"That's Cliche" is Cliche

[On Not Killing Creativity - VII]

Cliche is something (an opinion, thought, idea) that is overused and unoriginal.

Cliche is the opposite of creative.

But naming something cliche is, quite literally, the most cliche critique one can make.

It’s guilty of the same problem as the thing that it attempts to criticize. It is an outright dismissal of something because that something was cherry-picked from elsewhere and required no work, no thought, no sweat. Well, dismissing something on the grounds of being cliche, also requires no work. It’s the easiest critique.

Cliches are not creative. And maybe worse, they promote an environment of non-creativity. Anyone swimming in an environment of cliches and predictability knows how difficult it is to do good, imaginative work. It’s virtually impossible.

The same goes for environments where the go-to critique of others’ work is that it’s cliche. The cliche critique destroys creativity too.

Cliches and creativity can’t coexist.