Dominic Arpin, whose new TVA show Vlog premiered last week, wants us bloggers to take a chill pill about criticizing the show. He points to posts by me and MédiaBiz’s Michel Dumais which were highly critical.

My regular readers know I’m somewhat … critical of things, especially the mainstream media. But while I make jokes and use sarcasm and I highlight the negatives instead of the positives, I always try to make my criticisms constructive. I don’t say something sucks unless I have a reason to back it up. And when organizations improve, I try to make it a point to highlight that and offer praise.

Just to be clear: I don’t dislike the show. I have no wish to see it cancelled. If anything, I would like Mr. Arpin and the producers of the show (and its website) to read my post and make improvements.

But I’m also not going to hold judgment just because it’s the premiere, as Arpin asks. People watch the premiere, it’s what gives them a first impression. If you don’t put your best foot forward from the get-go, you’ll have a hard time winning back audiences. (Even then, I cut the show some slack for showing old videos, since they haven’t had the chance to talk about them before.)

I stand by what I wrote in the original post: The show is a slightly better version of a similar concept ABC launched this summer called iCaught. And obviously done on a much smaller budget. I think it has the potential to be very good or very bad depending on what habits they settle into. But the website is still atrocious and needs fixing.

Anyway, the show’s first attempt at user-generated content, having people lip-sync to Mes Aieux’s Dégénération, seems to be moderately successful with six videos submitted so far. That, at the very least, shows people are watching and engaged.

Vlog’s second episode airs Sunday at 9:30 on TVA. If they improve on their mistakes, you’ll definitely hear it from me.