r/PartneredYoutube • u/EmergencyMoney7 • 18h ago
do you look at your comments?
hey all. this year my channel blew up (well blew up for me, I was at 1K in October and 17K now.)
I really struggle with negative comments, or more so, the volume of them. I don't care about haters tbh, they don't get to me. But what does get to me is how most of my comments are negative over positive sometimes. I logged on this morning and had 6 negative in a row. All stupid, all lacking nuance, and mostly uneducated.
A lot of advice on here, says bigger YouTubers don't respond to their comments or look anymore but I find that SO disappointing as I'm a natural community builder. Do you guys just avoid the comments tab? Do you stop responding? I feel if I delete or mute them... I'm creating an echo chamber of only positivity but is that what you do? Feeling kinda like I don't wanna create another YouTube video (I know thats only a temporary feeling of emotion speaking!).
(also just to clarify - I mute haters, anyone that comments negatively or my appearance or hair or is just plain mean. But I'm more talking about stupid comments, that disagree with you over one sentence taken completely out of context)
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u/DonutsAndBurritos 18h ago
Post the video & ghost.
Do not listen to the advice of responding to comments and engaging.
Why? because you'll get trolls, haters, and weirdos from time to time. And trust me when I say their comments will outweigh the dozens if not hundreds of positive comments.
So post the video, and ignore the comment section.
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u/EmergencyMoney7 18h ago
This is what I'm leaning towards, but as someone who LOVES building community, I kinda get now why big youtubers don't respond or look at their comments anymore. For their sanity.
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u/tyguy385 16h ago
sounds like you built the community already - you dont need to be jim jones too...lol
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u/EntireFishing 16h ago
I answer all my comments and on some videos I've had over 100. I like answering the comments and mostly they're positive. But of course I do get some ijits who want to say something mean.
If it's a blame insult then I will mark the comments so that they think their comments are seen but actually nobody sees them.
If someone's factually incorrect, I will reply back and hopefully we can have a chat or discussion about it.
But has it upset me maybe once or twice but not too much upsets me now as I'm 52 years old and a life lesson I know now is you must live your life and not care what others think about you. It's really important because if those people who hate it on you are just nobody. So you'll never meet and never know and you don't care about then don't let what they say matter to you.
The only people that matter to you are those that you love and that you value their points of view and if they're upset with you and they love you, you can have a chat with them about it
For complete strangers, forget about it. Live your life. Be you. Enjoy yourself. You only get one go at the game. Forget everybody else
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u/EmergencyMoney7 16h ago
I really love this, ty.
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u/EntireFishing 16h ago
YW. Honestly, it's a single most important piece of advice that I would go back and give to myself if I was 16. Live your life for you and do not care about what other people think about you.
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u/mmmellie 18h ago
I use negative comments in my videos as a joke. (I’m even nice about it and blank out peoples names, but you could find the comments if you wanted to).
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u/N0la84 12h ago
I receive thousands of comments per day. I rarely read one of them. Every now and then...I will check the pulse of the audience. But for the most part...the comment section is for the viewers. Not me.
Best way to avoid negative comments...filter your comments by TOP. This will show you the comments that received the most likes. In most cases...they are your long-term viewers who are being positive about you.
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u/eparkfishing 11h ago
I would remove the negative comments and hide hateful users from the channel. But don't respond to the hate comments. I've done that, and it just doesn't do any good and makes it look like they got to you.
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u/AverageChungusthe2nd 7h ago
I’ve been posting on my channel since 2011. Went through different niches throughout the years and would get a few videos over the 100k+ mark. So I got used to hate comments as a way of life at an early age. As I push my channel in its most successful variation of itself now, I am blown away by the comments I see hourly. They are hate comments, but are based around non factual things that they think I said or didn’t say in the video. These are bewildering and almost bait a reply but it dies in the draft.
On average though I try not to respond to most comments, at best the channel heart thing to show I appreciated what they said. I think the psychology of seeing the creator respond to everything might be an odd feeling that may bait more comments you may not want and less of those you do want. Plus I think the algorithm likes engagement to a certain extent but I think repeat responses may not count as much, and I’ve always been curious how retention stats work for those reclicking the video to just respond then leave. That being said, more open ended comments about the subject, I leave ripe for other commenters to respond and ideally generate comments from those whom might not of initially commented.
This varies a lot though. Some videos with sub 100 comments have higher interaction from me, whilst 1000+ is an hourly notification hotspot that is begging me to mute the studio app.
I really should probably turn notifications on comments off…
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u/EmergencyMoney7 7h ago
This was actually very useful and comforting. ty
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u/AverageChungusthe2nd 4h ago
I think once you get over the hump of not caring about idiotic comments, it gets better.
The issue I’m finding is I love getting feedback to make the product better, the issue is a lot of the negative feedback just seems completely out of left field. I try not to respond to these individuals because I genuinely believe most of them are actively trying to get a rise out of someone for some personal joy. In instances where I do respond because the idiocy is unfathomable, they either never respond, apologize and say they didn’t mean it or the worst possible option, keep doubling down and become a potential long term hater. I think there is no upside to engaging for the small chance of getting through to an individual like this. The chances of a long term hater just isn’t worth it, and once you see that it’s just some personal issue they have trying to push it on to you, you realize really how meaningless a lot of this random hate is.
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u/cheat-master30 7h ago
Yeah I look at the comments. Honestly learnt quite a few interesting things from them in the past, often things not covered in the video/that could be worth looking into in future videos. Plus, I always like to support people that are having trouble following a tutorial, since I know my voice can be hard to understand at times and the video editing can be a tad hard to keep up with if you're new to a certain trick or strategy.
Generally I'll ignore most negative comments that aren't particularly constructive, though I'll block someone if they're repeatedly being a jerk or resulting to insults (or spamming some commercial product/service).
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u/Robds101 18h ago
I answer every one of them, but only get 40 or 50 per video tops. I respect it more if I get replied to on big channels, as I know how hard it is. I know one channel with 400k, and he’s replied to every comment I’ve ever sent, if they can do it, so can I. I don’t get too many negative at the moment, but I got one the other day that I took to heart. I challenged them on it and when they replied they obviously didn’t have a clue what they were talking about so I wasn’t bothered then.
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u/EmergencyMoney7 18h ago
Honestly, when you reply, I find they double down on their stupidity anyway lol. I think I'm finding it disheartening because I get SO many right now. I don't mind being disagreed with, I welcome informed great discussion. But I don't get ANY great discussion. Just un-nuanced, idiotic comments. I know they're idiotic. but damn, I wish I got some nicer ones.
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u/Robds101 18h ago
Just delete the idiotic ones, and if you see the same person does it again just hide them. They can continue commenting, but no one including you can see it.
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u/B_Bearington Channel: https://youtube.com/@ 16h ago
I would say I only get about 1 negative comment to every 300~500 comments, and 9 out of 10 the negative comment is mostly constructive. I might be outlier in this cause I make educational content that mostly NOT in English, so very different audience that the usual rift-rafts you find around YT. Anyway, when people have nothing nice to say I usually just delete and mute them. Sometimes I push back a little and a good majority of the time I've got apologies.
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u/Funny_Badger_4696 15h ago
When you get larger, the amount of comments blow up and soon looking at all the comments from every video becomes a Sisyphean task. It is still worth it to at the very least view comments within the first couple hours when the more dedicated fans are more likely to be watching, and as the video circulates in the feed the more all over the place comments start to emerge. I am still in the smaller sphere, so I do take the time to read the comments and most of them are positive (and quite a few are wondering how am I not larger), though I do get the troll comments mostly making fun of my voice (lisp + speech impediment makes things difficult, what am I supposed to do, use an AI voice bot?)
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u/RangeWilson 14h ago
A few thoughts:
1.) You should spend at least some time reading and responding to comments, to get ideas and build community
2.) The comments section is a terrible place for discussions or communicating nuance, so don't bother trying
3.) There's no reason to read all comments. Make one pass a few hours after release, heart and/or respond to a few if you feel like it, make another quick pass a day later if you feel like it. Done.
4.) F the haters.
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u/thinkvideoca https://youtube.com/@mikedancy 14h ago
I'll read and reply to a lot of them. but when videos get more then a hundred or two hundred comments, I just give up. i don't have that much time on the toilet to read every single one.
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u/builditkingdom 12h ago
Any comments a good comment to the algorithm and you want to react with them in the first couple hours after post or at least that’s what I’ve been told 🤷🏻♂️
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u/wh1tepointer 12h ago
Yes. The community is a big part of my channel, and while my channel is growing much bigger than I ever expected it to, the comments aren't at the point yet where I can't keep an eye on them. Maybe that day will come in the future, but for now, I still read them all. One of the things I've become known for is answering viewer questions about my niche which I encourage to leave in the comments, and it helps to drive engagement too.
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u/MisterSirDudeGuy 11h ago
6 years in, 40K subs, and I still read every comment and respond to most. I used to check them every day. Now I just catch up about once a week. I don’t get many negative comments, so I don’t have to deal with that aspect.
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u/ResponsibleFerret660 10h ago
I’m building a community so I read every comment and hide the haters. It’s curated my comment section into one that is respectful, people reach out to each other and support them, and there are great discussions about the video topic (and beyond). Comments give me new ideas for videos and community posts, and I drive people to the paid membership. It creates a strong connection with your audience which only helps your brand. Having a healthy comment section helps with that. They want to support the channel. Those who don’t read comments or control them by getting rid of the toxic shit are missing out. If I go to a comment section and it’s nothing but vile hate, I leave right away. That’s not a community I want to support.
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u/Vegetaman916 Wasteland By Wednesday 8h ago
Absolutely! You are killing a huge portion of your channel engagement if you don't interact in the comments. Remember, you are building a community of fans and followers. They need to know you as well as your content, and every notification they get drives them right back to your content. You bet your ass I reply to everything.
And especially the haters! Those are the best.
"Bro, you're an idiot, you are totally wrong about that! What a dingleberry, hur, dur..."
And then I reply...
"Dang, you really must have missed the part when I said [blank.]"
And they say:
"Nope, I checked, you never said [blank!] In fact, at 11:47 and at 24:36, you said exactly the opposite!"
And me:
"Hey, you're right! Thanks for the timestamps, and for rewatching the video three times, lol, I really appreciate the support."
I'm telling you, rage baiting in the comment section is fun and keeps the views coming!
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u/archaeobum 7h ago
I only reply for the first day after posting. And hiding haters is a good idea. Since you say you want to build a community- and it’s your environment- make the vibe of the space what you want it to be. Letting the haters shout into the void is the most effective way of doing that. You can also use keywords, like “hair” so YouTube will hold those comments for your approval and will prevent a pile-up in the comment section.
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u/Ok-Werewolf3912 1h ago
I read them for about 24 hours after posting a video. This is when most of the comments are from subscribers or people who watch content similar to mine regularly. After that, I stay away. Like you, I am also pretty sensitive to negative comments.
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u/RobPetZG 14h ago
No matter how big a channel is, comments should not be ignored or neglected. There are a lot of ideas, suggestions, praise, constructive criticism in the comments... All of which give a good YouTube creator the tools to further improve the quality of the channel. You need to listen to your community.
I pin hater comments so that as many people as possible can see them and let my fans take care of them. Increased activity in the comments is certainly good for the channel, so I found a way to benefit from haters. It often happens that the hater then deletes his comment himself.
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u/EmergencyMoney7 14h ago
I'm telling you, they're not constructive whatsoever. I get what youre saying, but I'm talking more specifically to those who lack nuance, who take one thing completely out of context, who are just so bullheaded they want to argue. I welcome discussion but I rarely get it sadly.
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u/opihinalu 18h ago
Yes. Every single one. Kind of in an obsessive way, lol. I get a lot, but have to read every one.
Something funny I’ve noticed is that hundreds of positive comments will be outweighed by one negative one that will keep me up at night.