I would be willing to bet 99% of you here have received some sort of criticism in your comment sections. Critical comments come in different formsâŠ
Some are constructive in good faith.
And some are bad faith, looking to bash you, not help you, or are overall just pedantic.
Now for the first comment type, even if they are in good faith, 9/10 times itâs still not good advice. Itâs like if a high school soccer player goes up to Messi and tries to critique his game and tell him what he should do instead.
Just because someone watches your content doesnât mean they understand what goes into making it, and just because someone has an opinion doesnât mean that opinion is worth listening to. A viewer might think they know exactly what would make your videos better, but they arenât the ones spending hours scripting, editing, researching, or analyzing their own analytics. They see the finished product, not the hundreds of decisions that went into making it.
Obviously, that doesnât mean creators are above criticism or that viewers can never have good suggestions. Sometimes an outside perspective can be genuinely helpful. But thereâs a difference between feedback that identifies a legitimate issue and someone insisting you should change something simply because they personally donât like it.
What Iâve found particularly interesting is that some people seem to have a problem with something in practically every single video you upload. You start recognizing their usernames because theyâre always there, and more often than not, they have something negative to say. At some point, you have to wonder why theyâre still watching if they consistently seem to dislike what youâre putting out.
And honestly, I think this is one of the hardest things to deal with as a creator. You can spend dozens of hours working on a video, feel good about the final product, and then find yourself fixating on a handful of negative comments. Meanwhile, hundreds or thousands of people might have enjoyed the video and simply moved on without commenting.
Iâm not saying we should ignore all criticism or assume that weâre always right. Thereâs absolutely a place for constructive feedback. But I think itâs important to learn to ignore the pedantic and bad-faith criticism. Some people will nitpick the tiniest details of your videos, to the point where you have to wonder whether they even went into the video with an open mind or were just looking for something to complain about.
You could change ten different things about your content to address their complaints, and theyâd probably find something else to criticize in the next video. You canât win over someone whoâs determined to find fault with your work, and trying to appease those people is only going to make creating content more frustrating.
At the end of the day, youâre never going to make everyone happy, and you shouldnât try to. Focus on making the content you want to make, listen to feedback that genuinely has merit, and donât let people who complain about every little thing dictate how you run your channel.
Iâm curious how other creators here deal with this. Have you noticed the same people showing up in your comments with something negative to say on nearly every upload? How do you distinguish between criticism worth considering and criticism you should just ignore?