Popular Movie Review Podcast 'I Hate Critics' Changes Name

For those that are only still becoming familiar with my work as a critic, you may not know that I am also a podcaster. I know very original, a movie critic with a podcast. It's hosted by music critic Bob Zerull, film fanatic Josh Adams and myself, offering three unique perspectives on movies, new and old. The show has become relatively popular and recently, Bob, Josh and I, made an important decision to change our name. We were called I Hate Critics: A Movie Review Podcast. We are now calling ourselves Everyone's A Critic and below is my explanation why. At the bottom of the article, you will find links so that you can listen to the show and let us know what you think of the show, the new name and anything else you might be interested in commenting on.

It began as an inside joke between myself and my very favorite person on the planet, Faith Rogers. My wonderful, witty friend would always accuse me of hating everything. In fact, when I first told her that I was a professional film critic, not long after we’d first met, she said, “I hate critics, they hate everything I like.” She was being playful and sarcastic but her words a struck a chord with me that several years later became the I Hate Critics movie review podcast.

I first met my co-host and now my very close friend Bob Zerull I was writing movie reviews for his website ZoiksOnline.com. We got into a Facebook conversation about the issues he had with Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight and I challenged him to debate me on a podcast about the film. That was the genesis of I Hate Critics. From there we began looking at titles and I told him how I had always wanted to be a film critic because I loved movies but I also thought people would think being a film critic was cool.

It turns out, more people think like my friend Faith than like me. People really don’t think film critics are all that cool. In fact, Faith’s line about hating critics was a repeated refrain among many of my friends and family. Don’t get me wrong, there are plenty of people who have expressed a great deal of respect for my profession but, for the most part, I learned that being a film critic, for me, was going to have to be about my love of movies and not at all about seeking the approval of others.

That’s where I came up with the podcast title I Hate Critics. It seemed at the time like an appropriate bit of snark that encapsulated my personal experience of being a critic. Bob and I explained the title in the very first episode and then quickly began to dig into our format, and left everyone to assume what the title was all about. This oversight likely is what kept the podcast from growing faster than it did. While we loved the title, we failed to explain it well and give it an explicable context.

It turns out that people don’t tend to seek out things with "hate" in the title, even if it is something they actually do hate. I thought the title might inspire people to listen in order to hear a critic actually have to defend the things they were saying about a movie. But the podcast unfolded in ways that neither Bob or myself imagined. We quickly found our format, talking about the week’s new movies, trailers, a classic film and my bizarre obsession with movies that were 30 years old. The structure came together quickly, especially once we added my other, brilliant friend Josh Adams to the mix.

Through our growth and maturing, the idea evolved from being about a critic forced to defend himself into something far more engaging, friendly, and conversational and title and its original conceit became less relevant. The first time the title of the podcast became a real issue beyond the show itself was during our annual Thanksgiving episodes where we began reaching out to others to be part of our show and the "annual movies we are thankful for" segment.

I had always wanted to get other critics to come on the show and be part of this segment especially. I noticed right away that even critics I considered friendly were not interested in appearing on a podcast called I Hate Critics even if the "hate" had left the actual show in favor of a celebration of differing opinions, professional and otherwise. Soon after our failure to attract fellow critics to guest on the show, Bob pointed out that listeners probably weren’t taking to a podcast with "hate" in the title.

Don’t get me wrong, the growth of the show has been spectacular and our tiny little community in a tiny little corner of the internet is something we treasure but if we want to turn I Hate Critics into something more than just a cult podcast, we needed to leave behind the "hate" and find something that would invite listeners instead of repelling them. It was a long, slow, often embarrassing project as we ended up hating every new title we came up with. I will spare you the lame puns and inside jokes we passed on in favor of Everyone’s A Critic A Movie Review Podcast. Those other titles are not worth re-living in print.

It is our hope that Everyone’s A Critic will be a brand that audiences find inviting. More importantly though for me, and I think I speak for Bob and Josh as well, given the way of the world today, removing "hate" from our name was just simply the right thing to do. There is way too much hate in the world as it is in 2017 and while we may occupy a relatively small space in the internet ether, we want that space to be positive and welcoming for everyone.

Everyone’s A Critic is a brand name that we hope will grow the podcast and our community by welcoming people to the show not so they can express anger toward a critic but instead share a genuine love of movies and talking about movies among friends as if we were all critics because, in the end, whether you like it or not, we are all critics. We don’t experience our world passively and we don’t experience movies passively. We make value judgments about the pop culture we experience and share those opinions with others. You are being a critic and you aren’t even aware of it but don’t worry, Everyone’s a Critic.

Check out the all new Everyone's A Critic Podcast every Monday morning on your favorite podcatcher. It's a free show, though we do have a Patreon page for those interested. You can also find us on iTunes and at our website.