And yet you continually see these ‘internet celebrities’ throwing tantrums and screaming fits that would put Kanye West to shame. Surely the fact they aren’t being showered with millions of dollars and stalked by the paparazzi would mean they’d be a little bit more humble than that specimen.

What is it that makes them take criticism like a Vampire takes a holy water enema?

To illustrate my point, let me set a little scene for you…

A blind man takes to the street corner every day to busk for spare change. At first he just does it for the fresh air and the fun of performing in the company of his guide dog, and at first people are content to pass by on their way to more important things. But one day a young boy is walking by and he hears the music… and he is inspired. He has never heard music like that before and it touches his heart and soul in ways he has never experienced before.

He has to talk to him!

The boy goes up to the blind man and asks him how he learned to play that well. At first the man is surprised to be interrupted with such praise but he soon becomes accustomed to it, playing his music becomes a little more gratifying to him now he knows that someone is enjoying it. The boy tells his friends of the amazing music he has found and the blind man hears several voices telling him his music is great and he should totally get a record detail.

One day, the boys invite one of their friends over to hear the blind man play. The friend is mildly impressed, but asks if the man knows how to play any songs that aren’t covers of Led Zeppelin.

But before the boy can even finish his sentence, the blind man screams over him and tells him to piss off because he’s an ungrateful little fucktard and how can he dare question a genius such as he!

It’s deeply offensive and needlessly rude, but look at the blind mans perspective. He has played in anonymity for years and suddenly is told that he is brilliant by increasing numbers of people whose faces he has never seen. Completely unaware of the thousands of people who pass by every day and find him merely mediocre. They develop such a blinkered, rose-tinted view of the world where all they hear is how amazing they are that criticism becomes alien to them. This only gets worse when you’re in an environment where you can wipe someone’s opinion off of the face of the earth, effectively punching them in the face before they can get a word in edgewise.

Tim Buckely, the creator of ‘Ctrl-Alt-Delete’ is famous for instantly banning anyone who asks whether he should try another art style apart from the slack-jawed buffoonery he has shilled for the last five years.

And he’s also responsible for this gem:

Tim Buckley: In a single hour I get more email than you get in a week, so if you want to bitch and moan about me somewhere else, by all means, knock yourself out.

This is because we all measure our success by the size of our Inbox.

You think I was just being extreme when I said they were worse than Kanye West? Take a look at what he did, it’s exactly the same!

Tim Buckley, Randall Munroe, Jason Pargin, big names on the internet, and even bigger ego’s. Don’t agree with me? Go on their fora and disagree with them over something, anything, and watch their reaction.

As much as I would love to watch people like this tarred and feathered, you cannot blame them or their fans. It’s not their fault. I’ve seen this effect in action as it’s starting up.

A little known web comic by the name of ‘Daisy Owl’ started up about a year and a bit ago. The art is quirky and well drawn; the humour is whimsical and very well observed in a rather silly yet genuinely sweet way, and Ben Driscoll, the author, has been nothing but humble and kind towards everyone around him. I think it’s very good, but I’ve never felt the desire to go on to his forum thread where he discusses his work and wax lyrical about his talent. But there are hundreds who do, and they’re not idiots, they just love his work enough to want to post on the forum. All Driscoll see’s right now is a palimpsest of adoration, and when his work was criticised on another site, his fans tore into the poor fellow, claiming he hadn’t got the jokes or had no taste or was just plain stupid…

There’s only so long you can go before you start to believe that that’s all there is. That the whole world thinks like your fans and anyone else is wrong.

As much as it hurts, a writer thrives on constructive criticism. If someone likes your work, that’s it. If someone doesn’t really like it, they can tell you how to improve it. But why listen to them when you can just ban their account and listen to your fans instead.

If any of the people I mentioned happen to see this… Spam my comments; complain about me on your forums all you want. It won’t make me any less right, quite the opposite in fact. Just try to remember that there is a whole world out there, and cherry picking the bits you like from the others may be more comfortable, but it won’t make you a better person.

If you’re a fan of anyone like this, be aware that to them, you’re just another voice in the dark, a faceless entity of no use to them but for stroking their throbbing, tumescent ego, and the more you tell them they are the greatest invention since porn the more likely they’ll start to believe it.