YouTube Opinion Who you going to focus on? The fans, or the haters?

[Beanie Draws]

@Stanley Orchard reminded me of something that's been grating my gears a little bit lately, not so much of a frustration, but an observation and a criticism of how people spend their energy.

On twitter especially, I see so many people calling out bad comments. I get that it's therapeutic to vent our frustrations, but I can't help but wonder if the few minutes you spend crafting out a "HAHA look at this stupid comment, let's all laugh at how annoying this troll is" that does nothing except for point fingers and laugh at random people... weather it's better to focus that energy on highlighting someone AMAZING in your community instead?

I've made it a policy now to not share comments that are negative. That time I spend calling out someone just trying to get attention with negativity, could be much better spent making a fan's day brighter, but highlighting how amazing one of your fans are instead.

I wish I could remember who the creator was, but they made a life choice stance where they were going to stop focusing energy and people trying to sap their energy, and instead focus that energy on the people that deserve credit for being amazing.
What kind of energy do you want to cultivate? Giving trolls the attention they're craving... or is it more rewarding getting a reply that says "omg! I wasn't expecting you to reply, this reply made my day!"

This is something I've been thinking about a lot the last few weeks with social media... and I'm glad Stanley reminded me to share these thoughts

 

[Stanley | Team TB]

Man @Beanie Draws this is really insightful and you are exactly right. ALL time spent focusing on nonsense comments is just wasted time/effort and only goes to reinforce their destructive attitude. Well said sir.

 

[KS Moto Cafe]

When I first started uploading videos, I was expecting 50% thumbs down but I was surprised by how many positive viewers and supporters were out there. I survived few weeks without a downvote until it finally happened. I am not going to lie, downvotes or negative comments suck and it did play with my emotions earlier but now I find that I actually look for criticisms because it helps to improve the content. I find it if someone is willing to spend their time pointing out the flaws of my content or describe what parts didn't jive with him or her, I need to at least put similar amount of effort to listen to this complaint. If it is straight up hate without any constructive criticisms, then I just ignore it and hope the troll just goes away.

When someone, who doesn't care about the time, money, and effort you put into the video, comes over and spends less than 5 seconds on your video and leaves a negative comment or downvote without reason can be very irritating. But that is the risk of making your stuff public. Everyone is entitled to their opinions and you will learn to grow thicker skin to be not affected by this.

If you can channel these negative comments to improve your product - awesome!

My 2 cents.

 

[tropicthunder]

I've read somewhere here in the forum, forgot what the thread was. They said, bad or negative comments, dislike, criticism, are part of the engagement, and youtube likes videos with high amount of engagement. So now I learn to accept them as they are part of the journey.

 

[Beanie Draws]

I've read somewhere here in the forum, forgot what the thread was. They said, bad or negative comments, dislike, criticism, are part of the engagement, and youtube likes videos with high amount of engagement. So now I learn to accept them as they are part of the journey.

This isn't entirely wrong, controversy and drama does drive up engagement in the comments, but I guess it's up to the creator themselves what's more important to them, engaging in arguments and ignoring the true fans, of focusing their energy on positivity. Peace definitely goes unnoticed but sometimes the dislikes, criticism and negativity, over time and steer your community down a direction you can no longer control if you get sick of the fighting. It does happen to people. But it's definitely a valid take and I've mentioned this to people in the past as well. I think I'm more of a pacifist these days.

 

[tropicthunder]

Peace definitely goes unnoticed but sometimes the dislikes, criticism and negativity, over time and steer your community down a direction you can no longer control if you get sick of the fighting. It does happen to people.

I agree with this. I still haven't experiencing what they said about "toxic" engagement. My journey is still a long way to go, I have to be ready for that kind of things. Wish me luck.

 

[Naheed]

I will suggest moving on and continue your efforts. You can find haters on every platform. The best thing you can do is to ignore them. Don't respond either. Haters gonna hate, as they say. But you can do your best by making some more amazing content for all the people who likes what you do. That's your audience, make them happy.