I’d say if they really have OCD they should be able to adopt behaviors to allow them to avoid watching your media.
ISTM there are two separate questions here:
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Should you accommodate any or all of the requests you get, versus
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is it reasonable to ask you to accommodate any of those specific requests?
Personally, I think it’s perfectly reasonable for a viewer to politely ask if you might be willing to change some minor detail in your filming that interferes with their enjoyment of your work.
But you are still completely at liberty to disregard any such request that you feel would be too onerous for you to comply with.
(I don’t know whether or how the following issue could possibly affect you as a YouTuber outside the US and not charging for content, but a lot of US small business websites are getting hit with a tsunami of troll lawsuits alleging noncompliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act. Is there any such liability that you could possibly be vulnerable to on this issue?)
The first thing I thought of was flickering/strobing lights triggerng seizures, not an issue in this case.
Additionally, YouTube is an American corporation so could U.S. disability law conceivably affect videos posted to it from outside the country?
My take is on the order of Rick Nelson’s “you can’t please everyone”. It’s difficult to see how a demand that objects always be replaced in a precise way would be a legit basis for legal action.
QFT, and so I can compliment you for the excellent turn of phrase.
I would make videos and not worry about the complainers. Life is too short to worry about holding a tray or straightening a crooked item on a table. It would distract the OP from creating the content of the video.
I would correct something on the set. A crooked picture or something people commented about. That’s a simple one time fix. Easy peasy
Same. That’s something that can be warned about though there’s limits on how many different things need warning.
OCD, on the other hand, has the potential to be a nightmare of conflicting demands.
I’d say don’t change anything, @Mangetout .
This is on a par with those Bored Panda listicles about “things that trigger my OCD” and it’s one misaligned tile in a room or some shit like that. No, you don’t have OCD, you’re just an entitled anal perfectionist and claiming you do is insulting to people with real mental health problems.
Hehe. There is at least one misaligned tile in our newly fitted kitchen. Mrs Mangetout (who did the tiling) has a habit of drawing attention to it whenever anyone admires her work. I always follow up with ‘of course all truly great artists include a deliberate mistake in their work, to shpw that only God is perfect’
I see what you did there.
Yeah, I think I agree - it’s sort of ‘cultivated OCD’ (although even calling it that may be insulting to people with real problems); being quirky and highly particular like Poirot, as a choice, only really works if you also have his kind of charm and manners.
I don’t suppose people with the cultivated form often get called out on their behaviour, for fear of being mean to someone with the actual condition, but this is my key concern; in asking for accommodation, they’re really asking for me to cultivate this behaviour myself.
And case in point; I think #2 on that BoredPanda list is actually rather beautiful. And #9 is indeed how I sometimes eat a kitkat, and that’s fine because its MY goddam kitkat.
If you had to do that, that would also be an imposition. So that’s not what I’m recommending.
I just think it’s reasonable to take feedback, and see if it’s something you can change. If it becomes some big list, that would be bad. But if it’s just a change in how you always do something, that’s not so bad.
Maybe this analogy would help: I’ve been given advice on how to post on the SDMB to avoid annoying some people. I try to pay attention to that. But in no way do I go through a list of things before making every post. It’s just that, during the editing part before I hit submit, I reread and see if anything sticks out. I also just try to make it a habit to avoid certain things. No long list. Just things I’ve developed an eye for over time.
Accommodating everything for everyone is impractical. But I’m always concerned with going too far the opposite direction, with advice like “ignore how other people feel.” I’m much more for “do what is reasonable for you. Communicate you care, but don’t go overboard.”
That’s fair - also those sorts of things tend to get mentioned by multiple people independently, so it’s usually fairly clear when a minor tweak is necessary, vs an obscure requirement that happens to be the hobby-horse of one person.
I recently had a personal reason to do some internet searching about OCD. At its core it seems to stem from discomfort around uncertainty. OCD shows up in many ways for people, but that’s the underlying driver. Some folk experience it as discomfort and others experience it as deep, severe, consuming pain. Emerging treatment is about sitting with the discomfort and acknowledging that some things are beyond your control, not everything is knowable, and you can handle it/will survive. Given that, perhaps it isn’t actually helpful for them if you accommodate these requests. The request is an attempt on their part to manage their anxiety around this discomfort (the backward writing on the tray, for example) and to give into their compulsion (the request) continues the cycle.
I am not a licensed mental health professional, just an internet searcher who has personally benefitted from this information found on reputable sites.
That’s what I thought - and I would imagine that a lot of people with an actual diagnosis of OCD know this, and therefore (with exceptions, I’m sure), the majority of people asking for accommodation or complaining about misaligned tiles, are probably not actual OCD sufferers.
Yes yes yes yes yes. There is such a thing as real mental illness, including real OCD, and it can be crippling. People like the OP’s commenters not only insult people with true mental illness, but they trivialize the conditions themselves and further marginalize the sufferers, keeping all attention on their special selves and the way a misaligned floor tile makes them feel. GAH.
I agree with that. I have way more important things to do than accommodate things that come across my desk. It would be all I did.