[Unrelated] Ah, you’re Atomic Shimp? Dude, I’ve been shot gunning your videos of months. Jeez, good job there man.
Thanks for watching and I hope… well, you know the rest!
Again, I don’t know you and have never seen your videos on YouTube. But I think it is fair to say that you hope you do a great job of communicating, and like most people, you fear that maybe you aren’t very good at what you do. And when you get a criticism like that, it is our own stupid brains that gets us thinking “maybe that person is right” and you get down on yourself.
I’ll say something a bit more, perhaps something a bit more useful.
Not everyone in this world is both mentally healthy and in a good place.
Not everyone is a grown adult.
Not everyone behaves online with positivity when they assume anonymous monikers.
Finally the worst trolls never show up in day one, two, or three of posting videos. So perhaps only read those; they tend to be one’s most interested viewers anyways. The ones that come after are mostly good but you might need to let them be if you cannot sift out the harmful wasps. I don’t know.
I’ve noticed that too - I call it the ‘toxic tail end’ - in the first few hours of a video’s public life, it’s all “Wheee! a new video!” and “OMG, I’m so early” - people who are just pleased to be here. In the first few days, it’s mostly comments from regulars and people who are interested. After a week or two, there start to be more people who… I dunno… hated their own choice to even watch?
One piece of good news though - it’s now day 8 of being back into the comments - yesterday I noticed a couple of stupidly negative comments (because I can’t avoid the bad completely if I wish to remain engaged with the good). Today, I remember there were two of them, but - I think because I did not respond - I can’t remember what they were about, and I’m OK with that.
Maybe, some of the time, but I would say the majority of the noise level is stuff like people angrily asserting something that can’t even exist as objective truth (i.e. their own personal preference for how potatoes should be mashed). I don’t for one moment entertain the fear they might be right, particularly because in any given case, they are all asserting different preferences. In one specific example, I have people shouting at me that my toast is underdone, and others shouting at me that the same piece of toast is burnt. It’s not even the toast that’s ever the problem, it’s the shouting.
I’m glad your sabbatical helped you cope.
The OP spoke to me, because I recently quit a great job where there were some very negative people making every little thing uncomfortable for me.
Ahhh, the relief… more than made up for the “Why did I quit a good, well-paying job?”
Lesson: Do anything you have to to get away from the wasps. It’s worth missing out on an apple or two.
I’m smiling from ear to ear… I just KNEW this would become A Thing!
(proper response in my neighborhood: Goodbye to yo’ mama, too.)