There will be no “Flash Fiction Friday” today because I felt like getting this out of my system. Enjoy!
Dear Asshat on YouTube,
It’s a bit humorous that you appeared on my channel only about a week after my blog post about dealing with people like you on YouTube. Humorous enough, in fact, that I thought I’d go ahead and write this little letter to you to share the mirth with my loyal (and significantly less asshat-ish) followers.
You swooped in on one of my videos like an emotional time bomb, not content to simply rage directly at me, but also intent on spreading shrapnel to my viewers via rude replies on their comments as well. You were quite worked up, it seemed, about my decision to purchase 15 of the GameStop Black Friday Funko Mystery boxes back in November. That’s nothing new; plenty of people got a bit frustrated with the fact that I’d chosen to buy so many of the boxes (despite the fact that, as I’d explained, my particular store STILL had boxes over a month later, so I didn’t exactly keep anyone from managing to get one). However, while some people definitely got upset, defensive, and sometimes even a little mouthy and rude, your comments were a new kind of ridiculous.
You didn’t just get angry at me for buying so many boxes: you called my very character into question in the weirdest way I’ve ever seen. You called me a number of names and slurs and implied, to my complete and utter confusion, that spending so much money on my “stupid hobby” must mean that I get a huge baby bonus or that I’m on welfare. I can’t even begin to explain how stupid that sounds and how hard it made me laugh. Do you understand how things like welfare work? Also, did it never occur to you that, hey, maybe I can afford to spend a lot of money on my “stupid hobby” because I (*SHOCK*) have a good job? I know, totally hard to comprehend, right? Crazy-sauce, even. That totally couldn’t be it. No way.
I got a good chuckle out of your strange and unfounded accusations, and at first I was going to do what I usually do and simply ignore you, because there is clearly no sense in arguing with someone who jumps right from “she spends a lot of money on something frivolous” to “she’s totally on welfare”. But then I noticed that you continued your tirade on the comment threads of several of my more reasonable followers who weren’t being assholes. And in those tirades you implied that I am somehow a bad mother because I (*GASP*) spend some of my money on something that’s not directly related to mothering. THE HORROR. My daughter totally must be traipsing around in soiled hand-me-downs and subsisting on two crackers and a glass of water for each meal because I choose to purchase collectibles on occasion. That’s a totally reasonable jump right there. Excellent detective work, Sherlock.
I could have left the comments up; I’m sure that either my husband or some of the followers whose comment threads you raped would have gotten pissed of to rip you a new one. Or I could have ripped you a new one myself, because lord knows you certainly deserve it for slinging unwarranted insults at someone you know nothing about. But you know what? It’s not worth it. It’s not worth letting the comment section of my video devolve into a bar-room brawl over this, because your poor attitude and strange, unreasonable slights show me that you’re clearly an emotional wreck who needed to take out a great deal of frustration and anger on a total stranger.
So, congratulations! You’re the first person to ever have not only one, but a large number of comments deleted from my YouTube channel, and if you feel like dropping by again I’ll be ready and waiting to report you for abuse. Cheers! And here’s hoping that you manage to find the anger management course that you so desperately seem to need.
Love and kisses,
Your Friendly Neighborhood “Stupid Bitch”
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Wow. Just wow.
Does Youtube breed trolls and goblins, like some kind of dark magic cesspit warren? Or does it just somehow attract them, like dim-witted moths to a porch light?
I think there’s something about YouTube in particular and the fact that you can see the face of the person talking, that makes otherwise tame trolls fly into an insufferable rage. It’s the weirdest thing that doesn’t seem to happen nearly as often on other forms of internet media.
Plus there seems to be something about YouTube that makes people perfectly happy to waste their own time to be an ass for no reason, like the guy who commented on one of my videos simply to tell me that my voice is annoying. It’s like, “Okay…and? Do you expect me to change it for you or something?” o.O
Waiting for something like that to happen to me. Although I have been attacked by a fundamentalist christian on an old Youtube channel I had. And a science-related blog I used to run (it’s still on wordpress, actually!).
Leave it to a fundamentalist Christian. >.>
Yeah, it’s bound to happen eventually if you’re going to put yourself out there on the internet. I look at it as practice in building up rhino skin for the inevitable day when someone tears one of my books right down to the ground. XP
I think I developed a thick skin by working in a call centre. I’ve been threatened with lawsuits several times 🙂
If anything will do it, that will! I worked in a call center once too, but my stories are nothing compared to my husband’s…he once got screamed at by a Texan for “not spahkin’ Uh-merrrican!”
I haven’t had trouble with any Americans upset that we’re calling from Canada. However, I have had many think I was trying to sell them things. We didn’t have a license for that, and considering we were a consulting and market research company, that’s not something we would want to do.
I don’t understand these heartless bastards who have nothing better to do than insult others for no reason. Those who stir the shit pot should have to lick the spoon. I’m waiting for the day someone finds my blog and decides I’m a bad dad based on what they’re reading. Good for you for not taking the bait to argue.