Let’s get something straight: Even if necessary and functional towards a desired end, criticism is never nice. Speaking of desired ends, NiceCritic.com allows perturbed coworkers/neighbors/schoolmates to send anonymous email messages like:
You might want to consider wearing longer skirts/dresses.
Or, maybe a message like this, which I could never, ever imagine a need for under any circumstances:
Please consider buttoning up your blouse a little more.
But I’m expecting a sexual harassment suit any day now.
Just kidding.
NiceCritic bills itself as “an anonymous way to send a helpful message,” and we’re going to bill it, nicely of course, as a site for presumptuous, uppity, superficial busybodies who need to mind their own friggin’ business.
What? We’re sensitive.
And nonconformist in the most charming of ways, right?
But I suppose they are going about uncomfortable social confrontations nicely and in a way one doesn’t have to be embarrassed about saying what just has to be said. On the About page, NiceCritic assures the free service is not meant to make anyone (especially the sender) uncomfortable:
This free service gives users the ability to say something to someone that has been on their minds in a safe, non-embarrassing environment. They simply visit the site, pick a statement from a wide variety of pre-written “thought bubbles,” and send that message anonymously to a friend, acquaintance, or relative’s email address. This site is meant to be a constructive critic on a wide variety of potentially-uncomfortable issues. The person being “NiceCritic’d” then has the opportunity to reflect on the message received, choosing to take the suggestion or dismiss it.
At lunch, we can hear it now: “Dude, you got NiceCritic’d? Oh, snap! Eff them. I like your alcohol breath.”
I anonymously sent Mike Sachoff one saying he needed to consider closing his curtains in the evening. And he really does.
The good news is I can’t harass Mike about it. The service only allows one anonymous message sent to a single inbox every 96 hours. So the intended target of your discreet constructive criticism has four days to shape up or get served again. Or the recipient can opt out of further messages about how much they suck, and go on with a generally offensive existence.
We’ll leave it to you decide whether these messages say more about the sender or the receiver, even if the sender is anonymous. Meanwhile, here are some fun reactions a recipient can tack to the outside of their cubicle, all of them addressed “To the person who suggested”:
“A breath mint would be beneficial today.”
Maybe you should learn about personal space. I know who you are, close-talker, and you’re creepy.
“There seems to be some back-hair poking out of your shirt collar.”
If you’d stop breathing down my neck, you wouldn’t notice.
“Your clothes don’t really go together today.”
Yeah, and you’re ugly.
“Not sharing your candy jar makes you look somewhat unsociable.”
You caring whether I share my candy makes you look somewhat immature. And fat, too.
“That old car has been sitting in front of your house for a very long time.”
You get rid of the old bag on your porch and I’ll get rid of the old car in my driveway.
“Your cat is quite loud at night.”
So’s your wife. Might want to consider a muzzle.
