How can you tell stupid criticism from bad‑faith arguing online?

[Anonymous]

I'll give an example I saw happen recently in an Instagram discussion: an independent author started receiving strange comments because the characters in the story are Black. Some said it was "woke," others said it was "DEI". How can it be DEI if the author is independent and created the story alone? It also doesn't make sense to say it's "woke," since it's a story based on African mythology. My question is: are these people criticizing in good faith but have low cognitive ability to understand the obvious, or are they acting in bad faith and just arguing for the sake of arguing? How do you differentiate between people with stupid criticism and someone acting in bad faith?

[genericname85]

i mean typically what you'll find pretty damn reliably is a personal attack against you as soon as you ask a critical question. like when people stop talking about the argument and instead wanna attack your identity cause they made their argument their identity so for them it's a personal attack. that's why the arguments become idiotic and bad faith. cause people defend their identity instead of having an argument.

[Asker]

If a story is based on African mythology, what would be the logic in criticizing the existence of Black characters? It simply doesn't make sense.

[genericname85]

People aren't complaining about black characters. They complain about making a bunch of formerly white characters black.

[strateguy632]

That was just arguing for the sake of arguing