Dealing With Negative Comments Online

Pardon my moment of negativity here, but sometimes people can be real turds on a stick!!! Don’t worry, this’ll turn around before the end of this post!

Everyone is exposed to these kinds of people on a regular basis so I’m sure you know what I’m talking about. As a blogger and YouTube creator you’re exposed to it quite a bit, and, unfortunately, the more fans you gain, the more these kind of people stop by to dump on whatever you’re doing. But, if you love what you’re doing, you learn to cope and take the good with the bad. It’s not always easy – sometimes you just want to say “oh, yeh? Where’s your wonderful video or blog post that is soooo much better than mine?” or “I’ve come a long way since that video/post and have gotten a lot better” or “Just shush, meanie!” but you really can’t. And you can’t allow these comments to get you down or stifle your progress, you just have to concentrate on the positive people, the ones that make you smile on a regular basis and take the time to say nice things or just say “hi”! Those are the ones that count and those are the ones that make it all worth it! Sometimes it's hard, but I've got some advice to help make it easier, so keep reading! :)

I felt the urge to write about this today because I got one of those comments on one of my videos today, and I had to put into practice what I feel works in getting over these little mean blips, and I thought I’d share those tips with you all. The comment I got was on the second video I ever made and uploaded to YouTube, so, granted, it has a lot of room for improvement – I’m still working on improving my videos every time I do one, and it’s been nearly a year and a half since I started. It’s something that I will and should continue working on for as long as I do this. Anyway, let’s get to those tips!

THINK – The first thing you want to do when a negative comment is directed at you online, be it on a blog, YouTube, facebook, pinterest, the whole lot of social media, you want to think about what the person said. Is there any truth in what they said? What it constructive criticism or was it mean for the sake of being mean?

WAIT – Yes, the next thing you want to do is wait at least a day (24 hours) to let it sink in. Sometimes it takes us that long to react to things on a less emotional level and better decide if it really was just constructive criticism. When dealing with family or close friends, they’ll understand and forgive you for acting out of emotion, but when it comes to people online who don’t know you in that personal way, it’ll just fuel a fire and make it a whole lot more troublesome for you.

RESPOND/IGNORE/DELETE – After 24 hours, depending on what conclusion you came to about the motive behind the comment, it’s time to do one of the three; respond, ignore, or delete. If you’ve decided the comment was really more constructive, you’ll be able to respond to the person in a more calm manner than when you first read it, leaving your emotions out of it. It still may not feel good, but sometimes criticism doesn’t. When you’re a creator you have to learn to take it and respond to it without taking it too personally. So, in this case, just thank the person for their input and tell them you’ll take it into consideration for the future and wish them a good day. If after the 24 hours you’re still not sure how you feel about it and you’re think you might still respond out of emotion and with defensive words, then it’s probably best to just ignore it, but do not delete it. There’s only one instance when you should delete comments which I’m getting to next. But, just think about it, no one likes when companies delete negative reviews from their website because they are afraid it will hurt their business – that’s not fair to their customers. They need to take the negative reviews into consideration, and take it as an opportunity to show that they care about their customers and their company by responding and fixing the problem. And that is what you need to do as well, only in a way that is applicable online. So don’t delete it. When do you want to delete comments? When a comment is mean for the sake of being mean – there is no benefit to saying what was said, other than to make someone feel bad. Then delete it!! Delete the heck out of that crap and feel good about it!!! If it’s really bad and leans toward abusive, then report it as such, and even ban the user from your blog or channel or what have you!! I for one have ZERO tolerance for that!

So that’s my advice for handling negative comments online. And also remember, a lot of these people would never say these things to people in real life. They feel they can hide behind a computer screen and say mean things without having to own up to them and expose themselves as a bully. You may notice a lot of these people have all their details hidden and even comment anonymously because it makes them feel safe and free to be mean. I know this is said all the time, but people like that are often jealous and feel that if they put you down, it somehow raises them up above you. You’re the brave one to put your stuff out there for people to see, knowing the possibility… or inevitability of encountering these online bullies, and the truth is, those people would probably never be that brave. Ever.

You’re all awesome to me and I’d hug you if I could!

Sam ♡

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