25 Million People Can’t Be Wrong

My irritation rises when I hear opinions or perceptions presented as “facts,” because they are not facts. This is not an uncommon occurrence, whether it’s while watching TV, in advertisements or in everyday conversations, faux-facts seem to worm themselves in there. When I hear opinions stated as facts, it gets my back up and I immediately think, “No, I disagree.”

Recently I saw a commercial for a TV show that basically said that lots of people watched this show and that “25 million people can’t be wrong.” And I instantly thought, “Yeah, they can be wrong.” [Pause.] “And yes, they are wrong. (At least in my opinion.)” I tried watching this TV show during its first season and was disappointed by the stupidity of the characters that kept making dumb decisions. But for whatever reason, I thought that maybe during its second season things would improve…they didn’t. The characters were still stupid. And I was stupid for watching it. So I stopped.

But I digress, a simple fix for this commercial would have been, “25 millions of people watched this show,” because that would have been a fact (assuming that it was true). I don’t really care if people watch this TV show, but adding that “can’t be wrong part” in the commercial just irritated me. It was as though the commercial was trying to peer-pressure me into watching it. “Come on, everybody watches it. Don’t you want to watch it too? Be like us. Be one of the cool kids.” [Pause.] So the take away is: just say no to peer-pressure. [Cue inspirational PSA graphic.]  

“Good.” Period.

Often opinions are qualified because it softens the strength of the opinion. Not everyone likes the same things, so sometimes you take another’s point of view into consideration as you give your opinion, or you just don’t feel 100% about something so you tack on a disclaimer. "It was a good taco…for the price." "It was a good movie…if you like suspense." "It’s a cute skirt…if you like yellow."

You just don’t want to take full responsibility for something if you don’t feel entirely sure about it. The range from bad to good is quite wide, so everything can’t be black and white good or bad; most things are just in the middle range of okay. So when someone (who’s opinion I trust) says “It’s good.” And there’s a period to that statement with no qualifications, then that means something—it means it’s actually good.

But this doesn’t happen very often (and it shouldn’t because that would diminish how good the really excellent things are). Not every book or TV show or restaurant is going to be “good” with a period. Most of the time “good” is followed by qualifications that don’t incite excitement. It’s just good…for what it is.

Who Says it’s “Good”?

I always consider the source when someone tells me something is “good” because all opinions are not created equal; some people’s opinions I value more than others. Everyone has different standards of what they think is acceptable, and some of us have higher standards than others. For some, “good” means anything that didn’t totally suck, while for others, “good” means it was superior than average. I prefer the latter version of “good” because everything can’t be “good”; it then skews what “good” actually means into “doesn’t blow”.

There are some people whose opinions I generally trust, while there are others whose opinions I may not weigh as heavily in most areas, but they may have a specific niche that I do give extra weight to because they’re more knowledgeable or discerning in that particular area. Perhaps they’re from another country so they know what that type of food is supposed to taste like, or their preference in books is not unlike my own so if they recommend something I may actually read it.

It all comes down to the person themselves and getting a sense of what they like and how that relates to what you like. Because when we believe someone’s opinion of what is “good”, it often stems from the fact that we’re likely to share that same opinion.