3 Types of YouTube Comments, and How to Deal With Them

November 17th, 2015

Welcome back to Content Creator Community College, sponsored by the PodPledge - crowdfunding specifically designed for content creators. If you’re mulling over monetizing the media you make, check ‘em out!

The internet has made sharing your ideas with the world easier than ever before. That’s right, now you can record a video detailing ten reasons why you like organic soy milk, and then have it published globally within seconds with the click of a button! But not only that, mere moments later, some guy in Nebraska can comment back with not only why you are wrong, but why you will continue to be wrong throughout this lifetime and into the next. Thanks, technology!

But that comes with the territory. You can’t have social media without the social part, which means not only sharing your ideas, but continuing the conversation on those ideas in comments, Tweets and direct messages. The ubiquity of communication options that we now have at our disposal is a powerful tool that can both encourage and discourage many a media maker.

Let’s talk about several types of comments you can receive in response to your work: positive feedback, constructive criticism, and negative feedback.

Positive feedback is awesome. It’s when someone congratulates you on a job well done, points out something in your work that they like, or appreciates your efforts so much that they get your logo tattooed on their face. Thanks, mom!

Constructive criticism is meant to offer a helpful suggestion by pointing out an area of improvement. It may sting, but it has good intentions. Constructive criticism can be a valuable way to get a fresh perspective on your work that you may be too close to it to see.

And then there’s negative feedback, which serves no purpose, other than to insult its victim by pointing out the specific level of their suckiness. Thanks, mom.

If you produce enough content long enough, negative feedback, unfortunately, will be inevitable. Even more unfortunate is that it can drive you crazy, or cause you to start focusing on something inconsequential if you dwell on it. Like that episode of Seinfeld when Elaine is told she has a big head, and all of a sudden she starts noticing it for no other reason than because she was made aware of it. So, how do you deal with it?

Here’s an analogy for negative feedback that I always find helpful. Imagine a long, pearl necklace, made up of a countless number of gleaming, white pearls. It’s flawless. But, also present on the necklace is one black pearl. Now, not only is that black pearl going to get your attention, but you could easily become transfixed on it, because it stands out so much. It's presence might even start to drive you crazy. But you have to learn to get passed it, and remember all the white pearls that are sitting there right in front of you.

Well, the same goes for dealing with negative feedback. Read it, see if you can learn anything from it. And then move on and don’t dwell on it, because doing so can drive you crazy.

But dwelling on positive feedback can also cause you to get lost in your own head. So, I recommend the same approach for dealing with positive feedback too. Read it, see if you can learn anything from it, then move on and don’t dwell on it because doing so can also drive you crazy, just for a different reason.

Also helping preserve our sanity is our sponsor PodPledge, the crowdfunding website for content creators. Whether you’re developing a one-time feature, or producing multiple seasons of a blog, vlog, podcast, YouTube channel, or website about trying to guess the names of other people’s pets, PodPledge helps you crowdfund it by empowering your backers to support you with either one-time donations or subscriptions, which automatically continue from one season of your production to the next, helping finance it for years to come. 

Get started gaining backers for the media that you make by creating a crowdfunding project on PodPledge’s website today! Because receiving support from your fans is a great way to Stay Inspired.