The internet has made it easy to evaluate all content — including criticism — against three key metrics: views, likes, and shares. Criticism, it turns out, underperforms.

I began to think that the role of a critic is also a relational one: If someone has spent years of their life on a work, they deserve a serious, sustained response. Critics who write such reviews aren’t just offering something to the maker of a work but to the world. Look here , a critic says. Imagine what culture could be like — if there was more... See more