On Critics, Comments, and Constant Feedback
The loop between creation and reaction has changed—and so have we.
Art has always been an ecosystem—a web of offer and response, give and get. A performance needs a witness. A painting needs a gaze. A song needs an ear.
That loop between what’s shared and what’s reflected back is what keeps the work alive. Without it, art becomes a terrarium—beautiful for a while, but sealed and slowly suffocating.
Feedback, in its healthiest form, is conversation. It’s how we learn, how we grow, how we find the shape of something together. Every nod, every note, every question after the show—it’s all part of the ecology. The give-and-take keeps the soil fertile.
But somewhere along the way, the balance shifted. The air grew thick with opinion. The garden went wild. Feedback doesn’t just shape the work anymore—it surrounds it, seeping into every moment before and after it’s made. The loop is never-ending and speeding out of control.
So this week, I want to wade into the waters of feedback—how it feeds the work, how it floods it, and what it takes to stay afloat.
The Necessity of Feedback
Every creative process begins with a hunch—something half-formed and fragile. You bring it into a room, and slowly, through notes and nudges, it starts to become itself. Feedback isn’t an accessory; it’s the act of co-creation.
It’s also an act of trust. To ask for feedback is to admit you can’t see the whole picture. To give it is to hold someone’s work carefully enough not to crush it. At its best, feedback is a kind of faith exchange: I believe there’s something here, and I want to help you see it more clearly.
And once the work meets the world, the conversation continues—through audiences, through reviews, through conversations after a performance. The show might be “frozen,” but the artist never really is. Each response leaves a trace, shaping how we understand what we made and how we make the next thing.
Historically, that public feedback was part of the ritual. The critic’s review, the lobby talkback, the post-show argument on the subway—they were all extensions of the process. The work moved into a wider circle of reflection, and we learned from what was mirrored back. That, too, was a kind of collaboration.
But when that loop never stops, the edges start to blur. Suddenly the silence we need to think, to iterate, to listen inward—fills with outside noise and its echoes.
And before long, it’s hard to know if we’re hearing ourselves think, or just the reverberation of everyone else.
The Shift
There used to be space between the making and the mirror.
A show would open. A critic would write. Feedback happened in predictable waves. Those words—whether they thrilled or stung—had weight precisely because they took time. They were considered, and that made them feel deliberate and finite.
Now the tide never goes out. Bootlegs surface before the second preview. Thoughts arrive before the work is close to done. Feedback has become instantaneous—raw, unmediated, endless.
The internet handed everyone a microphone, and for a while that felt like freedom. The gates were open; the dialogue was alive. But as the voices multiplied, the conversation became a current—always on, impossible to step out of.
And with that, something subtle shifted. The space between artist and audience collapsed. A single Reddit thread or half-formed opinion on TikTok can ripple faster than a thoughtful review ever could. Authority flattened: the critic and the stranger now share equal billing. Word of mouth became data. Consensus became currency. The collective gaze began shaping the perception of a show before anyone had seen it.
It’s hard to know if this is progress or erosion—probably both. There’s something beautiful about a democratized dialogue, and something exhausting about its constancy. Feedback used to be a gesture of connection; now it’s weather—constant, unpredictable, impossible to escape.
The loop has collapsed, and the artists are left standing in the storm’s aftermath.
The Artist’s Nervous System
Even when the phone is face-down, the mind stays on—waiting for the next comment, reel, or reaction. That’s the residue of living inside a constant loop: silence isn’t quiet anymore; it’s suspense.
The brain’s alarm system—the amygdala—treats scrutiny like danger. Cortisol floods the bloodstream; muscles tighten, preparing for defense. It’s why one harsh comment can eclipse a dozen kind ones: the biology of survival still outranks the logic of perspective.
Then comes the compulsion to look. Each refresh or scroll sparks a flash of dopamine—not pleasure, but anticipation. The uncertainty of what we’ll find makes the reward stronger. It’s the same mechanism that keeps gamblers at slot machines or rats pressing levers in a lab: variable reinforcement. The artist becomes both subject and experimenter, chasing the next flicker of response even when it hurts.
And without real pauses, the system never resets. In earlier cycles there was time—days between reviews, quiet between performances—for the chemistry to settle. Now, with feedback constantly floating in the ether, the body never fully leaves the stage. Shoulders stay lifted. Breath shortens. Focus narrows. The parasympathetic brake never really engages.
That’s the quiet cost of constant exposure: the loss of recovery, and with it, the erosion of self-trust. The artist’s body learns to brace even in calm—to listen outward before listening in.
The easy solution would be “thicker skin.” But the real practice is much deeper.
Faith
What we call feedback is often just reflection.
Every reaction to a piece of art reveals as much about the viewer as it does about the work itself. Their history, their hunger, their wounds—all of it shapes what they see. The response is a mirror tilted slightly toward whoever’s holding it.
Knowing that doesn’t make it hurt less. A careless comment can still pierce, even when we understand that it comes from someone else’s landscape. The body flinches before the mind can remind it: this isn’t about you. But remembering that every opinion is a projection helps return the weight of judgment to where it belongs—with the beholder.
The deeper practice, then, is to grow steadier, deeper roots. To stay porous enough to feel, but not so open that we absorb everything. To trust that the work can live its own life without our constant care.
Faith, in this context, is letting the conversation continue without our control. It’s believing that we—and what we’ve created—are enough to stir something in someone. That their response is a mirror, their echoes a part of the ecosystem.
Because art was never meant to stay still. It’s sacred precisely because it circulates—because it moves through people, changes shape, gathers new meaning, and keeps living long after we’ve stepped away. The noise means it’s alive. The hum means someone was moved.
Feedback isn’t a verdict—it’s proof of connection. And the only way to keep the loop healthy is to keep making, to keep offering, to keep trusting that the art will find the hearts it’s meant to reach.
One last thing…
Can you tell I’ve been reading reviews?
This piece came out of a year of being on both sides of the loop. I’ve opened three shows since January, and each time, I’ve been hyper-aware of the swirl that follows—comments, critics, message boards, and all the invisible chatter that shapes how a piece is received.
Even when I was on tour with COMPANY, every new city meant a new wave of reviews. And as much as I tried to resist the urge to look, I usually did. Not because I wanted validation, but because I find feedback fascinating. I like the discourse, the dialogue. I think arts criticism matters. The exchange between the people making the work and the people experiencing it feels like part of the art itself.
But it’s been interesting lately—especially with BEAU re-opening earlier this week. In person, the feedback has been overwhelmingly kind, from strangers who’ve found the piece moving or personal. Online, it’s more mixed. Not cruel, just…constant. Everyone with a handle has a perspective, and those opinions travel faster and wider than ever before.
And that’s what I’ve been sitting with: how it all lands. How the noise outside a theater can shape the way we feel inside it. How feedback—helpful, harmful, or somewhere in between—seeps into the work and the body of the people making it.
So if you’re in New York, I hope you’ll come see BEAU. If nothing else, it’s a chance to close the loop—to meet the work where it’s meant to live: in a room, between artists and audience.
See you next week ♥️
—Matt
P.S. If this piece resonated, you might also like:
Being an Artist in the Age of Visibility
Why Critics Are No Longer Kings
The Cost of Control