*IHE Intro Music* *happy, cheery music* Criticism. It's something we all love to dish out on a regular basis, but rarely enjoy receiving. Especially when applied to online entertainment. When I say "online entertainment" what I mean is... [echoing] "YouTube videos" I remember the days where I'd get about six views a video... and have one dislike to two likes. That one dislike? It kinda hurt. As well as the comment that lovingly said: "ur a gay faggot kill urself" And that equally hurt. And I guess this is one of the biggest misconceptions and the biggest problems of online criticism. Especially with YouTube videos. You see comment chains all the time that start with an insult like: "you are vids are shit" To which someone responds with something reasonable like: "Why?" "I kinda like them..." To which the original commenter attempts to justify their blind, anonymous rage by claiming that their original comment was somehow... criticism. That is NOT criticism. Some people for some reason have this idea that criticism is a bad thing That it shouldn't be encouraged. To which I say... That's incredibly close-minded and weak of you. It's not uncommon for unchallenged artists to get completely out of control. I'm not saying everything on YouTube is, like, art but... Y-You know... come on, just give me this one. A fantastic example of this is George Lucas when he was making the "Star Wars" prequels. "Did somebody say Star Wars?" "Woah, momma! I'm gonna click like on this video!" He imfamously surrounded himself with "Yes" men and people who could not challenge or criticize any of his decisions. And look how that turned out. I find that being able to listen, respond and react to criticism is what makes all of this interesting. If you surround yourself with people who kiss your ass and take their finger and put it in your butthole and... wiggle it around a bit, and agree with everything you say all the time, I can't imagine that you'll ever learn anything new about how people think. But most of all it must be just... GOD! It must be so fucking boring! *royalty-free cricket* [Scarce] Hey what's up guys- [IHE] As long as you can reasonably and calmly justify yourself in the face of adversity, then good for you! You're an adult. We don't have to agree on everything all the time. I-It's okay... it really is. The reason I made this video is because my Search for the Worst episode on "The Room" *happy, cheery music* "Hi bae" *happy, cheery music continues* "Hi doggie!" "Hahah!" *music stops, click* [Scarce] Hey what's up guys, it's Scarce here And today we have a new video here with a bunch of stories for today The first story here comes from "I Hate Everything" Now this guy is a YouTuber with around 1,000,000 subscribers He has a very big fan base and he tweeted this out today He said: "Oh hi copyright strike" And he got copyright-striked on one of his videos that he uploaded recently Uploaded recently... [slowed and echoed] "Uploaded recently..." Called "The Room - The Search For The Worst - IHE" Now this video had around a million views It was doing really well on his channel And it got taken down by a guy named Tommy *ha* Now actually, I'm pretty sure I talked about this yesterday But another person got a copyright strike for talking about the same exact thing in their video. So it seems like this one thing called "The Room" is going around just taking down every single video that has anything to do with it And that is fucking ridiculous, dude. And they are just, like, filing so many DMCAs I mean we got a copyright strike because of it I'm sure they filed a DMCA and got his shit taken down Now he has a strike on his channel and it's restricted. [IHE] For fuck's sake, Scarce, aren't you like a NEWS channel? The video was taken down with a copyright strike for about a week. The one week I chose to go on holiday. Fuck me, right? I came back from holiday to find that the strike was gone. The video is watchable again now. I e-mailed "Wis-o" - "Wis-owe?" "Wissum?" I e-mailed Tommy's film company asking for an explanation for what happened But they simply replied with an expected robotic - but professional - response That I don't care to look into any more than I have. It's dealt with now. It's over. Let's just let it go. But originally, basing this off the minimal amount of information I had at the time I thought that Tommy was following in "Daddy Derek's" footsteps And taking down every negative review of his movie in a fit of blind fury As far as I know now this was not the case at all. Turned out to be just one dude who was a bit too trigger happy at the Tommy ... production company place. A fan on my Reddit page e-mailed Wiseau Films before I did To which whoever runs the e-mail account replied with, "Tommy had nothing to do with this, though." "It was our digital security guy, he went a little crazy with the take-downs" It's nice to know that trust-worthy people are in charge of unfairly removing videos And hurting YouTube channels by mistake. That's a problem for another day. But it made me think about two perfect similar examples of how criticism was taken in the right and wrong way. First let's start with how you should never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever... Ever. Ever, ever... React to negative criticism. [Daddy Derek] Cool Cat loves to boogie-woogie! [Daddy Derek] You've got treated like a little punk bitch [IHE] You're probably sick of hearing about him by now, I know I am. But Derek Savage with his movie "Cool Cat... Saves the Kids" Was the most embarrassing show from a fully grown man I've ever fucking seen. In fact, I still can't quite believe what happened. If you didn't know... Mr. Savage took down my "Cool Cat Search for the Worst" review Because he didn't like what I had to say about it. And proceeded to bully and threaten me, and other users, in an ironic affair of flustered and unkempt bitterness. Look, admittedly I was quite mean in a few places. In my comedic, satirical YouTube review - that at the time barely passed 100,000 views. This is how many views it has now, thanks to the drama. Some would say that I even went too far. But fuck you - it's a funny video. As long as you're not inciting hate speech and you're using humor in a way that is obviously just humor at it's core. I see absolutely no harm in poking fun at terrible media. No matter how jokingly mean you may or may not be. You fucking troglodyte, worthless cunt. [Cool Cat] "Oh but can I, Mommy? Please!?" [IHE] I mean, come on, most of the time this shit writes itself. I admit I didn't react in the most professional way, originally, to his copyright strike. I mean, nothing in comparison to what he did. But the difference me and Savage was that I actually saw what I did wrong and I learnt from it. I hold nothing against the guy, believe it or not. He just made a bad movie, I made a negative video about his bad movie, and he didn't like what I said And told me to "fuck off" or whatever. Because he's a big baby, Savage forced the Streisand Effect into full swing - and acted like a petulant child in the process. A situation that could have easily been fixed if he just tried to be reasonable. I do understand that when you've committed your life into a project so passionately It's hard to deal with thousands of people shitting all over it when they find out... that it's BAD. Especially when you have an ego like this guy does. But that's always been the way. That's how we filter out the garbage. We don't want every other Joe to make their own Cool Cat movie. Jesus Christ, can you imagine? Sometimes it's just not meant to be. It's how you learn, okay? Now let's look at the polar opposite reaction from a different director who saw one of my reviews. *intro music for....* Lewis Schoenbrun (I hope I said your name right, Lewis... Or Louis? I don't fucking know. Lewis?) The director of "The Amazing Bulk" - [Det. Ray Garton, TAB] Well it ain't Barney the Purple Dinosaur! [IHE] Or Not-So-Amazing Bulk, in this case - Sent me a paragraph in a private message explaining how he enjoyed my video. I do urge you to pause this and read the entire thing, it's quite good. But I thought this was the fucking coolest thing that could have happened. I have so much respect for Mr. Schoenbrun for this. He sums it up absolutely perfectly when he says: "I welcome all comments good and bad!" I mentioned it earlier but that's what being an adult is... A well-rounded, thoughtful one at least. And let's be honest, I was pretty fucking brutal towards The Bulk in my review. Like, it was easily the harshest review I've ever given. [TAB Review] "There's no excuse for this, there's no excuse!" "And I almost feel like I deserve an apology for spending so much time analyzing this boring waste of a movie." Which makes this response even more amazing to me. Awful movies that have no reputation need all the attention they can get. So if even one person picked up a copy of The Amazing Bulk and enjoyed it because of me, then that it makes it all worth it, I guess. And I think Lewis could see that too. Entertainment is supposed to be... Well... Entertaining. Bad movies can be entertaining on their own and YouTube reviews can also offer a different level of entertainment too. They can both exist in the same space. I think it's bollocks to state that my videos harm any of these movies If anything, it's the opposite. Really, working together should be our prerogative because it only helps us both to be civil with each other in the long run. And this doesn't just apply to YouTube movie reviews. I mean, this just applies to everything. This is just an example. Criticism is an important part of creating anything. Once you put yourself out there it should be embraced - not feared. It's how we improve, how we learn. You can't impress everyone all the time. Some people are gonna like your thing, others might not. And finding why those people don't like it - well, I find that it's important. You learn more from those who don't like you than those who do - At least in my experience. Hey, at least they don't sugar coat it sometimes. And I know finding helpful criticism is pretty difficult when 95% of your comment section is filled with people asking you to make videos about chocolate bars But now that I've made this video I hope it's opened the eyes of at least... one or two of you... Take these examples of how these two different directors reacted to my comical criticism And apply it to your own lives: Would you rather be a Derek Savage or a Lewis Schoenbrun? You decide for yourself... (The correct answer is Lewis. You really, really want to be a Lewis!) *End Music*
Pretty good video, I feel like Alex really hit the nail with it. Anyways, I was not aware of the existence of this subreddit before (IHE), but he replied to me saying that it is a better place to have more meaningful conversation on a youtube comment on the video, so...
I can confirm that I watch negative film reviews on YouTube to find bad films to watch, and I wouldn't have discovered The Room or Birdemic without them. I think the idea negative reviews harm films comes from the makers themselves taking it as a personal attack, because they're insecure maybe..
Awww I miss the beeping intro and the "BYE" at the end of the video
Great Video Alex!
I'ts just such a shame that there are so many idiots who are unable to take criticism like an adult that you had to make this video to remind them that critique isn't a bad thing.
Good video. I'm liking the new outro with the new annotations as well (kind of lacks the classic "so that's my thoughts on" but it's alright)
thank you for inspiring me to make this
cool cat saves the kids in comic sans
I don't fall for the philosophy that any publicity is good pubilcity. If your content is offensive and tasteless, only false publicity would help it grow. But if something is well-meaning, albeit poorly executed and naive, positive or negative publicity, provided it's honest, will likely help it. It's all about motive, really.