I want to firstly start this post by saying thank you. Thank you to those of you who have stood by me through everything i've done these past years being on YouTube, those of you who don't judge me & understand me for who I am. Those of you who stop me in the street and tell me that my videos have changed your lives, parents who beg me never to stop making videos as they are so happy that their child has my videos to watch to keep them smiling through hard times. There are so many of you who I know understand how to be happy people, and in turn, you spread your happiness and use the internet for good. Thank you.
I started this blog in 2009 as a place to share things I loved, items i'd purchased and it was fun. It was my hobby, my little space on the internet with an amazing community around me full of happiness and positivity. Let's fast forward to today. I have a YouTube channel with over 6 million subscribers and let me tell you, there is NOTHING that can ever prepare you for that amount of pressure that comes with that. I didn't have any goals in mind. I didn't set out writing this blog to have a book deal with penguin or my own product line, or for my face to be printed in magazines or on billboards. I just wanted to talk about things I loved, and my youtube was no exception to this. When people ask me if this is my job, the answer is yes, but it's never that straight forward in my mind. This doesn't feel like a job to me, it feels like my hobby took off, and i'm just very lucky. I often get told off by many people in my life telling me I shouldn't say I got lucky, and that i've worked really hard to get to the point i'm at today, and that's true. But it feels like the best job in the world...so is that really a job? I've had other jobs, where i've woken up in the morning and my entire body has filled with dread at having to get up, watching the clock tick away all day until it was finally time to go home.
When someone posts parts of their life online, you are giving them a little piece of you, but I want to emphasise that point... "just a little piece". There was one night recently, where I got very overwhelmed by the expectations, the judgemental commenters and the pressure of creating content that was worthy of having 6 million subscribers. I cried for hours because I didn't feel like YouTube was a happy place for me anymore. I felt like that happy community had disappeared and it terrified me. It was like I'd been stripped naked in front of 6 million people, and I crumbled.
I never thought I would ever have to write a post like this, but it's been brought to a lot of peoples attention lately that YouTube isn't turning into a pleasant place to be. Not just for myself, but other people too. Recently one of my close friends Gabby, uploaded
THIS video, where she explained how she was terrified to be in my vlogs because of judgemental comments left by viewers of my videos (we've discussed it multiple times, so she won't mind me bringing it up now), but do you know how upset that made me. I absolutely adore Gabby, and from day one (which we actually vlogged), I knew we'd be really great friends. I can only imagine how she felt when some of the comments absolutely tore her to pieces for " using me for her own personal gain" or "replacing Louise" (something that Tanya also had a barrage of abuse over when I made friends with her too). It makes me so sad. As Gabby explained in her video, nobody replaced anyone, we're all adults and we can have more than one friend. There's no drama behind it. I think that sometimes, it can probably be very easy for some viewers to get a little carried away in their thought processes, almost like our lives are soap operas, and there couldn't possibly be no drama. I think it's really important to remember that the videos that YouTubers upload, are a select amount of clips put together by that YouTuber of their day, or if it's a main channel video, it will have some structure to it. Everything else that happens in their lives, remains unknown. Their complete past, medical history and relationships with people off camera, are also mostly unknown. Although there is a lot that someone can share with the internet, it's not everything in a lot of peoples cases.
I absolutely love vlogging, but the comments recently mostly made me sick to my stomach. To the point I couldn't bare to scroll down and read them in the fear that the top comments would be so mean, whether that was a personal attack on me, or someone else I loved. I've never felt this way before, and it's so disheartening. That once fun, happy place that I uploaded content had all of a sudden turned so evil.
I just feel that some people need to take a step back and have a little moment to think. We need to remember that everyone behind the screen, when the camera isn't rolling, has a heart and has feelings, and could be going through the hardest time of their life but you might not know that. I was always told that if I didn't like something, I didn't have to eat it. If I had nothing nice to say, I shouldn't say it. As my friend Jonathan (Saccone Joly) once said, " I don't like sprouts, so I don't eat them. If you don't like sprouts, would you continue to eat them everyday and then complain you don't like them?". My answer to that is no, and I feel like that translates well through YouTube. There is a whole host of amazing free content for people to enjoy on YouTube, but if there is a YouTuber you don't like, is it really healthy to indulge in their content on a daily basis and become so full of hatred towards them that your days just consist of negativity through social media? I feel like it's not.
I think it's so amazing, that someone is able to pick up a camera, and upload whatever they want to a free social platform as entertainment for others, or for their own personal reasons. 10 years a go, that wasn't a thing, HOW COOL IS IT THAT WE CAN DO THIS? That I am able to interact with people all over the world immediately after uploading a video, to watch feedback coming in INSTANTLY and to have conversations with people. Even cooler still that it could ever lead to opportunities I could have only ever dreamt of as a little girl like a book or a product line, let alone having somewhere to voice important things like anti bullying, mental illness and other subjects discussed either on my main channel, in blog posts or on my second channel.
Some people would say that being judged just comes with having a youtube channel and "what do you expect, having over 6 million subscribers?", but I would never subscribe to a channel I disliked, and i'd never judge another human being without fully knowing them (and even fully knowing them isn't a reason to judge anyone unless they have personally done something to offend you). I make my content to make others happy, and because it makes me happy. I want my videos to be watched only by those who want to watch them, and I want us to all live in a world where people use freedom of speech for good. To spread positivity and make others happy or even to use that space for constructive criticism, but more recently it feels like plain old bullying. I've watched Gabbys face change in seconds from a smile, to someone who is trying desperately not to cry, because of those types of people and it really makes me so mad.
YouTube is still so new and it's evolving very quickly, almost too quickly to keep up, we don't know where this could be in 2 years, even 5 years from now, but I want to carry on enjoying what I started doing in 2009, making videos I wanted to make, building up this positive, happy community & wholeheartedly ENJOYING it.
If you are one of those people who creates hate accounts, sends nasty "anonymous confessions", judges youtubers based on 20 minute videos or just leaves unnecessarily mean comments that you think "would I want to read this about myself", then I am asking you, just to think for a minute. Think about the things that are making you unhappy in your life, does posting these things make you feel happy in the short term? Does it boost your self esteem to put others down? Unsubscribe from the people you don't like to watch, as Jonathan said, if you don't like it, don't subject yourself to it on a daily/weekly basis. Try finding something in life to be excited about, to be positive about and put that into action when being online. It's okay to admit to yourself that you might have been a bit mean at times in the comments section of youtube, and you can change that. Together we can make it a nicer place to be, and in turn, you will be a happier person too.
The last thing I would ever want to do, is become so scared of the comments, and the judging, and the mean people that the ones who are so supportive and positive miss out on my positivity, and recently that has happened as I decided to stop daily vlogging after a barrage of hate. I am only human, and no human is perfect, but you only know the online version of me. You don't know everything that goes on behind the cameras and you don't know the entire ups and downs I might face, or the anxiety struggles I may have (which I started to share a lot more of as I wanted to help others but was mis-judged by a lot of people and it felt like i'd taken 50 steps backwards, into a hole deep enough that no matter how hard I tried, i'd never get out of). I'm still a little scared to talk openly about my anxiety and panic disorder since then, but it certainly showed me the reason I wanted so desperately to work with a mental health charity, as it really showed me just how small minded some people were about the whole thing.
I can't be the only person that wants the world wide web to be used in a good way?
To help people? To make people smile? To spread positivity? To guide people? To provide useful information? To be involved in this amazing community?
I also want to quickly add, if you see the negative comments, or rude and plain bullyish behaviour whether that's in youtube comments, tweets, other blogs etc, just ignore it. I don't want any of you who stick up for me to give them any time of day, or to use any bullyish behaviour back. Instead, focus on the positive ones, and in turn, this will push the bad ones away. The more people engage, the more obvious they become and that's the one thing we don't want.
I'm going to end this here by saying this, which I tweeted a few days ago
"Every time you post something online, you have a choice. You can make people happy or take away their happiness. Just a thought"
If you're one those people that choose to spread positivity over negativity, I love you and thank you, because chances are you make a lot of people happy, including me, and chances are you feel a lot happier in yourself too.
♥
