Does a creator have the only authoritative opinion on their creation?

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Mendalla

Happy headbanging ape!!
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From another thread

I’m supporting the people who actually have an authoritative opinion on it because they invented it.

Nonsense. If so, we can never criticize any creation of anyone because our opinion is not "authoritative". In fact I would go so far as to say that the only things a creator is authoritative on is how it was created and their original intent. After that, their creation is in the public sphere and open to whatever interpretations, impressions, and opinions others have of it. Sure, the creator's intent can inform those opinions (when we have it), but it should never, ever be the last word. And citing the creator to attack another person's opinion of the creation is really just a variant of the "Appeal to Authority" logical fallacy. Sure, cite the creator if someone says something blatantly untrue about the genesis of the work or is attacking the creator personally instead of just criticizing the art, but if someone says "I don't like this and think it looks bad", simply citing the creator as "authoritative" is not a valid response.
 
Like I said, I picture someone walking by a pride parade and criticizing the font on signs for not looking rainbow enough when its purpose is to be identifiable and united with the cause and honour the person who made the flag, because that is about more than a flag...it’s about the people who made it. It’s obtuse to challenge the aesthetics of it flippantly. It’s authoritative in the same sense that privilege and colonialism tends to impart authority on all socio-cultural matters...when we are talking about solidarity (or not) with marginalized groups. Anybody who has not been in their shoes and is not just passing through needs to understand...we all do this if it’s a group we don’t identify with personally, and we need to stop that and go a little deeper. It’s not just a commercial thing. Their lens is the first one we need to see things through before giving an opinion. The chattering classes do this all the time. And It’s something that annoys me...including about myself given where I live, and so I also become prone to being as uppity as the rest of the people here, but I want to avoid it. This is not an intellectual property or creative license argument...it’s about our humanity and actually being in solidarity and not paying lip service.
 
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I picture someone walking by a pride parade and criticizing the font on signs for not looking rainbow enough when its purpose is to be identifiable and united with the cause.

Frankly, if something is meant to "sell" or "promote" something and people aren't getting it, that's not on the audience, that's on the creator. For something like that, it's the creator's job to make it clear what it means. If my company's promotional materials weren't conveying the message we wanted or were making people go "I don't like/get that", we wouldn't be citing our authority to argue against that opinion, we'd be creating new marketing materials.
 
Frankly, if something is meant to "sell" or "promote" something and people aren't getting it, that's not on the audience, that's on the creator. For something like that, it's the creator's job to make it clear what it means. If my company's promotional materials weren't conveying the message we wanted or were making people go "I don't like/get that", we wouldn't be citing our authority to argue against that opinion, we'd be creating new marketing materials.
This isn’t about marketing. If it is you have missed the point. Why should the group who invented it who has a history with it and the struggle behind getting it from obscure to mainstream, need other’s approval from the outside? That’s like saying their flag should be something different because it doesn’t say what you think it should even if you weren’t part of the history behind making it and the struggle behind the reason for its existence. And, I don’t think it would change traffic here either way no matter what font you use. It might just make ourselves tell ourselves we feel more “woke”. The original font here is boring, colourless...but I can say that because it doesn’t represent a cause. It’s just a font and I don’t care because it doesn’t have any deeper meaning than a style choice.


:(
 
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I am thinking of modern art in art museums. The artist might have gotten thousands or millions of dollars for a picture of a red square with a blue blob in the middle. I still have the right to look at it and say I don’t like it and they should have spend the money on something that makes more sense to most people.
If the hero of the LBTQ community had created a rainbow coloured fruitcake, I still have the right to say I find it tastes terrible. The creation of a fond is not a holy grail. If they have legal rights to it, then it can’t be used to sell cornflakes with it, but this is about where it ends.
 
You can say you don't like it. But that carries different weight, I think, when its symbolic of a social justice cause with a history.

When I came across that font I thought it was cool...the history, the tribute, the authenticity. I learned something about lgbtq history I didn't know before. I was being positive. Then, along came the criticism. The first comment about it was a superficial criticism ...talk about raining on a parade.
 
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Is opinion authoritative given the definition that is declared determinate by some folks?

a view or judgment formed about something, not necessarily based on fact or knowledge.
"I'm writing to voice my opinion on an issue of great importance"
synonyms:
belief, judgment, thought(s), school of thought, thinking, way of thinking, mind, point of view, view, viewpoint, outlook, angle, slant, side, attitude, stance, perspective, position, standpoint

Would this require some testing and statistic keeping without scientific bias to proving the hypothesis is true without adequate concern for leanings? Takes me back to the divide of endogeneity and its splitting tendency ... according to opinionated tilts!

Expect jousting ... to amuse bored god essence ... vapours spreading over eternal expanses!
 
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