Could someone explain why content creators read mean emails?

Why does this Flappy Bird creator have to read mean emails? Could he not just hide subjects, and skim through them only reading official/business related emails? Why would a YouTuber, like the ones in today's reddit thread, have a problem with mean comments/emails?

I do not understand. I have a small YouTube Channel and have received a bit of hate, just because it's there. So I stopped reading comments/emails and just delete non-official ones. Is this drama just more youtubers over-exaggerating for attention? They seem to do that a lot, especially Total biscuit. But because this seems like such a no-brainer, there must be something I am missing.

Why are they reading mean comments/emails instead of deleting the obvious non-construction trash?

Why are you victim blaming?

@e30bmw: Show me on the doll where he did that.

He is a totally separate person from you, one who can handle situations differently than you would.

On the butt.

Yeah, instead of a "small" Youtube channel, he's getting emails/tweets about the #1 game in the app store. And a bunch of them are death threats.

Creators tend to be more sensitive about their work than anything else. Because a lot of them build their self-esteem directly from their work.

I just figured that the analytics page would provide all the real information used to create better content and not anonymous comments and emails.

How do you know which are the hurtful emails until you've read them? They probably don't want to ignore the constructive or nice emails just to avoid the mean ones.

And then when content creators fail to respond or have the audacity to disable comments because they're nothing but vulgarity/threats/etc, they're called out for not allowing the "debate" by people leaving comments. I see this as a no win situation.

If I were a content creator, I would feel obligated to read the comments and emails. Something in the comments may be helpful and I am the type of person that wants to read and respond to people who take time out of their day to write something. I mean, I would probably skip over the ones with no basis in reality, and report the especially nasty bits using appropriate channels, but you would still see the detritus no matter how hard you try. Not only that, but I would be worried, again, that no response or closing down those avenues would cause many of their own problems.

Look I don't go out of my way to see bad things written about me on the internet, and I shouldn't have to when it comes right down to it. Am I the party at fault for reading a PM on XBox Live that called me a skank, or is the person who wrote it the real villain? I think the answer to that is easy.

Good point. Just never expected any of those in a place like Barrens chat.

Very good. So you just accused him of victim blaming because he asked a question. Got it.

@soothsayergb: The amount of hate you have received with your small youtube channel is such a small fraction of the hate that people like Total Biscuit and Don Nguyen (Flappy Bird) receive that it cannot be compared. They will inevitably stumble upon hateful comments just by trying to engage with their fans. So unless you want them to never engage with their fans or press through any kind of social media, then avoiding the hate is impossible. There is just too much of it.

Assuming that anyone complaining about receiving death threats and hateful comments is just looking for attention is such a horribly dismissive way to treat another human's well being that it absolutely boggles my fucking mind.

@alexandersheen: To be fair, asking a question can be victim blaming (not that it applies here).

Ex: What was she doing in that neighborhood? How was she dressed? Why didn't she stop him?

Don't think that's what the OP was trying to do though.

Does it seem like because the answer to the problem is so obvious to you, that maybe you don't fully understand the problem? I kind of live my life with this in mind. It's given me more empathy and helped me see why "WELL WHY DON'T YOU JUST IGNORE IT?!?!" doesn't scale up like you think it does.

So everyone can whine about how mean the internet is.

Even if you only read the subjects of your emails you would still be getting emotionally fucked with. Never mind all the rude emails with nice/no/neutral subject lines.

And with all due respect, your YouTube channel is a baby amongst giants so to think that you have even 1% of an idea what TotalBiscuit or this poor flappy bird dude go through is either a self-important or deluded idea.

I used to work at a popular magazine and we literally received hundreds of vitriolic emails every day. You didn't even have to read them to be bummed out. Just the fact that they existed created a negative mood in the office. And even all that compared to some of the hatemail/tweets I know some public personalities get is just nothing.

Anyways I find it both hilarious and very sad for humanity if the general feeling towards all this is just to "tough it out" and not feel anything. Why can't the solution be to build a mature culture? Oh right, because we gave up hope on people ever not being assholes. Great.

Why is the sky blue? Why is water wet? Why did Judas rat to Romans while Jesus slept?

Uhh...

Ironman be sipping run out of Stanley Cups, unflammable

I forgot the rest of the verse. But listen to Ghostface. He's wise.

This, exactly.

@soothsayergb: Different people have different breaking points. Could he turn off the comments, yes. Did he want to, don't know. Did he get affected by the comments, yes. Could he turn it off now, doesn't matter.

That is true, but in this case the OP said "I do not understand" "there must be something I am missing" and explained his own experience. It's fairly clear to me that he asked those questions because he genuinely just want to have some answers and not for the sake of being a jerk.

You realize words are one portion of torture right?

So you get 1 email a month from someone who hates you on your nobody youtube channel. People in the spot light of pop culture can get thousands and from everywhere. Email, twitter, facebook, people looking up your phone number and calling you. Only because you are popular among a massive amount of people.

You think you'd be ok with people finding your personal info and telling you how much they want to kill you? Well, then I know how old your are and that you have not experienced much in life yet.

I don't feel bad for him, there are multiple ways this can be prevented and an astonishing amount of people don't plan out things before doing it and as a result have negative results that could have easily been avoided, but I also won't pretend that this problem, when handled incorrectly as this was, is easy to ignore.

not all of them do. I got an email back from Chet Feliszek from valve, apparently Gabe Newell forwarded my art to Chet and Robin Walker and only Chet replied back.

I hang out with a lot of artists, and pretty much all of them skip emails, phone calls and messages. The ones who actually look at emails sometimes get more depressed then others. Like the creator of Skullgirls, Alex Ahad, the only time I can get in touch with him is at parties. Some might react like they are dicks for not returning messages, but when you think about how much of a burden it is to answer everything and seeing how much more negative feedback, and then changing everything to appeal to one person when your doing more to influence a larger audience..... I don't blame them for not answering messages when they are too busy creating.

I wonder why you feel the need to be so personally insulting in your above response. It seems like a hypocrisy to me to call someone a "nobody" and inform them that they have not experienced much in life, after you initially opining that "words are one portion of torture".

@diz: Calling someone a nobody (which we all are) is not an insult. It's just a fact. I'm a nobody too. I don't have thousands of people sending me email hate and nor does the OP.

I used the word properly.

@brodehouse said:

Bingo. /Thread

That's the reason, in case anyone can't understand why someone would read or engage with the shit that's flung a creator's way. It's also why I have a ton of sympathy for Phil Fish.

@soothsayergb: How do you know they're 'mean' before you read them?

I don't think OP is victim blaming, but until you know what it is like to have thousands and thousands of shitty things being flung your way, you just don't get it. Even if 80% of the comments are nice or neutral toned, that 20% hurts when we are talking about hundreds and thousands of personal attacks. Of course you read them because you are looking for feedback on whatever they are commenting on, it still sucks.

might as well ask why is a tree good? Why is the sunset good? Why are boobs good?

Except nowadays suggesting that anyone takes the slightest bit of precaution about their well-being is deemed to be 'victim-blaming'.

If I were a creator - which I might one day be - I could easily see myself discouraged when going through e-mails.

"Why not just avoid e-mails altogether?"

OK, if you had said "why not avoid Twitter", then I'd agree with you. Twitter is something I would not have as a creator, nor would I have any sort of social media for this reason (except maybe a blog). But I would like to know what people think of my work. I'd like to know if people want to praise it, if people want to thank me for it, or if people want to constructively criticize me for it. In order to do so, any creator would have to wade through thousands, maybe tens of thousands, maybe even more harshly-worded, completely empty threats just to get to the ones that might be worthwhile. How is it not obvious that this might be discouraging, that this might require a thick skin? And frankly, it isn't just a creator, it's anyone with a public presence and half an opinion.

On a final note, I don't think that Flappy Bird's quality has anything to do with the discussion. I think that the guy who made it is just one example of an ongoing problem with the internet.

I just don't understand why anyone would want to send a hateful, empty message to someone else that they don't even know and who doesn't even affect them. I mean, there are so many other things you could do with your life.

I read comments and emails because I like communicating with the people that view my work, and for the most part it's all positive feedback, people asking how to do stuff, and people asking if they can use my music for stuff, which is great. I see no reason to avoid all emails and comments because a few of them are really shitty, as they tend to be personal attacks that are completely cliché, uninformed and/or cartoonishly stupid. I've gotten pretty good at compartmentalizing the shitty comments under "Not worth my time" and stop thinking about them almost immediately.

Being self-deprecating is one thing, but transferring those feelings onto others can be viewed as insulting. It is also your opinion rather than fact because surely we are all "someone", as you say. Concluding that the poster has not "experienced much in life" on the basis on one post that you find disagreeable is similarly ill-conceived, in my view.

The OP says they do not read abusive comments because they don't like reading them, but they don't complain about it. I say that people who make abusive comments are the ones at fault and should be challenged about it. All it takes to not do those things is self-awareness, perspective and control.

I don't think he could avoid everything on the level he's dealing with. The volume of this stuff the internet creates can be just too much to miss for a lot of people in the public eye.

Because it's pervasive. Because anywhere he wants to say anything he'll be barraged by a mob of detractors. You can't operate in the way you would without that following without developing a thick skin. Personally I've never been famous or anything resembling famous but I've gotten my own haters before on forums small enough where everyone knows everyone and history and drama runs deep. I know what it's like when 3 or 4 people take it upon themselves to attempt to bring you down at every possible opportunity that presents itself. It's kind of manageable with 3 or 4, even a little fun when one is an idiot and you can outwit him in a forum fight. But it's also tiring and drives me away from the forums and to just talking to my friends from the forum on AIM or Steam. I can't imagine how it must feel with 3000 or 4000 people. I'd imagine it'd get old quicker and the urge to just leave everything would be much larger.

Not all emails begin with the words, "Eat shit and die pedo..." Besides, people who make things are curious if other people enjoy thier creations.