It’s easy to critique from the couch. Make one thing and you’ll respect everyone who ever finished anything.

Judging is cheap, because being right about someone else’s work costs you nothing. Making one thing yourself changes that arithmetic for good, since you find out how many decisions sit behind a single minute of anything and how much of it was compromise rather than choice. Respect tends to arrive the moment you have finished something and seen what finishing actually asks.

Before your next strong opinion, try making that kind of thing once, even badly. A three-minute video, one page of a song. Your criticism gets sharper and considerably quieter.