plunge and, with the little mastery I had of English, I found some. I started reading Entertainment Weekly. I started reading Variety. I started frequenting the site called IGN who would also review stuff. As I kept reading everything I could, I started getting fascinated by the specific language used, and the kind of critical lens they would apply into things I didn't quite see in that kind of way. Doing that made me learn a certain vocabulary to a point that even my 9th grade Grammar professor told me I wasn't supposed to know until at least 11th grade. 

Eventually, after reading many reviews over the course of that year, I decided "Hey, why not take a crack at it?" and started doing my own. I remember IGN in particular had its own "reader review" section that would give me a platform to start, and so I did. I remember I got to publish like 40+  reader reviews from 2008 to 2010. Not that many in the grand scheme of things, but for sure it gave me a place to start. One time, I even got one featured as the "Reader Review of the Day", which showed me I was potentially on the right track.

And then IGN reformed its website.

And then all my work just vanished, never to return.

I'm still quite perplexed at the idea that over 40+ reviews I wrote (for games/TV/movies) just straight up vanished. I tried contacting the site's main editor to see if there was a way to recover them, but they mentioned that their sites's new layout meant that everything I wrote was lost. While I saw it as a hobby, I found it a little disheartening and stopped there. My last review was God of War 3 back in 2010. 

However, these past couple years have shown me something. When I talk about anything "entertainment" wise, I overanalyze. When I talk to some friends about what I thought of a certain movie or a recent TV episode of whatever show I'd be watching, the mountains of text messages of me discussing it made things clear: I had to start writing again. 

After a couple of years of people asking me why I didn't have a blog to go on my "tangents", the time has finally come. I'm finally rediscovering that itch to be able to write about some of the things I'm watching or playing. And more than anything, I believe there is a small audience that would be interested in my ramblings. And so I introduce what I will selfishly call "The Critical Corner".

With "The Critical Corner", I want to create a space where I will be able to review and analyze things that are of high interest to me. I will never be one to do "news stories". This place is just meant to be the home where I can put some of my in-depth thoughts I wouldn't be able to write on a Facebook or Twitter post. 

I'm still going to be figuring out the kinks of what I will be writing. However, I will be mostly focusing on things from the entertainment industry. Know that we live in an era where there is a lot of content, so realistically I won't be able to cover everything. The things I will be writing about will definitely be centered on things I'm the most invested in.

As of right now, this will still be a hobby, and I'm not planning to monetize this for the time being. However, it is something I know in my heart I want to do, and hope that people enjoy the ride, even when they don't agree with what I write. 

Until then, thank you for reading this, and looking forward to get in on this ride

Cheers!

Alejandro Segovia