HI!!!! LONG TIME NO JOURNALING!!! </caps>
Anyway, onto today's main topic!
Which... you might think is a random topic to write about after 4+ months of not posting a journal =_=; But whatevs... The topic of haters/trolls is something I believe all of you can relate to. Besides, it's better than a journal about "my life" (or the lack thereof since school started) that you guys can do without.
So, I've been reading about cyber bullying and whatnot after seeing a question on formspring to a youtuber about whether he's worried about the haters anonymously posting hate comments... since a girl committed suicide because of things posted onto her formspring. I was quite shocked to hear about that and I looked it up. It was quite sad to have found so many cases of teenagers killing themselves due to cyber bullying.
I won't go into the topic of cyber bullying since I don't know enough about it and I can't really speak from personal experiences. (when I was young, the internetz sucked.) Instead, I'll talk about a somewhat similar topic that's way less extreme and probably have happened to half of you -- Comments from haters and/or trolls
(btw, make sure you know the diff between a hate comment and a criticism.)
Getting haters and trolls is something that happens much more often on sites like youtube, Newgrounds, Formspring etc. Know this: No matter how amazing your creation is, once it gets enough attention, it will always receive bashful comments! That's like a law of the interwebs! A good number of people I've talked to revealed that they were hurt by those comments... or that they refrain from putting up a lot of stuff in fear of haters/trolls. That's pretty normal, especially if you've just started receiving your first hate comments. However it's important to quickly realize that these are just stupid comments done by stupid people, and the best thing to do is just to ignore them. It's kinda unfortunate that some people do stop creating art or submitting videos because of one or two haters... and many get extremely discouraged. If any of you are feeling that way, I hope this journal will help you with getting over the phase of being emotionally affected by those comments. Learning to deal with these people properly can help you keep them away from your site/page/channel and perhaps even pwn them a little.
So I'd like to share some of my ways of dealing with haters/trolls (ok mostly trolls since I'm not popular enough to get haters
) from my experiences throughout the years.When you receive a hate comment, think:
1. Hey I'm popular enough to get haters/get trolled!
2. I now have the opportunity to pwn someone if I wish to
The best way to respond to a troll/hater is just to ignore them. But I know... sometimes the urge to respond is just too strong, and other times you just feel like having some fun. So, if you must respond, here are some tips.
In your reply, you can:
1. Thank them for surfing your channel/page even more than your loyalest fans (kuz they do!)
Ex: WOW I HAVE GAINED ANOTHER FAN!!! THANK YOU HONEY FOR VISITING ♥♥♥ LOVE YA COME BACK SOON!!!
2. Thank them for making you feel intellectually and socially superior
Ex: I've been feeling a bit insecure about my intelligence lately, but after reading your comment I realized I'm actually pretty damn smart! Thanks for the confidence boost!
3. Criticize their insult... since I've yet to see a troll throwing a creative and original insult. The "This is Gay", "You suck" or *insert racist remark* comment is just so 2005.
Ex: "You suck ass?" C'mon! You can do better than that! I suggest using "You're a black hole that selectively allows the entry of africanus asinuses into your event horizon" instead. Trust me it'll make you sound smarter.
What you shouldn't do:
1. Don't feel hurt. These losers should not be allowed to have that much of an impact on you.
2. Don't bother reasoning with them... the fact that they're posting these comments means that they're so unreasonable that they cannot be reasoned with =_=; Just quietly report them.
3. Don't throw back an insult. Seriously, you're better than that.
Also, I usually leave the haters'/trolls' comments on the page instead of deleting them (tho sometimes the mods delete them for me when I report the account). Why? This way only more people will get to see their fail. Besides, if you have the time to react to their comments then you should be using it to reply to your subscribers/viewers instead... It actually bugs me quite a bit when I see a user responding to every hate/troll comment but not replying to any of the nice comments from their real fans.
Anyway, that's my 2 cents on haters/trolls! I hope it's helped at least one of you! If not I hope it was at least entertaining
See ya!
