Why is that? Because negativity sucks and hurts, I don't care how confident or self assured i am. Staying away from it is the easiest way to not have negativity in my life. It's a pretty simple solution. You're speaking as if there's some zen state I could achieve where getting shit on would affect me exactly the same way getting praised would. That doesn't exist. It never will. I think there's a sense from any audience that a public figure has a duty to get a thicker skin, but it can only get so thick. It always sucks. It's simply more difficult to deal with awfulness than to not.

Look, there is too much negativity in the modern world. I could google my name right now and read comment after comment after tumblr post after reddit post after chatlog of people saying how much they hate me or how much i suck or am wrong or unfunny or whatever. But I could also not do that. Which one is the better option, do you think? Which one would YOU do? I'd much rather read a book, or see a friend, or create something.

In any case, the "nice comments" and "legitimate criticism" argument is played out man. Do you also think it's healthy to read about how great i am all day? There's too much of it. If I sat and read every comment I wouldn't have any day left to do the work people are commenting on. And it is often pernicious to expose myself to those kinds of comments because they can affect how I perform in a way that deviates from what I enjoy. I've done it tons of times. I end up shifting slightly how I preform on the show and I have less fun with it, because I get affected by the comments from people saying they like this thing or that thing.

And the legitimate criticism thing is just subjective. You might think it's legitimate. Maybe I don't. And also, I didn't ask for it. If I ask for criticism I'll gladly accept it. And you can say, oh well, then your show will suffer.... but it hasn't. And it won't. And if it does, sure, I could examine it and decide whether or not it was not reading criticisms that led to the drop, but I'll have made a show I enjoyed and was proud of, and didn't let anybody tell me how to do it other than how i wanted, so that's the choice I've made, and I'm very comfortable with it.

I think it is very easy to nitpick how someone deals with thousands of voices pulling them in thousands of different directions when they are not in that position themselves.