There’s this weird trend of ‘faux criticism’ that’s been popping up a lot lately, and I dunno if anybody else is skeeved by it.
The translation industry is extremely small. Overplayed, yes, but It’s a saying for a reason. Put 5 people in a room and 3 will likely know, or know of, each other.
So it’s imperative to understand how off-putting it is for your prospects—most of whom will be from inside the industry as opposed to direct clients—to read self-promo content flaming peers they respect, and friends they like, disguised as good-meaning criticism.
Now, I’m not remotely shy about public criticism (have you seen my posts?). I believe it’s my right to voice my opinion as it is anyone’s if they’d like to take a swing at my work—assuming they can back that criticism up with objective facts.
But like most like-minded peers, few as we are, I’m acutely and constantly aware of how much ego bruising and bridge burning being vocal causes. I just don’t really care.
The thing is, some definitely not very well-meaning peers will see the numbers this type of unabashed criticism does and think they can have their cake and eat it too.
It’s not enough to call out bad work just to embarrass whatever company is behind it into doing things better. That company must hire them to do it better. Yuck.
IMO, there’s no ‘safe’ middle ground when it comes to criticism. It’s deffo not content for striving locfluencers or baby’s first personal branding.
No amount of white-knighting for the translators you just flamed and painting them as victims of eViL cOrPoS will make what you’re doing any less transparent when you end your critiques with unironic, straight faced calls to action in the year of our lord 2026.
It also doesn’t take a social butterfly to deduce that marketing yourself via one-upping the friends and peers of the people you want to notice and hire you will not have the desired effect on them.
To critique honestly and objectively, I firmly believe that one must genuinely not care in the slightest about the repercussions and not be incentivized in any way, shape, or form by the direct result of that criticism.
Otherwise, they’ll be getting about as much respect and business as a broke salesman clearly desperate for their next lick.
By Seif Chaib.
Originally posted on Linkedin.