Last night I watched about 20 minutes of a documentary on paparazzi, the scourge of the entertainment world. It got me thinking about another scourge, paparazzi historians. What are those? Well much like the guerilla photographers, they themselves seem to only be able to create something by disrupting the lives of their subjects. The unfortunate reality of their existence is that they appear to be so distracted by the constant assault on the work of others; they themselves fail to contribute anything on their own. What surprises me is the self-appointed qualifications to do so that they thrust upon themselves.

• They criticize books, yet they themselves have never published one…
• They criticize films, yet they themselves have never produced one...
• They criticize heritage organizations, yet they themselves belong to none…
• They criticize newspapers and magazines, yet they themselves don’t contribute to one…
• They criticize religion, yet they themselves don’t practice one…
• They criticize declarations and license plates of states that they don’t live in…

They are the unpleasant bully in the corner of the sandbox, waiting for some one else to build something, so they can walk over and knock it down. They create nothing tangible themselves, contribute nothing for others to critique, and ultimately hamper the preservation and presentation of history despite their adoration of it.

Teenagers sometimes go through that stage when they ‘hate everything’ and walk around sulking and itching to pick an argument. These paparazzi historians never grew out of that stage. They troll the Internet, blogs, magazines, and papers, looking for something to harp on… anything remotely related.

In the end, they are so obsessed with what other people do, their entire existence turns into the criticizing of it. The worst part of all is that they think their opinions matter so much that their destructive, and at times, ignorant analysis will garner them the same respect as those that they critique.

It’s a bothersome existence to say the least. In fact, it’s a little sad as if they spent half of the energy that they do tearing other people down in the creation of something themselves, it would probably be very good.

I know, that you know these kinds of paparazzi historians too. It must be a terrible feeling to have to attack everything that you see around you all the time. Certainly, it’s no fun to be the bully.

There is an old-saying that I would like to skew for purposes here: “There are those that can do, and those that live to criticize those that can do.” I pray that I never become the latter.