Replying to a Negative Comment

[Idec Sdawkminn]

I received a comment recently on one of my videos:

Anita Miller: excuse me why does this channel have 15000 subs when they are this lazy​

They are talking about the videos themselves. I receive a fair amount of criticism about the perceived amount of work I put into my videos. People complain that all I did was invert the colors and deepen the voice. I usually wonder what their point is. Is there a certain amount of work that someone must do to a video before posting it? Who determines that? And an even better question is why does it matter? What compels someone to complain about how much work someone else put into something? I'm asking what motive they have. Were they maybe disappointed at the video and that is how they are expressing it? Did they feel let down by it? Are they jealous of my popularity? For someone to actually take the time to write a comment, it means they must feel strongly enough about it. I don't understand how my perceived lack of work toward my videos would elicit that strong of a feeling.

But anyway, I don't normally reply very seriously to someone like this the first time because most of the time they don't come back and it would just be a waste of time. So I gave one of my one-liners:

Me: Because I know how to do "lazy" the right way.​

They responded back pretty quickly with:

Anita Miller: you narcissistic b***h​

First of all, excuse me, but I'm a guy, thank you very much! Haha, but anyway, narcissistic? I mean, yeah, I was being a little facetious, but she started it. But narcissistic? That's a little extreme. But it's not uncommon for me to come across as arrogant, so I figured I'd reply kindly:

Me: I was just answering your question. I'm not sure what you're upset about. I think it's kind of silly that I have this many subscribers as well, but apparently people like my kind of lazy videos, so who am I to argue? I must be doing something right, and since it is lazy, it must be the right kind of lazy. ​

This was to try to diffuse any hostility as well as explain that my previous comment wasn't just a jab at her. Her reply?:

Anita Miller: WE'LL YOU DON'T HAVE TO BE NARCISSISTIC ABOUT IT​

This one surprised me. Still narcissistic? Really? Does she mean arrogant? I think she means arrogant, although I guess narcissistic is kind of similar. But I really don't think I was being either. It makes me wonder if any display of self-confidence is viewed by this person as arrogance. Maybe she isn't accustomed to seeing self-confidence on a healthy level and is threatened by it. It makes me wonder if she has low self-esteem because self-confidence is discouraged by the people around her because they also have low self-esteem and also see self-confidence as arrogance. I replied with:

Me: I'm not. I'm just being honest. There's a big difference between talking good about oneself truthfully and exaggerating.​

I meant "self-confidence" and "arrogance", but I didn't think of those words at the time. I figured she'd either not reply or change her tone. Neither happened:

Anita Miller: BEING LAZY ABOUT THE WAY YOU GET MONEY IS BAD
VERY BAD​

Wha?... The heck? I was taken aback by this and didn't know how to respond to it for a while. I considered not replying at all. What do you say to that? Being lazy about the way you get money is bad? Like, morally bad? I mean, if you have a job and you're being lazy and doing a bad job, that's not good. But this is a YouTube channel and people obviously like my videos. Is she saying that because I've started making money I'm morally obligated to put more work into my videos to justify the money? I agree that it's smart to put work into things to make the best product you can, but not because it's a moral issue.

After a fair amount of considering, I replied to her:

Me: Hmm, interesting philosophy. I'm afraid that's not how supply and demand works, though I wonder if the world would be a better place if it did. But at any rate, what I don't understand is why it matters to you so much how I make my videos and run my channel.​

I was curious how she would respond to this. I didn't have to wait long:

Anita Miller: no one should be lazy with their work
that's called cheating in-game,
in life I don't know what its called,
but its bad​

It's... it's called what now? Cheating? Being lazy with their work is like cheating in a game? ...WHAT!? What is she even talking about!? So by putting up videos that are of low quality, I'm somehow cheating at life? HOW!? I put the videos up, people enjoy them and subscribe! And that's me cheating? Or does she mean it is unfair? Is she maybe upset at the perceived unfairness of the situation and blaming it on me? This is where ideas like "affirmative action" come from. I replied:

Me: I understand your point, but the game analogy is a little off. If there is a really hard boss in a game that everyone has a lot of trouble with and someone comes along and finds a weakness he has and finds a way to exploit that weakness and beats him much more easily, that's not cheating. Cheating would be using some method that isn't available to everyone in the game to give themselves an advantage that no one else can have. But everything I'm doing on my channel can be done by anyone else. It's not bad for me to find an easier way of making money. It's called working smarter, not harder.
​

I thought I made perfect sense and hoped l got through to her, but I didn't want to get my hopes too high from how the rest of the conversation went. To my disappointment (and continued lulz) she said:

Anita Miller: anyone can cheat
your analogy does not add up
and I figured out what word I was looking for
it's exploit
you're exploiting people by
step 1: take a popular scene
step 2: make the colours negative
step 3: distort the sound files
step 4: over-profit
​

Haha, wait wait wait wait wait, so I'm exploiting people now!? My poor, helpless viewers are forced to watch my videos and subscribe to me and the least I could do is put in some hard work to at least make the videos they're forced to watch be something decent. But I'm bad and don't care about their sufferings and only want to make money by stepping on their backs. Is that accurate?:

Me: I see. Sorry if I was vague in my analogy. I meant that cheating was using some method that isn't available in the game. But your point seems to be that I'm conning people by giving them something of less value than they expected or were promised. And I could see that being the case for people who see my thumbnails and expect my video to be something different than it is. But they would just leave after watching it for a bit. But the thing you originally complained about is my number of subscribers and those people weren't fooled at all. They subscribed because they like my videos, whether they were lazily produced or not.​

I fix computers for my normal job. Other people at my work could do it, but they choose not to learn it. Just because it is easy for me, it doesn't mean I shouldn't be paid for doing it. I'm paid for the service I provide, not how hard it is for me to do. It's about how much people like the thing you provide, not how hard you worked to provide it.

It's similar to this conversation. I've put way more work into this than I do for most people who comment on my videos, and lots of them subscribe. So are you going to subscribe because of that?
​

By this point the people I told about this were asking me why I'm wasting so much time with this person. The common advice is to ignore trolls or haters because responding to them just feeds them. I guess the reason I spend time on them is because I enjoy it. It is like junk food. It's not going to benefit anyone at all, but it's sure enjoyable while it's happening.

Even so, I was still maintaining a degree of optimism that I was eventually going to explain it to her satisfaction. No such luck:

Anita Miller: no, ya narcissist
​

~sigh~ So we're back to that, huh? Okay, whatever. I guess it's back to not taking it seriously:

Me:
​

No reply back from her. It's probably for the best.

Thanks for reading!

 

[Anjim]

block and banned that user

 

[Redford1900]

I couldn't read your whole write up because this Anita person p****d me off too much. I just want to say congratulations on the success of your channel. Don't let other people get you down. It does not matter how much work you put into the video. If the end result is that you provide a product that people enjoy, good for you. I don't call that lazy, I call that innovative, efficient, brilliant, etc. Not lazy. I want to keep complaining about Anita, but I have to stop my rant. ARGGHHH!

 

[StraightUpIrish]

Doesn't matter what way you do it, make videos the way you want to and however much it makes you happy. Not up to people how do it friend

 

[Idec Sdawkminn]

block and banned that user

But then I wouldn't be able to get any more lulz from her!

I couldn't read your whole write up because this Anita person p****d me off too much. I just want to say congratulations on the success of your channel. Don't let other people get you down. It does not matter how much work you put into the video. If the end result is that you provide a product that people enjoy, good for you. I don't call that lazy, I call that innovative, efficient, brilliant, etc. Not lazy. I want to keep complaining about Anita, but I have to stop my rant. ARGGHHH!

Sorry it upset you too much. If you could get past it, the rest of the conversation gets better (more ridiculous).

 

[Dgamewiz]

First off, congrats on your success! I dream of having your sub count.

You handled that very well. Though if it was just me I would of just stopped replying all together half way through myself

 

[newage]

Yeah, I think that might just be jealousy. They're mad you're doing great, and they're not.

 

[Idec Sdawkminn]

Yeah, I think that might just be jealousy. They're mad you're doing great, and they're not.

That's what I was thinking, but then I looked at their channel and they only have one video where they complained about how their cold travel mug spilled a bunch of ice on the floor or something. They don't seem to be trying to run a channel, so I don't know where the jealousy would come from.

Anyway, I like your Nightwalker theme.

 

[newage]

Anyway, I like your Nightwalker theme.

Eh, I kinda tried to tweak it to have a circuit board design on the inside. My old logo was better at showing it, but when the image is this small it's going to be hard to tell

new v2 - https://newagesoldier.com/myfiles/newage_v2_thick_text3.jpg
old v1 - https://newagesoldier.com/myfiles/newagesoldier-1024.png

 

[Idec Sdawkminn]

Eh, I kinda tried to tweak it to have a circuit board design on the inside. My old logo was better at showing it, but when the image is this small it's going to be hard to tell

new v2 -
old v1 -

I like the old one better myself, but they are both really cool.