 Now, this video was just me throwing out my own personal opinion, with no intent to shove my thoughts down anyone's throats, or to persuade anyone to feel bad for having different tastes from me. However, that doesn't seem to be how a lot of people interpreted it. Commenters, please kill yourselves and free me from this living hell. If your comment is mean and sny, then you can just fuck off and die. Why do you feel entitled to spewing your bullshit attitude? You're rude and crude and I hate you, so kill yourselves, please and be cool. I pronounced the word wrong, I don't care. I didn't represent you, yeah, no shit. I am myself, motherfucker. Think I got a bad attitude? Well, you ain't seen shit. A shadow banned your ass to deal with it. Hello everyone and welcome to another episode of the I am the best guy ever and we're joined today by Munchie where his tiny hats. I've made it an im- and replaceable hobby of mine to just draw and doodle on Pokemon cards and sell them at a profit at local schools and flooding the market with my own artistic mashup pieces on top of Geodudes and Machobs. Excellent, Hippocrite is here. Commenter rules, more like commenter eulogy, if you know what I'm saying. Yes, excellent. Tom Oliver is here. I just woke up, but I'm here anyway, I'm gonna do it. I'm gonna comment on comments. And Ben St. No comments. Whoa, that's perfect. Because I haven't heard the whole podcast yet. Oh, excellent, that's a good one. Incidentally, this is the procrastinator's podcast, a podcast with a bunch of internet boys who are just here to talk about a bunch of stuff that we like. We all make stuff and we're all here. Well, we spread our intellect across the interweb. I just looked at my hand and there's blood all over it. I should be fine, but I'm scared. I think they're already fighting back. Oh, yeah, they're attacking from the future. I will say I've bled on the PCP more times and I've bled off the PCP. That's not a joke, that's accurate. Wow, okay, I was gonna say like I've made your woman bleed, but I don't know why I was gonna say that. Yeah, I would never mind. That would be hard to understand. So today, we're talking about it's Commentary Rules Number Two. Commentary Rules Two, everybody. We're continuing our World Famous Series. Yeah, Commentary Rules is one of our most proudest grace achievements from the past, from the good old days, when this podcast had a real good fan base and everyone was real nice and it was a great popular time. But now, we're just surrounded by fools and geeks and goblins and everyone hates us now. No one likes me anymore. One of our seminal works. One of our seminal works, for sure. And just as a fun history lesson, I'm just going back. I've got it pulled up here. That was episode 14 of the PCP and I think this is episode 85 that this is going to be. Yeah, I think that's right. Yeah, and that was on April 3rd of 2016 that came out. So it's been almost two years. Look a year and a half, I guess. Which is a long time. We've been doing this thing for quite a while now, fellas. Jesus fucking Christ. And exactly what do we have to show for it? Absolutely nothing. The comments have indeed descended. Our old selves would be so ashamed of our current comment section. That's true. You guys made a vow to ban all the people who disrespected and disregarded your Commentary Rules and I think it's time we reinstate those rules and then stay true to our word. You're not wrong. I'm for savage law enforcement. I'm for some excessive force. With the release of the... I've come to a new appreciation of respecting the law after the Mad Bull plebe and the weebas come out. So yeah. Yeah. Well, I mean, you were there. It's not like now that you've... Well, you just reminded of it, I guess. The first time didn't do the trick, but the second time was really the charm for experiencing it. To learn what Mad Bull was trying to teach us all along. Well, I'm going to tell you this right now commenters. After we're done with you, you're just going to be shouting Michael Brown in the fucking streets because we're going to use excessive force. You're going to be saying to the hands up, please kill me. Yeah. That's what you're going to be saying. But before we get... Oh, well, before we get into any of the discussion about Commentary Entitlement and Commentary Rules, any of that, I would just like to make a motion to ban any retarded offline analogies to parties or shopping malls or any sort of like non-literal, non-virtual, non-multiplayer focused first person shooter. Like apartheid simulator. They all get muddled and argued upon on the basis of their semantics and they actually get to the point of the heart of the issue and turn the entire thing to like a big old farce. Let's keep things real, literal, and argue about things that are like comments in the real world as they appear not in fantasy lands. Okay. Fucking, yeah. I don't understand. Because what are you getting at? Because to my dad, there was a lot of analogies made and we went around in circles. Oh. Yeah. Oh, okay, okay. There's an inherent difference between someone saying words and you reading text. So she's inherent difference and we should keep the internet issues in the context of them being on the internet. Oh, I see. Okay. Yeah. Yeah, all right. Sure. Well, that's our focus here. That's what we do. That's where we live. Okay. Understood. So one of the reasons that we bring this up is because there's been a couple of discussions, as Monchi just said, about a commenter entitlement. Both Digi made a couple of videos. He made one, people responded, and then he made a response to the responses to his video about that issue. And Devu also made one. So you can go check out their channels if you want to see what they're talking about. Yes. Those videos will be relevantly linked in the description for you to go look at. If you remember that. So I'll put it in. I'll log in and put it in. You know, they're important. Okay, all right. Yeah, great. Yeah, they're good context for this. So that's sort of, that there's been, you know, we've all evolved. It's been like a year and a half, over a year and a half, since the first commentary rules. We've all grown, things have changed on the PCP and in our lives, and we've all got new things to bring to the table and the hot topic right now is this commenter entitlement. So I don't know, Munchy, you want to tell us what you know about this? How do you stand on this? Where do I stand on commenters as a whole or with commentary entitlement as described? I guess specifically entitlement, but wherever you want really. I am a pro comment boy. I'm one of the least, I guess hawkish of my comments. But then again, I guess that's because I'm the little guy. I don't have a lot of comments too, police. But as a whole, I see a lot of good things come out of comments and I like reading good comments and I rarely, rarely get bad comments and whenever I do, they don't really impact me as much as I might. I always wanted to salute you, despite the fact that Andrew Hussie incessantly shitposts on every episode of Arbor Travel that comes out. You retain your strength and your respect for the law and you don't ban him anymore. Yeah, you know, how would it reflect on me to destroy the person who's given me so much, a.k.a. Brommel, my favorite webcomic artist? Yeah. Like comment or entitlement, I think it's really up to the creator to do whatever he wants. I just like comments. I just like comments a lot. So I don't like when they go. All right, start. I think I'm the only person who likes to see comments and I would be sad if they were all deleted and disabled. Well, all right. As a other smallish YouTuber, I agree that sometimes for me personally, the comments on my videos are so few that, you know, there aren't that many really bad ones and there are, you know, there's quite a lot of good ones and it's nice to read all of them. If I had a video that was like actually popular with hundreds of thousands of views getting comments all the time, I would not want to see any of them. They would be terrible and I would want to disable the comments. Just because I've seen on other people's channels how absolutely terrible it is and I can't imagine having that is like a notification stream for me. I don't want that. So like I see both sides of it. Yeah, well, you know, I mean, none of us are huge YouTubers, especially on this right now. Digi, of course, is the biggest of us who's historically gotten the most comments. I currently, I think, anyway, have the second biggest channel. Actually, Mage might be ahead of me at something. I think she is. Last I knew. Yeah, I think she is. But in any case like the point is I am starting to get to the point where I still actually get notifications to my phone every time I get a comment, just because I enjoy reading them. And that's the thing, I'm starting to get comments like every, I don't know, every couple of hours I get a notification that I've got a new comment, which is a pretty steady stream of them. And I definitely get some bad ones, some annoying ones, especially when, well, here's what it comes down to. Like the bigger your audience gets, the more like normal randos who don't really know your history or your thing and are just likely to take the least charitable interpretation of your content possible or a less one. You know, they have less context. Like for example, I just made a video about how I hate League of Legends. It was inevitable that a lot of people who like League of Legends, you know, want to protest against this and call me an asshole, call me a piece of shit, see that I'm being a bully. Absolutely fools. Monsters, little trolls, little goblins. And I don't like hearing them. You know, I don't like hearing people insult me or tell me that I'm wrong and stuff, but it's still worth it for me at this point to get the comments because I do see people agree and, you know, I get a little endorphin rush when I see a comment. So I still like that. That's still fun. I think I just want to say for myself, the only reason I create any art or show my face in any public scenario whatsoever or even wake up in the morning is so people can say that they like me and that they think I'm doing a good job. That's the only reason I do anything in my entire life and that's the comments. I think a lot of us agree on that. Whenever I get a good comment, that validates me making the art in the first place. That's the only reason I fucking do literally anything. Let me counter-argue. I don't necessarily agree with the subtext that I think I'm hearing in what you guys, especially you Nate, are saying. I don't think that a comment that disagrees with you is bad. Not only do I not think it's a quote unquote bad comment, like a shitty comment by an asshole, I don't even see it as like a negative thing because I don't know, that's discussion and if people are discussing your content even if they're disagreeing with you, that's still like a mark, that's still good. You know what I'm saying? I hear what you're saying, but your biggest video is your Christian lecture and there are plenty of comments on that. Look at these autistic assholes. I love those. I actually love them. You love them, huh? I mean, I don't, like it's really funny. It's really funny and I'm not insulted because I know this person has no idea what they're talking about and you know, like I am a big loser. So like fair enough, fair play on their part. I don't know. I guess a little part of me is like bothered by it, but like a much bigger part of me is like, When it comes to the subject of like mean people, I notice a lot in my, in my comic session, a lot of like people trying to be ironically mean and I guess, I guess I kind of parade that air around me. So I guess I shouldn't be too surprised when that happens. But I don't, like there's a clear distinction in my mind between like a bad comment and a comment that is mean or you know, a bad instance that doesn't like the video. I, it's completely fine and I don't care and it doesn't even bug me. Like at all when someone doesn't like the video. You know, I obviously, I say before I live for the compliments, but you know, just because someone doesn't like it, it's not going to be in the world for me. What I don't like is like the, the Lee epic, funny mean comments that are trying to be like cutesy and get me to like them by being rude and weird. Right. A lot of the time on arm retrieval, there will be, most of the time, arm retrieval comments are fantastic and I love them. But every once in a while there's a really weird snooty comment that I don't understand. That's one of the main things. I don't understand a lot of the comments made by bizarre people and it really, I just, I just want, I just want a comment section for the people who not just like what I like or you know, like what I put out that. I mean, you know, I would like that, but I just want ones where I can understand what they're saying. And you know, I think like the, you know, the autistic, look at all these autistic people. I would get annoyed by that, but I don't think in here, like if it was just, you know, some funny comment that was negatively impacting, you know, was negative on the video itself, I wouldn't get mad at that. I don't think that's immune from me liking that comment. It all just depends on the context of the comment, you know. Well, I know what you're saying. Yeah, I do. And I think that's a good way to segue into like the describing the actual entitlement phenomenon that's been discussed recently. So like, you're talking about not liking, you know, certain people who, who post particularly like me, me comments or people like trying to bait out upvotes and whatnot. And that's, that's sort of the issue that Digi was talking about and, and DeVu and whatnot. So, so the specific discussion that's been about the entitlement of commenters is that so right now, YouTube is built in such a way that the comments are basically an intrinsic part of every YouTube video. And what Digi is talking about in his discussion is that things do not have to be that way. Things could, there could be not even social media, but there could be like video uploading platforms that simply do not have a comment section and contrary to people's belief that does not violate your First Amendment rights or any of those ridiculous claims that some people say that's, you know, that's not how that works. And if someone chooses to close the comments again, that is not violating your rights because as Digi says repeatedly, you can just go anywhere else you want and make a comment on Reddit, on your Facebook, you know, whatever you want to do. The platform specifically allows for comments to be curated and for comment sections to be closed. I don't understand how you can argue that like it's wrong to do that in any way. All of us here are totally comfortable it's not really like that it's wrong. I mean, most people, I don't know whether they actually think it's wrong to close comments, but they do think that it's cowardly because it implies things like there's just like this arrow of like I can't take it therefore I'm closing the comments, which isn't true. It's just I would rather not. This is the big issue at the heart of this. Do commenters deserve to have comments? Commenters don't deserve anything. The word deserve, the word deserve there is the critical one there because again, the commenting is honestly it is a privilege. It is not a right. Someone has to choose to give it to you. Like, but hang on, I think Tom is going to say something. Tom, did you want to jump in? Um, well, I was just going to say that I feel like we're talking like I haven't watched Gigi's videos and I probably should have. I just watched Davoo's. Great. But in terms just what we're talking about with with comments and how we did you saying like we need a platform where comments aren't a thing? Like YouTube can be that. Like you can have your entire channel have no comments if you want to have your content presented in that context. And like, yeah, but I think Digi's responding to the attitude people have where like they would call him like, you know, a failure or a coward or of course they're going to do that. I mean, I guess, I guess my perspective on all this is that like I would never close my comment section because sure. Yeah, but why does it have to be? Of course they would do that. Like why can't we try and change their mind? Because here's the thing, like you're saying how people come into YouTube and have this and they have like this expectation of comments. But like you're coming in here onto the platform of YouTube, which is a social network which has this whole community aspect. Like you're coming onto this platform and people coming to you with the expectation to be part of the conversation. Like that's why YouTube is successful and that's why people like it. It's because you have this like smaller barrier of entry to like talking to a creator and while that's where you can argue the merits of whether that's good or bad, that's the expectation. That's why people are here. And that's why people like comments is because they want to be able to be part of the discussion of the video. You are completely right. And I'm sure that played some role in the growth of YouTube up to this point. I couldn't agree more. That's definitely a plus that draws people to this website. That ability to relate to what people say. And I think guys like Digi might actually be undercounting if there was a platform where people couldn't comment, they might be less likely to actually get into it because they want to be able to part of the conversation. Because you think of something like Netflix. Netflix doesn't have comments or anything. People can't comment on the content and stuff. So it's a totally different feel in terms of a platform that versus YouTube. It's like gun control. Like fucking comments are guns. As Americans, you have comments. You have guns. You can't take that away. When people know they can have guns, it's impossible to take them away. But in countries that have never really had guns, like the UK, I mean, we aren't clamoring for them. We just, you know, they're just not a thing you can have. You just really, really would like them. You'd really like to be able to kill everyone. Yeah, well, that's the thing. I don't. I don't think about how there are. Notorious school shooter hypocrite. Why is guns in the UK? I'm never, I'm never like thinking, man, I really should, I really should to get have a shotgun right now. I really want that, but it never comes up. Well, the difference is just that like there's a, I mean, If I said no world tried in law, like real life analogies, guys. I know, but I thought it was funny. But the point is, the point is comments are a thing. Changing the public perception would be nice, but it's kind of impossible to like make people think but turning off the comments isn't, I don't know, whatever, Calidly or whatever they would think, but it's impossible to change that completely. But I think there should be some sort of like, you need, you know, 10,000 subs in order to comment on this video. Like just some sort of like That would essentially be the exact same thing because like 99% of people don't have 10,000 subs. The majority of people who use YouTube use it as a content consumption platform only. You know? Yeah. So right. My problem with comments is that they don't have one defined purpose. There's sort of a weird limbo of like sometimes like messages directed towards the author, sometimes messages like discussing the content, sometimes like meta messages about the comments themselves, and you know, a whole range of spectrum in between them. It's just kind of a cluster. That's just what happens when you have an open forum. You just have people doing their own thing. Well, I don't like it. You know, I don't. It's not good. It's it. I mean, yeah, that's why you can disable comments. Just just turn them off. You don't like it. Yeah. But then when I'm a coward, if I do that, we all we all why, why do you care how people perceive you in that way? It's like, Tom, that is the whole, the point is not whether or not you can do it. The nature of this debate is whether or not like, people should call you a coward for doing so. That's I think the nature. Well, if you want to kill me, someone calls me a coward. Okay, here's the thing. But I don't understand why they would want to. My argument is, if that's the point, if you have the ability to turn off comments and you want to turn off comments, but you're afraid of the backlash, then you are a coward. So they're totally right. I think I agree. I think I agree with Tom here. I think I got to chime in. Yeah, but sometimes it's not really, it's so much of I'm afraid of the backlash. It's like, like you what you were saying, you know, if the comments were gone, people wouldn't like, maybe would not like your YouTube channel that much. You wouldn't get as much traction. You wouldn't grow as much. Like it is. Okay, then keep them on. Then they're a net good. They're a net good if they're helping you grow, then you need to just nut up, ignore the bad comments, and let your channel grow. I mean, how much they actually increase anything. The way things are now, like comments are good for growth. And like, I don't know how they play into the algorithm. I have some vague idea that like more comments and more upvotes on comments or something probably increases. That's what they say. Increases visibility and feeds into the algorithm some way. So that's probably true. But like then on top of that, there's just the whole like people like comments, people like the community aspect of it. And well, yeah, I don't- The community is fucking terrible. Yeah, but I don't think it's fair. Like there is a lot of immunity. It is entirely- Hey, hey, hey, hey. I'm trying to fucking say something. Okay, say your thing. I don't think it's fair that it's like across the board, there's no good reason to turn off your comments. And if you do, you're a coward. Yeah, obviously that attitude is shitty and it's not necessarily fair. But like, yeah, like Tom was saying, you got to just make a judgment call of like, are the comments worth it or not? And like, I don't think it's fair to be like, oh, well, comments are so bad, but I'll lose out on the benefits by turning them off. And that's not fair. No, like you can opt into that benefit to that. You have to make your cost-benefit analysis of whether comments work or not. And yeah, they've got positives and they've got negatives. And yeah, I think it's kind of, I think it's, I'll just fucking say it. I think it's kind of entitled for a creator to come out and be like, oh, well, it's not fair. It's not fair that there will be consequences for turning off comments because you're benefiting from, yeah, you're benefiting from, you're gaining things from having comments on in the first place. Like you're opting into that system because it has tangible benefits. I'm not saying I shouldn't be, I mean, fucking, I know that like, things have, stuff has consequences. Okay. I just, I just am angry that comments always suck and I don't like looking at them. And there they are and I don't like it. There's just nothing for them. There's just nothing for them. We should not lose sight of the point of this whole discussion, which was Digi propagating or pushing forward a just a different website that is just set up differently. He's not saying change YouTube at all. That's not his point. It's that I wish there was a social media platform that, you know, it was essentially things like that already exists. You can make a WordPress, like I have a WordPress and I put every video on hypocrite on there and there are no comments allowed. Is it possible, is it possible? Digi is just saying that he wants all the benefits of YouTube without the downsides. Is that, is that what he's getting at? Am I, am I, am I turning a head Digi right now? It was a hypothetical like dream sequence where he was just sort of like, oh, wouldn't it be great? But like you said, that's, I mean, it does exist. I mean, who wouldn't, who wouldn't want just the upsides? Yeah, okay. That, yeah, you're right. Does the argument then turn into, if theoretically there's two websites, they're exactly the same, but one has comments like, like you just can't do comments. And the other one is like comments are always on. It does the argument then become what is better. They're not exactly the same. No, I know, I'm just saying for the sake of argument, like are we going to go into like the empirical value of comments and whether or not like on like, on like an intellectual level are, like are, like are they a just cause like inherently and to get into like remove the option of them, is that inherently bad? I guess that's part of the discussion. The thing was like, I never really think about this. I don't think to myself, oh man, comments in general suck. I really wish I could turn them off without any downside. Like I don't think about that. This is just like a thing that has come up and I'm like just trying to, you know, think of what my position is. But ultimately in this podcast, I think what I would like to do is just to explain to people why you should not feel like you should have comments. Like why, like the community, like all the pros that people bring forth of why comments should stay. I want to, I want to slap them down. I want to push them into the ground, into the mud and just watch them as they slowly writhe and shake until they're completely... I feel you're taking the munchy road of knocking people down. I'm really bad. Yeah, that's a dangerous road to tread. I feel a little bit differently about this. I too have never closed comments. I have banned very few people, mostly like obvious spammers or like pushing products or whatever. I mean, I would happily ban any spammer who's just like, hey, buy my book. I don't know. Like buy my, subscribe to my website guys. It's like not related to the content. It's like, no, get fucked. You delete yourself. Yeah, so that's an instant ban. I don't know. Like the whole, the whole like concept of like hate speech and shit, like people like being taxed. I don't know. That's all vague. I don't understand it. I don't know how I feel about any of that. So I just ignore it. So basically I just opt out. I pull like the Pewdiepie and say, I'll just let people comment and I'll just ignore it. They can say whatever they want. You know, it's not my problem. I don't feel responsible for it. That's their world down there. I thought Pewdiepie turned off comments or maybe he turned the back on. He turned the back on. He turned the back on a little while later. But like, do I feel like I want them to be part of the videos? Like, I don't mind the comments are there right now. I absolutely don't mind. I'm happy to see them there. It's fine. But like, I really think of my work as my own and I don't like the idea of anyone feeling entitled to like be a part of it. Because what have they done to earn that? Nothing. I would say that if you don't want people to feel like that, you just better not post on YouTube. You know, like, if there was, yeah, like I wouldn't be against another platform that didn't have comments. I mean, I don't, I mean, I'm totally on board with not liking comments and not feeling that people are entitled to them. Like, when I was making my website, I had people tell me like, Ben, you got to include a comment section in like in the website, like on the pages. And I was like, no, because for a number of reasons, one, yeah, I don't want someone to be able, I don't want any chuckle fuck to be able to go in there and put their thoughts about my work right there and attach it to the content and have it be like a part of the reading experience. I think it's, I think it's crass and attention seeking to put something like that. They're like, hey guys, tell me what you think about my thing. Tell me right here so everyone can see. It's a, I think it's a bad look because like Ben, like even, even a popular comic will often have like empty comments on like, you know, pages where not a lot happens and like that doesn't look good. So, yeah. Especially like to have one on every page. That really interrupts the reading experience. And just like, I see that on a lot of like Dojin websites and shit and like, those are funny because I don't take those seriously, but on a real comic, I totally would not want that. Yeah, I don't like for a number of reasons, I was like, I don't want people to be able to say whatever they want here. So no, no, thank you. I forget where I was going with that. I just, that's how I feel. You know, like a fucking like kiss anime and kiss cartoon, like you can scroll down or like manga, something or other. There's some manga and anime like illegal sites you could go to, you can see the thing and then if you scroll down, there is a comment section and to see people, like, I know it's illegal, but it's like, it feels like this is the thing. This is the show, you're watching it and then there are people down there and it's like, this somehow reminds me of YouTube and therefore delegitimizes the thing I just watched as like a real thing. Because now I'm thinking of it as a real thing. I can understand like the feel. In an aesthetic way, I get it. It's like a slight sort of like feeling, like I just don't like seeing a big old comment section. It's sort of casualized because of the experience, you know? Even before, if I don't, I don't need to like read all of them to know that they were bad. I just see the comments and I'm like, oh god. Oh, good job. I have never gotten this argument that like comments then become part of the video. Because I have never, not once in my life, thought of comments as part of the video. You gotta think about it in terms of like the way it's doing it. They totally are. You watch the video, yeah, you watch the video, then you scroll down to see what people are saying about it and then you internalize the general consensus. Like people are having the discussion right there and you're exposed to it. I agree that like having the comments there, just like, yeah, it can really color how you feel about it because like immediately you get to see like what the general opinion is. And yeah, I think that it kind of robs you of your ability to form your own opinion about something. Whenever I will watch a video, I will just full screen it and then I will watch the entire video, I'll come to my own conclusions and then like maybe one-third of the time I'll go and see the comments. Most of the time I will not even like look at the comments at all. Well, that's- They are not factoring my opinion whatsoever. If I find a video, if I find a video interesting at all, I always want to check the comments and see what people are saying about it. Why would I care about what other people are saying about it? Well, well, much. I mean, the point we're getting at is like, if it affects like a lot of people, then it's relevant to our discussion here. And like the rest of us agree that the comments do change things. So we just have to go with the consensus, I guess. All right. And people can disagree, but I think it's, I feel safe in saying that like, you can see like the view count and the likes and the dislikes, all those things weigh in and change the experience a little bit. You know, they're all relevant. Okay. Like you can see a video with like five views. You're like, what the fuck? There's like a physical like line. You have to scroll down to see the comments. And that in and of itself makes it not part of the comments. No, no, the one scroll is like in not enough to separate it. I don't think and even then, even if the comments are gone, the like bar is enough of like a damper on changes my opinion. That is a fundamentally different aesthetic to be viewing a YouTube video with like comments just below the service. You can see the like and the upvotes and the downloads and the number of views as opposed to like watching a video in a fucking movie theater. Going to the goddamn Ghostbusters forums to talk about the new Ghostbusters movie. Okay, sure. The like bar and the contents of the comments section like put the video in a context, you know? That's right. And a lot of the time, some videos are just like not visually that interesting. So you will scroll while listening to the video to read comments while it's happening because there's nothing else to do. If we're expanding comments to mean the like bar and the view count, then yeah, then those impact me a lot. Then I will agree that that makes an impact on my views. If you click on just some random video, like a podcast and you see like a massive amount of dislikes and you're just like, wait, I didn't, what's wrong with the video? I didn't see anything wrong. Then you'll listen back and be like, oh, that's what it was. Now I understand. The smash cut to Nate watching a eugenics podcast seeing a message like, wait, wait, wait, wait, what was wrong with this? Why didn't they like this? What was wrong with this video? Everything checks out to me. Yeah, I mean, I guess I'm the minority here. I thought I was going to speak for the unwashed masses, but I guess I'm the native American minority. That's true. We're just talking about if it's relevant, if it's sort of affect the experience, which I think it's safe to say they do. And I guess I don't think that at all. But yeah. Okay. Well, considering that. What we're explaining, talking about is like, things added to the thing will affect. And if the view count and the like bar is like, does affect, then it, you know, maybe not the moment specifically. Assuming that that is true. Something being close by. Assuming that that is true, then I hate it with all my heart and it's the worst thing I've ever made. I would agree that comments definitely affect the perception of a work. Like if you, if you're watching a video and you just have the video presented by itself, then clearly that's one perspective. But like, if you're watching a video and then you scroll down and immediately you see a comment contradicting things or bringing up counterpoints, then obviously like that's going to affect your perception of the work. Now I like one thing I will say about this is like, it's the same basically as like watching a movie and then watching a review of. I was, you beat me to it. That's right. It's the same sort of thing. Except people in comments are not the same. Like even a terrible review at least goes over the basics and has like visual aids. A comment is just a guy going, like even the best of times it's a guy going, but like with a monocle. Like it's never actually as good as a review. So what Digi I think was saying is like, if you're going to make a critique of something in the comment section, I would rather you make a more substantial thing. I think that's a good point. I think, I think more people should be creators. And if you want to bitch about something, I think it would be more, I mean, more important to, or better suited to making an actual product out of it. I'll lay it out on the line guys. I'll lay out my secret, my secret ulterior motive. One excellent reason why I didn't want a comment section on my website is because I would much rather that conversation take place somewhere else in like a public forum or a website on YouTube or something. Perhaps a website specifically designed for that. Perhaps patreon.com slash Ben's Saint. No, like because if someone sees a comment section on there and they're like, I have a strong opinion about what I've just read, they'll go and just like fucking shit in my comment section that doesn't exist to prevent this very thing. But then if they don't have that option, then maybe instead they'll be like, Hey, something awful forums. Hey, 4chan. I just read this thing and it fucking sucked. That's exactly what, that's exactly what kind of Digi was talking about, I think in his thing, which, yeah, you know, which is like it forces people to up the game. And I agree that people upping their game is good. And I would like to see more of it. Well, I guess that's all I have to say about that. Fair enough. That's what I want as a creator, is for people to make like well thought out like and have a real conversation about what I'm doing, you know. Right, which comments so often are not even close to that. I'm actually pretty warm on comments in general. Like comments are like we've been saying are very much tied to the community aspects of YouTube, which has both major pluses and minuses. You know, people can feel more involved and engaged in it, but then it creates kind of circle jerky bullshit and like drama is really popular and all that gay shit. But like for a show like We Agua that I do, like that is very much like a community engagement show. So like to me, it seems like reasonable to have comments on that. Whereas like, I don't know, like something like my other, yeah, like with one of those, like, I again, I don't really mind there being comments. I don't really mind it at all. But like that is like my, it's like a movie that I made. And like, I don't necessarily think that your fucking worthless opinion is relevant to this movie that I just made. Yeah, like make a video response if you loved it so much or hated it or whatever, if you've got critiques or something. You know what I mean? Well, why don't just delete, I mean, why don't just like disable comments for videos you don't want to have that conversation on? Yeah, like, there's some videos that like, like, is this view discussion worthy? Does this deserve discussion? Or is this just like I want to give it to people? We're talking about how there's a stigma to this, but if more people did it, it would change. You would affect the perception of the action because right now the only people who disable comments are people like Anita Sarkeesian who just get fucking trolled into oblivion and they don't want to hear it. And it's like it is a way of just like censoring and not having to see that stuff or have it be a thing. Some people have transcended like Total Biscuit, doesn't I think, I mean, Total Biscuit probably gets trolled for it to some degree, but hey, man, no comment. So you can't see it there. See, that's not being cowardly. That's just saying like, I don't want to hear it and I'm going to turn it off. And if you want to do that, that's fine. And I don't know. I feel like the problem I think for a lot of people who want to disable comments, because that's not me. I'll keep them on no matter what. I don't care. But for people who want to not deal with it, I think the problem is I don't want to hear opinions or I don't want to hear these like dumb ass comments, but I also don't want to give up the endorphin rush or whatever of people agreeing with me and sucking me off. So it's like. Well, we don't. You got to accept the good with bad there. It's like an all in all kind of approach. I don't want to let the commenters off the hook because I mean, we can talk about the community engagement all that, but we know that they love the power of being right there. They get to be right there up on the video. And if they're good enough, oh, my shitpost, my deconstruction in one elegant shitpost or this guy's a fucking cuck or whatever, a thousand upvotes. Yes, I have a tie to this man. Okay, I totally agree. But don't you think we have the exact same problem? Like that's why we're posting on YouTube but not like our own website. Because we want the power of having our voice being heard and having an audience to project to. And that's why we're rolling YouTube together. Definitely. I just want to say. You're absolutely right. It's just that I am superior to a commenter objectively. I put thought into what I do. I work even on my comments. You'll find more thought than a 10,000 other comments put together. I mean, yeah. I mean, it really is like we put more effort into making this podcast. I mean, not much more effort than a comment, I guess. We're just speaking. But you know, someone has to edit it. Someone has to upload it. It's a project. If more people turn their comments into videos, I would care about them. I would respect them more because they put more effort into having a point. Is that the real problem then? Is it not so much commenter entitlement but commenter laziness? Or like not wanting to become the creator? The thing is that I've noticed is that if you have like an other place, like a Reddit where you have designated four comments, you say go there to comment. And even if you have a link in the description, the vast majority of the people who don't go are so lazy that their comments wouldn't, you would never want to hear them anyway. So like only the people who actually gave, even the tiniest bit of a shit to click somewhere, would, you know, I would respect them for doing even that. So why don't more people disable comments and do that then? Because then they're fostering better. It's the stigma. It's the stigma but also like I said at the beginning. Isn't that your problem? Like at some point, don't you have to like say, you know, this is my responsibility because it's my content and like I have to take the hit in order to foster the discussion I want to see? I agree. Like that's why I didn't disable anything and I probably never will. At the beginning, I said like I can see it from both sides but my channel is kind of small so it's not even a problem for me. So my stance is that when it does become a problem, I will switch. I just don't need to yet. Yeah, like that's the thing. We should think of this from the perspective of like a big YouTuber. Why should a big YouTuber have to allow this and be called like a piece of shit for disabling it? Like from the perspective of someone like a Pewdiepie or you know, whoever, like a big YouTuber guy, like Pewdiepie's comments were filled with garbage and people like shitposting and not even shitposting but like advertising themselves. Like I've seen his comment sections full of ads because it gets so many fucking views and you can just go comment and you're likely to get more hits on your website probably than you know, like making a fucking video yourself. So like there's an incentive to shit up his comments. So like it totally makes sense why he would turn them off. I totally get it. But then, you know, the backlash from people was so strong. He's like, okay, geez, fine. Like that wasn't him being cowardly, I think. That's him sort of just cowtowing to what the mob wants. Even though the mob is not making any kind of good points. How is that not cowardly? How is what you just said not cowardice personified? Because it's not, I don't know. It's, well, he's making a business decision. He's accepting an annoyance. It's not about being cowardly. I think the thing is changing your mind. I don't think is cowardly. If you're just like, you know, if the comments are annoying, you turn them off. But if the backlash is more annoying, then you turn them on. Like it doesn't, it's just whatever you feel is like the least bad because- My comment section has been more or less great and I don't intend to ever turn them off. But the moment they stop being, like the moment it goes from like 49% bad to like 51% bad, then I will immediately turn them off. And you know, as soon as they become positive again, then I'll turn them back on. It's not like a one time decision that I will make. It'll just be whatever my mood dictates. I just don't even know if people, after all this discussion, will still get the fact that you do not have a fucking right to comment. You don't have the right. People make that argument every time a discussion like this comes up. You have no fucking right to a comment section. You stupid, stupid people who make that argument. It's not a fucking First Amendment thing. I know we've already established this. It's just, understand this point people. Like I don't deal with the riffraff and the scum of society that have opinions like that. So sometimes I forget that there are people, but there are people out there that do feel that way. And every time I remember it, I get a little, I get the howling phantods and I gotta go take a bath. But I will never turn off my comments. I mean probably, I could at some point, but it's looking like I probably will never, ever do it. But still, to argue any differently on this point is absolutely absurd. And it makes me mad just to think about it. I mean, it's not a matter of like, do you like comments or not? Do they have a right? Of course not. This is not a government issue. This is not will you be thrown in jail if you make a comment. You know, as been stated by us, numerous times before in our past, we are giving you a platform to do comments. And if we don't want you to have it, then why should you have it? Which we won't take it away, by the way, but we could. It's like that comic of Vincent standing around Magda, and he's like, dude, I could kill you right now. Isn't that interesting? What the fuck is wrong? That's us. That's us right now. The guest mini-so that I like never fucking posted anywhere. I should do something about that. Thank you for reminding me. You're welcome. We could close comments at any time. Isn't that interesting commenters? Don't you find that fascinating? My opinion. Are the comments going to be closed on this? No. I mean, I don't see the need to. See, that's maybe consistent. I don't see any need to. But you don't have a right to them. Maybe we'll just for fun. My opinion has never been... I think I'll pin the worst comment I've ever seen. I'll pin that one. I never... I don't want to get rid of comments. I like the idea of comments. I like the idea of fans or trolls alike. We'll just say what they want on the things that I make. My only problem is that there are bad comments. Comments that are not thought out and lazy. I want to make comments great again is my mission statement. I don't want to get rid of comments or remove it. I want to just improve them. Yes. Right. To be as charitable to Digi's point of view as possible, his whole idea is to improve the discussion across the board. He clearly has the best intentions in mind when he brings up this idea. And I, too, want to do what I can to improve the level of discourse. So, like, you know... I think the main thing that has to happen for comments to be good is for if somebody just makes a silly, not very funny joke, and for plus ones, every time somebody pluses ones that comment, they get an electric shock, and then Google will determine that it's not a very funny joke with this algorithm. But that's only the mildly actually good comments to be at the top. How do we define bad comments? If only there were some sort of rules in place that we could enforce with an iron fist. Oh, oh, yeah. It's the fucking name of the thing. We haven't even started talking about rules. That's true. We're in the weeds. I mean, we got to define a bunch of parameters for you. Can we just say that commenter upvotes and downvotes are definitely fucking up comments and that they probably shouldn't be a thing? It gives the people the wrong incentives to just be the least funny they could possibly be. I don't think gamifying comments was a good call because that, yeah, it becomes less about trying to just express something and more like, I'm going to get the upvotes because I don't have a YouTube channel, so my way of getting social recognition is getting thumbs up on this platform. The difficult thing is like, without upvotes, the comments are like, you know, newest first or whatever because there's no top comment or even worse, like the earliest first, which would mean the first comment is going to be first. I don't think latest first would be that big of a deal. I think that's fine. Well, the only thing about it is that... People will repost just to be like the top comment or something. Yeah, they'll just keep talking and posting to be at the top because they know that as soon as they do it, they'll be at the top. And it will make comments more... That would take more effort on their part, though. So what we can do... I've got the solution. We display comments in alphabetical order. That's the solution. That's how we do it. Well, then there would just be a load of A's before anything they say. Exactly. And then it'll be A plus on every video. And then every comment will just start with A-la-mau. And then it gets the absolute comment. Perfect. Incredible. By the way, before... Here, if you want to make a point, go ahead. I was just thinking, YouTube comments used to have a character limit and now they don't. I'm just wondering if it was like... The short letter U, letter R, retarded. That's short and sweet. Character limits won't fix any of those kind of comments. I would like more of those. I don't want to be strung along in a very elaborate UR retarded. I would like them to just be short and sweet. Okay. Well, you know what I wanted to say here. I did want to speak on behalf of the commenters in the context of this because I really do get where they're coming from. Because I feel like I am a risen commenter over the years because my origins here are from 4chan where I was a big shit poster and a memester and whatnot. And I still am to this day. And it's great and I love it. So I get being a commenter on YouTube and wanting to... Like you were saying before, your angle is you can try to make a comment that's really good and people will like it. And I feel like that's the first job you can get as your starter job. Like, ooh, I'm going to work really hard on my comments and make them good so everyone likes me. And then if you find like, hey, I'm getting good at making things. Maybe now I'll try making a video. And then you can move up from there to making videos. And in that way, it could theoretically function as a stepping stone thing to getting you to be a more creative person. Or it's your way. It empowers the anonymous individual. It gives them an ability to be recognized for their degree of contribution. The problem is human nature does not actually reward the most thoughtful, like valuable comment. It rewards the most meme-y one or the most insulting one or anything of that nature. That's the problem with the system. And because of that, things don't work the way we all wish they would with comments. So... Well, that's just human nature. That's just budding up against human nature. We've got to steer human nature. We can control it to a certain degree. Like human nature is also to murder and rape. But we're working on that. We're working on fixing those. We can work on this, too. Self, Nate. Would we like to start ironing out the bullet point rules here? I guess we should. We've been doing this for a while now. But before we get into the new, like the in you dash new rules, let's just refresh ourselves on some of the old ones I picked out because I actually watched the old one in preparation for this. Let's just go ahead and see if we have anything to comment on or a change or redact here. Number one, do not publish a comment before finishing the fucking video. Excellent rule. Excellent. That is the golden rule. If you've already done that, get killed. Yeah, yeah. But before we do this, would you like to start? Would you make good on our promise of banning people who do not abide by these? Is that we're going to be there? I think we should for this video at least. Though, I mean, who's going to turn to the time to review all the fucking comments? I'll do that. I'll do that. If you want to, hey man, go for it. Fair warning, commenters. You're being warned. You shouldn't watch the whole video so that you heard this warning. If you violate the rules, you may be deleted from real life. You may be completely obliterated. I think it's time, you know, it's no secret we've gotten some riffraff without our ranks. And frankly, I think it's time we start, you know, weeding out the weak from the poor. Because we just love the poor. We talked about closing comments. We didn't talk too much about deleting comments. But I guess that's just where the rules come in. Deleting comments is, there's no problem there. And it's good. Yeah, it falls into the same jurisdiction as just closing comments. If it violates the principles, you know, ethically, ethically, there's definitely nothing wrong with it. And I don't know. Yeah, it's kind of got the same stigma about it that like it's cowardly. Oh, you're censoring criticism. But like once again, since I don't believe that commenters have an inherent right to their comments, I don't think that any individual has a right to say their particular thing. And yeah, like comments aren't sacred. Comments aren't sacred. This isn't, yeah. That's definitely true. You're not obligated to be like a free marketplace of ideas in your comment section. Very true. But, okay, real situation here. Someone makes a very thoughtful, critical comment of a video and the creator deletes it. How do we feel about that? It was a good comment. But it was a post. That doesn't matter. That's still the video creator. I guess it'd be like how I feel about corporations doing evil things. So you're calling it evil? Well, it's bad and it's ugly. If someone makes a good point shutting you down and you're like, oh, I don't want to have be publicly one-upped like this, I'm going to delete it, then yeah, you're kind of being a little bitch. But again, it's still your comment section. That's what I'm saying. You're within your rights, but it sucks. I would say the problem is that again, that's why if you have a nuanced point to make, you should make a video so the person you're critiquing can't just delete it right off their content. Like that's the comment of being stupid. But I think that the stigma is there for a reason. There are people who would delete comments because they challenge them regardless of how well or how nicely you put it. Yeah, they should be stigmatized for doing that. I think that there should be that guy's fucking... It's just the generalization of it. If a comment is gone, that doesn't mean that the person who got rid of it is running scared. It's fair to call them what they are, though. I mean, maybe not hiding scared, but I don't think that's a respectable thing to do to be like, if someone makes a point. It might just be that you just legitimately think their point is stupid, but this is where we hit a little bit of a gray area. Because if I make a video, I make a point, and someone, like my League of Legends video, whatever, if someone makes a point that like, no, you are... Let's just say they're totally polite, but I think that every single point they make in their comment is wrong, but they're polite about it. If I delete that, I would say that's me. Even if I just think that I'm right and they're just wrong, that's me still not really giving their ideas a chance to be viewed by people. And obviously, I'm not breaking any laws. You could do that, but I don't like that. Like, I think you should delete comments that are... One, they don't have a point. They're just being stupid. I don't know. I'm trying to think of a specific example, but if somebody has a point and you don't agree with it, but I don't think you should delete it. Really to the tone of comments. Unless you're deleting everything. Really to the tone of comments. Nice criticism is not constructive criticism. And furthermore, more broadly speaking, you don't have to be a nice person to be a good person. You don't have to be a nice, polite person to have your argument and comment. This is definitely a taboo rule. And very accurate. Yeah, yeah. Well, I'm just saying this wasn't one of the rules. I'm just saying that right now. Oh, yeah, okay. Yeah, okay. I'm just saying, just because you're nice doesn't mean you're a good boy. And vice versa, just because you're mean or rude doesn't mean you deserve to be obliterated from society. That's a good reason. And because you probably are not doing good, but you know, it's a rule here. Just look at unlikely hero Ebenezer Screws who has proved right to be a stingy old motherfucker all along. That was great. That was great. I never forgot that. Another one of these rules, read the other comments before commenting. So you don't say the same thing everyone else has already said. Redundant comments are totally up for deletion. If they're just redundant, why the fuck out there? I don't think, sometimes there's too many comments to read all of them, understandable. But you should scroll a couple of times to see if it hasn't been said recently at least, or if it's not a top comment. Well generally, this is one of the most common comments things that this generally comes up for. So it should be obvious. And you can just control left. You can just control left here. True. Like get good, you know? Yeah, yeah, great. I'm getting quite a few comments on my League of Legends. It's like, lul, this guy's just bad at lul. And that's fine. That's fine. But it is redundant. It is redundant. That's another, see, that's not like a mean. That's not like a, oh, I don't like you. That's not why that comment's bad. It's just because it's redundant. It doesn't have any actual point there. And it's a fucking lazy piece of shit. I think the reason those comments are, like the comments that I find most frustrating aren't even the ones that are insulting. It's because making a video is an active communication. So the most annoying things is when people misunderstand you purposely or accidentally. When they either, they don't understand what you're saying and it's so obvious that they're wrong. And it's just like, that's the most frustrating part. Oh, dude, here's another. That's a good rule. Let's get into the new rules. Wait, wait, before you do, before you do, about this though, like what, here's another real situation. You make a video, someone makes a comment like saying like, no, I disagree. But the way, the thing they disagree with isn't your point. But let's say that lots of people think that you were making that point. So it is in fact, you who misrepresented yourself but their comment, like misrepresented the point you were trying to make, does that make it viable for deletion? Because you made the mistake. All right, I think I've been thinking about the deletion thing since it came up. And I think if. Delete, delete, delete. I did it, I did it. Very good, very good. I'm gonna delete that from the podcast. No. I think it should be like, you don't want any comments or you allow them. I don't, I feel like deletion should be relegated to things like spamming, like their own channel or like, or like a link to a, you know, bad thing. Or like something that is actively would like hurt or like, like damage other people in some like physical way, like a punch to the face. Like, like, get rid of those comments. But yeah, what if it's a microaggression? Microaggressions are basically real life violence. Oh no. I love micromachines. I love Megatron. But by the way, before we get into the new rules, just another one, just another old one, just for, you know. New rules for new males like us. Very exciting. Exactly, he's a blast from the past here. That's very relevant. Ironic, me, me, cutesy, like, oh, because this guy said not to comment this, I'm going to comment this to try and get these to go. Those, those are gone. Those are, those are, those are gone. Bye. They're really, yeah, you can delete those. Yeah, those are awful. We don't like them. Stop, please. Okay, okay. Now we're getting into the new rules. I really like understand, period. Yeah. Understand what, understand the video. That is a great one. I like that a lot. That can apply in a lot of ways. Yeah, exactly. You like, if you don't understand or at least like, like, you know, there are good people who think they understand. Yeah, exactly. It's hard to know. I think, I think the way to understand is to get brain. And to get brain, you need to think. No, here's, here's, here's like the actual thing you should do if you're a commenter, okay? If you're a commenter and you don't understand the video, instead of leaving a comment with an assumption of what you think it is and making it idiot of yourself, leave a comment saying, I don't quite understand what you're trying to say. Is it this? Because by phrasing it that way, that's a good comment. It fosters a conversation and I'm much more likely to respond to you to clarify my position. If you're asking it as a question, then making a declarative ignorant statement. Now, asking questions is such a great thing to do to get my attention because I love explaining. That's the reason I make reviews. Right, that's the whole reason I'm on here fapping about my opinion. Let me talk about my opinion more. I would love to explain to you the specifics of what I mean if you have a question. Now, I want to explain my point on the chain because this is a slippery slope. And I think me and Ben are going to have a real talk here about this. Like me saying, understand the video, it is not your duty to understand the video. If I have miscommunicated what I am saying in the video, then it is inherently my fault. What I mean by understand to make a good comment is that you just have to make an effort to. And if you are intentionally trying to misinterpret what I'm trying to say or misinterpret anything for your own benefit, then that's what's not good here. If you just don't understand, then again, ask question. It is my fault that you don't understand at the end of the day, I feel it. Yeah, I agree with that. And I think that makes the... I mean, I know we're kind of joking, but... I think, yeah, I don't think you can say you got to understand the video. Because if they don't understand, it's your fault. You fucked up. Yeah, well, right. But I think that on the end, the terms of making an effort to understand... I think there's like one or two outliers who don't understand your point, then you can probably be safe to say that while it was your communication, their misunderstanding, it might be something on their part that they're missing. But if the vast majority of people or a large portion of your audience seems to be misinterpreting what you're saying, then it's probably your fault for not explaining it very well. If you watch Mr. B-Tongue's Mass Effect 3 review and your comment is, Star Trek sucks. You have missed the point. At that point, it's like, well, delete. You're gone. You're destroyed. Yes, good. You have to make an effort to understand it on the level that the original creator is trying to convey it. Also, if anyone ever comments that Star Trek sucks, I will come to your house. I'm not coming for you. You will come for them and then ask them specifically which generation. And no matter what, it's still a delete. You just want to make it clear. Yeah, yeah. I just need to fill in a little bit of paperwork before another deletion. Yeah, that's right. I have another rule. Go ahead, okay. It's don't take everything said so seriously. I think there's an element of, it's hard to explain, but you take someone seriously on the internet in general and you're kind of doing it wrong. But the points, if somebody's saying something, it's fair to say, like if they're just saying it normally in the speech, normal speech, it's fair to say that they mean what they say, but you've got to try and think sometimes that maybe they might be putting on a character if you don't know what the character is. I don't know, it's just... Gabe, I think I know what you mean and this is actually, I want to make a similar rule to it so maybe we can combine ours a little bit. And mine is like, it's basically like, give a reasonably charitable interpretation of what the person is saying. And so there's a lot of vague language there on purpose because what I'm trying to communicate is that a lot of times, things are said, again, like in joking ways, like I've made tons of jokes about like, I don't know how much I hate women or something in my videos. And one could take that a certain way. But friends of you will know those are no jokes. Exactly. And I would, they see each other want to realize that I am not joking when I say these things. But no, like I want people to understand, someone could just cut that clip out and say like, ah, look at this clip, this man is a misogynist. Like he's the worst man in the world, etc., etc. But that is being a bad viewer. That is them nitpicking, cherry picking is the word I'm looking for. And they're not consuming it within the full context. So when I say a charitable reading or a charitable interpretation, it's considering the context. I don't know, man. I don't know if I... What do you mean, Ben? What do you mean? I don't know if I... I don't know if the viewer should be obligated to have seen all your content before forming an opinion about... No, no, I don't think it's... Unfair. I think that's unfair to the people making the content. I think there is... Oh, that's not such bullshit. You have to watch all their videos and know their full context before you can have opinion on that. That's why I'm saying a fair amount. What you're saying, just I think... No, no, no, I think we are... Nate, maybe I'll allow me to try and clarify and if I'm totally off base, let me know. But I think what you're saying is that if you're a commenter... I don't think this is even just commenters. This is like internet rules. If you see something online that gets your goat and pisses you off, like don't immediately have a knee-jerk reaction. Give them the benefit of the doubt and at least try and double check and make sure what you're interpreting is actually the proper context because if it's not, you're making a big deal out of it. I agree that good commenting and good discussion... Yeah, you do need to... You should at least have all the facts. This rule comes with a mathematical formula attached to it, specifically for the calculation of how to do this. So this is a real rule you can apply. And it's that a person's comment is inversely proportional, credible or reliable, inversely proportional to the amount of content they've consumed. So maybe I fucked that up. What I'm trying to say is the more they know about the creator, the more their comment should matter. So for example, if a crazy feminazi, just as an example, has never seen any of my shit and sees me make a joke about women and then says like, ah, I see this three-second clip. I have decided this man is evil. That person should be proportionately less valuable of an opinion than someone who has consumed all of my content. I think you've got a bit of creator bias there because sure, that would make their comment... Like them having the context into you would make the comment matter more to you, but why should anyone else care? Because that's how we arrive at truth and the correct position. I think from your perspective, and I think what you're saying is like, they definitely have a more nuanced understanding of your character and how you would phrase arguments, but doesn't necessarily make it more valuable because someone can come in who's never... That's some bullshit. What are you talking about? How can you say that? Because someone can come in and just watch one video comment on the topic of the video at hand without going into the best guy ever back catalog and still have a relevant opinion. But what can I do to solve this problem? My catalog exists. Only they can make things more understood. I have no power to further inform them other than make videos available, which they are. I think this is an inherent problem with your chosen profession. I don't think the commenters are at fault here. I... Okay, but that's why I'm talking about not a solution, but this calculation of how much someone's opinion should matter. I... Okay, I admit that there's like... I think saying opinion matters is poisoning the well here because I was on board until you were saying that the more people watch my stuff, the more their comments matter. I don't think that necessarily is the case. I think... But those people have the information. Look, if you want to do IQ tests to see the people with the highest IQ who watch my comments, I'm fine with that too. But that's be practical, Tom. God damn it. Come on. Stop suggesting crazy things. I think my point was more about in general, not to take everything you see at face value, but I just had this thought a while ago, and I can't remember how I put it in words, so it's kind of like muddled, and I don't know whether it's actually what you're saying, Nate. Here's... Okay, they could be slightly different. Here's a broad criticism of everything you've ever said, Nate, in your entire life. Sure. I think... I mean, you're putting your content out there. You got to do that with the understanding that it's there for the general audience and the general audience is comprised of a broad spectrum of people, some of which are real dum-dums, some of which just don't care about not acting like dum-dums, and you just got to understand you're going to get shit comments, and I don't see the point of complaining about this. We're not surprised here. We just want to elevate the people who are dumb. We wouldn't... They're not going to be elevated. Those people aren't going to listen. We should try. There's no point. No, there's no point. You just got to go with the flow. You got to go into this being aware and go with the flow on it. I absolutely do. I absolutely do, which is why I don't know. I feel like I could make... To people who really know my content, I could make all kinds of racial jokes and tell incredibly dark jokes and stuff, but I choose not to do that kind of stuff in my main videos for exactly this reason. I don't expect everyone to have full context all the time. So yeah, I get it, but I still think it is a purely reasonable thing to suggest that just as we would treat the opinion on, I don't know, the rising ocean levels in the world, like we would trust an oceanographer with his opinion on that more than a commenter, like just a random man off the street who runs a hot dog joint or whatever. I respect the hot dog profession immensely, but nonetheless, I think the oceanographers were qualified. I guess this commenter rule is white until you think you know a bit more about what you're saying. I guess it goes back into understand. Refer to my formula, everyone. When I say commenter rules, and I say about banning commenters, I want to clarify the fact that that is all that I wish, that they do not act like this in my vicinity. I would never get Obama on the phone and lock these people up for making a comment that I don't approve of, and there's no empirical objective law here that they have broken and validated, and therefore they are a bad person who deserves to be ostracized for the rest of society, for the rest of their fucking miserable lives. They might not, they don't deserve to be ostracized, but they do deserve to be Auschwitz-sized. That's what I want for all of them. All that I want here is when I have the power, which I do in this context, I would like to use my power in ways that I think is justified and good. In, like, if I was CEO of YouTube, I wouldn't ban someone for these reasons, because, you know, there's the terms of service, you know, there's no, like, law they're breaking here. These are societal things that I just wish that was upon, you know, the people. And there are people who have turned it not dumb. The old Fag PCP fans are incredible, and they are great commenters because they've listened to commenter rules. And I've seen people become better commenters because of that video, and they take it to heart. And so there's a real benefit to saying these things. Maybe not to the swabs of the unwashed masses, but if I could make one person think the way I do, that's what I want to do in life. I want people to be like me. That's my goal here. I want people to be like me. If you're saying that my rule is too vague and impractical and won't, like, I don't know. You can't enforce it or whatever. It doesn't make any sense. Then so be it. But, God damn it, I'll continue to dream. I'll continue. I'll never stop. Ben, no matter what you do to me, no matter how mad you hurt my feelings. I'll do whatever I can take. Your feelings are grass, and I'm the mower. I thought you were going to say Catano or something cool. Oh, shit. Don't have been sick, dude. I do always agree that it is usually, like, the creator's fault. And, you know, the commenters do deserve leeway and, you know, some, you know, they deserve the benefit of that just as much as we do. But I think there's a compromise here that can be obtained. It would be better if commenters were smart for their own good because they wouldn't be retarded anymore. I'm just, it brings me back to like the, like if I made, I talk all the time about how I want the betterment of humanity, but if I just like made a joke one time about like, yeah, blah, blah, blah, I want to literally kill all humans. And like that, like just for whatever reason, that clip gets shared around. And they're like, oh, look at like evil mass murderer, you know, wannabe best guy ever. And then like a news story sparks because of that. Like that would be people being ignorant of like what I actually think. And it reminds me of the PewDiePie thing. That's like what happened to PewDiePie. People who didn't know shit about the context of the guy. Just like taking his jokes at the context. That comes back to just taking, to giving a generous interpretation to the things you have no context of. When is something inflammatory like that? I guess I would just say that the rules for a good comment are pretty similar to the rules for just being like a worthwhile person in general. Like if you run your mouth about something that you have no context of and no idea what you're talking about, then yeah, you look like an idiot and your comment is bad. Like if someone is like Nate said that women are bad, then it's like, well, okay. Which I do. But he does it all the time and it's a joke. I mean, if they had more context and they were like, well, I know that he's making all these jokes, but you know, I don't like that he makes these jokes for these and these reasons. And they have like a well-formed, like that's two different stories. So just know what you're talking about in the YouTube comments section and in life. Just the other day, I got a letter on one of my wee aguas from a girl who's like uncomfortable with my jokes about Hillary and stuff. And I just explained how I think it's all good fun. I'm not trying to hurt anybody's feelings. And I just gave like a thoughtful thing. And a lot of people commented and said like, dude, we really respect you for treating it this way and not just like shitting on her. And I respect her for not just shitposting, but like this is two people trying to understand each other better. And that's what I like as opposed to shit slinging, you know, just by respect. And that was a comment that was critical of your content. And that didn't mean it was a bad comment. Yep. Yeah, it was a great comment. I think that's something that's so lost on internet discourse that I really wish wasn't is that instead of just immediately going to like trying to meme it out and like shit on people, just like have that dialogue. Because then you're nine times out of 10, you're going to come to an amicable understanding of some sort, even if they're still disagreements. Like, well, at least I understand where they're coming from. Imagine you met this person in real life. You would never say these sorts of things to them. And like, you know, like guys like like monkey, for example, it seems to me like the difference between us who like are talking about rules and stuff. We like haven't given up on internet discourse. Whereas guys like him and like a lot of people on four channel, whatever, they're like, it's all a joke. You know, it doesn't matter. None of it's relevant. It's all completely goofy. Whereas I think at least I feel, and I think this is shared, that we think we can rescue this. Like there is good to be found here. I don't think we can, yeah, yeah. The jokes are good. I don't think we can rescue it, but that doesn't mean that it's worthless. Fair enough. Fair enough. I think it can be improved. I think you can cultivate a nice place on your own channel at least. Yeah, I suppose. Yeah, I guess I've seen that happen. I think for me it's less about trying to like change everything on a macro scale and just like choosing the kind of people I want to interact with. Sure. But you know, every one of these small changes affects is the large degree. You know, I totally believe in changing yourself to better the world. I'm totally in that and I feel that applies to you. And like just to speak in defense of monkey, like I think that his ideas are fine too. Like his comments are like a shit show, but there's kind of like some funny shit there as well. Well, that's how he likes it. That's totally fine, of course. Yeah, and he's the creator and he wants that to be the case. So there's no, there's absolutely no problem there. I for one would not like those comments to be on the PCP channel anymore, but that doesn't mean they're, you know, like the reason those were made because they thought those were good comments because you know monkey likes them. So you know, I don't think they were made in ill will. You know, all of the like mean like fuck you monkey comments, all those are made in good will because that's what he likes and that's what he promotes. It's a good time, or you know, I don't want to speak for him or anything, you know. But that's why I assume he's transpiring here. It's a difference of ideas about how to approach this subject. Which is totally fine. These are just boxes of ideas. Just don't limit yourself to just one. You know, atheism, Christianity, New Age beliefs, you know, just pack them all together. Pick and choose and build your own theism. It's great. It's like you're playing Minecraft and these are your materials and you just build yourself a house, build yourself whatever the fuck you want. That's what it is. Well, I don't understand things in Minecraft terms. I think we understand each other pretty well. If there's, I mean, I think, I guess we could talk all day about this, but- Well, I have one more rule. I was going to suggest going on to questions, but okay, I don't mean to- I have one more rule. And it's kind of a short one because it's kind of funny and silly. But it's, please swear more if you're going to be pretentious. One thing I hate, like, like, you know how, you know, in the early days of the internet, it was all like, fuck, and that was like a big deal. Like, people would swear and they could do it now. They could swear in front of people and they could say swears and their parents weren't seeing. And like, that was the thing. And there was swears everywhere. And then it was sort of like, oh, swears are for babies. Like, if you really want to get someone, you have to be a pretentious, know-it-all idiot who just types a lot of big words from the dictionary and the thesaurus. And you look like a cunt and I don't like you. You're just really annoying me. Side note there. But a well-placed swear word is hilarious. If you had your really pretentious, annoying comment, you know, smarmingly like brushing everything I said aside. And then at the end said, get fucked. It would make it better for me to read. And I would be like, yeah, all right, you got me. I'll sign up for that. I love big words. And I hate this vilification of big words. I like reading homes. Because there's big old words. What does that mean? It's not the big words. Big words are fun and funny. But if you use them wrong, the consequences are dire. So use big words, but only appropriately. You have to really understand the words. You have to read them and understand what the synonyms are and then just pick one of those. It'll be great. I have a rule that may just apply to me. I don't know if anyone else will agree with this. And it's being edgy for the sake of being edgy. And keep in mind, that does not mean don't be edgy. I am edgy. I like saying kill yourself. That's real good. I like that. But I think that at least from my perspective, there's a couple of times where I think I see comments in my comments section especially, where people will just tack on edgy, kill yourself things. That I don't think that's the tone of what they're trying to say. And they're just trying to say that to look cool or cute. This is just like, guys, you don't have to be mean. Be mean if you want to. But you don't have to be. That's not the thing that you have to be. I don't like you more because you say kill yourself or you fucking hack or something. Yeah, I know what you mean. It's like a foe, sort of like you're swearing or you're being edgy for the comedy. But it's not right. Can we convert that to a rule along the lines of, if you're an internet tough guy, you get an internet time out. Something on those lines. Yeah. I mean, you know, like, I don't know how to enforce that, but we'll find a way. This is one of my less harsh rules because I wouldn't ban someone for being like this. Just, you know, all of these rules are just guidelines. And oh shit, all the guidelines that I'll kill you. We didn't really define, like we talked about like deleting comments and turning off comments. We didn't really talk about banning people from comments, which I guess is we could simply say, if you violate enough rules enough times or in enough egregious ways, then you're just eligible to get banned. That's a long time offender sort of thing. Yeah, yeah, yeah. If you prove, if you show, if you show a, like, A lack of good faith? Yeah, a lack of good faith and like an indefatigable propensity to see big words. They're cool and I'm great. I'm the smartest. If you show a strong proclivity towards just shit comments and not knowing what you're talking about, then I think you should be banned and there's nothing wrong with that. Agreed, very much agreed. Yeah. And so just like, you can be nice. You don't have to be mean guys. You can be if you want to be, but yeah. You do not have to treat the internet as a sewer for poo poo words, everybody. It can be a nice place, you know? Yeah. Can be. Yeah, it's difficult to be the nice person saying, I really like that video thumbs up. Like that's hard to write because your mom will kiss you and then you'll feel bad. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, exactly. Some nice place for this. And I only have one last one. I don't know if anyone else has a rule. I've been carrying this. Thank you, everyone. This is specifically for me. In relation, this rule is in relation to ones, a very integral part of my- The people have been craving this one. Yeah, yeah. I have a very, I'm very torn with this. In it of myself. Because on one hand, I like scrolling down the Deagle Nation lecture and just seeing thousands of people with just a wall of ones. Just like that's it. Just a wall, a title wave of ones. It did. Well, sometimes there will be videos that I also want to see the discussion of Deagle Nation. And that comment section is really a beautiful mesh because here's, I think, how you do it the best way. You press one for as long as you want to. You hold that sucker down. You do some ASCII. You make a big one out of a lot of little ones. And you ask you out of ones. All that sort of great stuff. And then you just do comma or enter. And then type your other comment there. I don't want there to be ever a lot of people. Our contemporaries would not like a lot of the ones there. But I like the ones. I like it when you press one. Just also please make another comment. Don't make just one comment, please. So can we put down the language for this one as something along the lines of when you press one, you may also comment after said one. Yes. Something along those lines. You may also press two. If you're feeling saucy. You should just call the rule pressing one is only step one. Yeah. Oh, that's a good one. That's a good one. I like that a lot. Oh, that's an invitation to keep going. That being said, a press one, everyone. Take that first step. I just have a rule just to sum up. I don't know if this actually was in the first batch of rules, but again, just want to reiterate the rule is this comment section is not your home. You have no rights. Your ability to comment is a privilege. That I just want to put that in stone. That belongs on there. That's rule zero. That's rule zero. That should be rule zero. Indeed. All right. Well, sick. Excellent. Questions? Let's skedaddle on over to the PCP Patreon Lounge. This is all the people who aren't bad commenters. These guys are good. They're real good and they have given us money and gone into the exclusive PCP. Oh, you know what? Even if they were bad commenters, they've purchased annulments via their page. I was just going to say that. That's exactly right, guys. I just want to advertise. We should add this as an incentive. You get an immediate comment or violation annulment by pledging to the PCP Patreon without a doubt. That's official, so there you go. If you want to cleanse yourself and if you ever leave, if you ever sin again, you just need to up your pledge and it gets refreshed. So just keep that in mind, everybody. But before we get to the premium delicious decadent Patreon Lounge questions, why don't you read the dirty, disgusting, malaria-riddled, yellow fever, jungle fever Twitter question. Sounds good. The token Twitter question. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, it is the token one at this point. So everybody, just so you know, this is at at tpcrastinators, our Twitter account. Every Saturday when we record these around four or five, we send out the little thing with hashtag askpcp. So just send questions using that hashtag and we'll read them. So okay, here we go. Where did that go? Okay, here we go, here we go. At Doombox 2 asks, and you guys will have to wait because I have no shit about this, what are some good Patreons to donate to? I can think of only one. My one. Patreon.com slash save me. Obviously the question is all of us, but you know, if you've got some money left over, you know, obviously donate your entire wall to us. But if you have some leftover, that for some reason you can't give to us, you know, what are some other creators? That's the question. Oh, I have, I actually have a, I actually have a real answer for this. Yeah, yeah. There's one. Shit, oh god, what's it called? Okay, I actually have been a Patron for a long time. I'm pledging $1 a month to japaneseamodicons.me. They make like $7 a month. And I'm like, so I'm like a significant percentage of there. Would you give them five bucks or something? Uh, no, I give them one. Oh, okay. I give them $1 a month, sure. And, uh, actually I used to use Japanese emojis all the time, because they're fun. I haven't in a while, and that's probably a big mistake. And I should definitely max revive those. But it was because of this, I don't know, it was just a site with a repository of great hilarious emojis, or emoticons, rather. And I just like, wow, they make $7 a month for hosting all this stuff. If notable homeless man Ben St. can give to a patron, so can you noble viewer, noble listener. Exactly. True. Indeed. I have a little YouTuber that I famously, on my Twitter, have recently eaten top ramen while listening to, called Brain For Breakfast, who makes real cool CGP gray videos, but they're better, and I like them more. So there you go. He makes superior CGP gray videos. Yeah, yeah. With CGP gray in them, but his are better, right. He, yeah, he's like, you know, he makes a geography shit. So there you go. I like him. He's making like $200 or something. So like similar content to like the, yeah. Okay. Educational country things, and he uses boombox, because he's a hack and can't drive, yes. Law, I love Poland Ball. Excellent meme. Yeah, he's a good guy. Anyone else? Anyone else? Have any, I would never give money to anyone, so no, not for me. You can't forget about the classic Dr. Wolf. Oh, no doubt. That was a joke, ladies and gentlemen. Do not even think about looking at that. And I patron, or I used to patron Diggity Demon. And yeah, I feel like, I feel like that is like a good investment, because those cartoons are like really good. Ali animated. I appreciate the work that goes into them a lot. I have actually been, you know, there's this one, this one creator I'm following. Actually, it's two creators. It's these two brothers I've been following since like 2013. And you know, they've really gone down hill and I haven't posted in a while. But I'm just waiting for the day to come back. It's called, it's called Tee, I forget the name of it. It's something along, you know, Tee-Bee something. Anyway, go try and search them up. They used to do porn reviews, and I'm a real big fan of them. I've been patroning them for, you know, a real couple of years now. Now they're just hosting some shitty knockoff content from the Rowdy fuckers cartoon. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't know what's up with that. What a bunch of bullshit that is. But frankly, it's disgusting. Oh, you know what? I realize, sometimes I am tempted to give to patrons. The only people I respect on patron, the elderly people, are the people who make gated content. Because they're the only ones who ever tempt me to actually pledge that I love. Like me. Yeah, like I have been tempted to pledge to you so I can see those pages. Me and my speed draw videos and my early pages and my beta testing period for the game that's out now on stcomics.com. I'm a proud patron of patreon.com. You are. And I have been very early on. And I love you a lot. And I would love you too, viewers. And yeah, if you've pledged. And yeah, I made a deliberate, well, I went out of my way. Like I wasn't making the speed draw videos, for example. But I was like, I should really make some gated content. Like stuff that people that aren't interested aren't going to be mad that they're not going to see. But people that are interested will be like, yes, I'm getting my money's worth. Like I'm actually getting something for my pledge. And that's been pretty sick. I don't know if it works, but hopefully. And you hear viewers, if you donate to patreon.com.com. Plus been saying, he will love you more than he loves munchie. Only if you donate more than munchie. Which is a lot. I think munchie's donating about $100. That's the number to be, everyone. Is also incorrect to say that the champion chapter one will be fully out when people are hearing this podcast. It was out as of last week when the, when, yes, so yeah, it's been out, by the time this post, it will have been out for a week over at stcomics.com. There's your working post. Yeah. Stay away from that website. But I'll be starting Vapors Chapter Three soon and that will probably be Patreon exclusive until it's done, so if you want to see that. Is this the one about, is this the one about the girl, ew, gross? It is. I don't like those creatures. Oh no. Every single time Patreon comes up, I don't like the fact that my Patreon URL is my name. Oh yeah. So I never say it. I really should change it to Hippocrite, but I don't know if I can at this point. You can. I changed it. But I thought the point of that was that you didn't want to just tie down to Hippocrite and you wanted me to. I know, and that's the thing, because it's like what else the fuck will I use it for? Just do Hippocrite, I think that makes sense. And then you can change it again if you need to. By the time this comes out, it'll be Patreon.com slash Hippocrite. Hey, there you go. The same as everything else. But by the way, the reason I brought up gated content is I do want to salute the various porn Patreon people who I check in on. Yes, that's right, everybody. I love, this is one guy, Pinoy Toons. Pinoy Toons, I like him a lot. He makes very sexual drawings that I very enjoy with my penis. It's good. It's this weird brand of pornography, the very sexy pornography. I don't know if you've ever heard of it. That's right. So shout out to him and shout out to him for gating content within the demo of his porn game, that piece of shit with the free version. He put, in the middle of a fucking sex scene, he put the second part of it behind a fucking gate. Whoa. I do, I hated him so much, but I honestly respect him for having that audacity to just fuck me over like that, like a piece of shit. If you ever want to know what makes my stomach boil and my hair fall out and my fucking body turn to dust, it's looking at the Patreon, like who's getting paid the most and having it all these porn people and having all the actual people with real intellectual content be making like one fourth of the stuff that the fucking disgusting porn people are making. When is our wonderful red-pilled warrior Patreon overlords going to come down on those filthy porn makers like they promised they would in ages ago? When is that gonna happen? Are they doing that? Are they not doing porn anymore? They did say they were changing their policy at some point, so it's actually not a joke. You can't do any live action porn and any risque drawn porn will get you shut the fuck down. You can't make risque drawings on this website. Are you implying that you can make non-riske drawn porn? Is that, I don't understand the distinction there. The terms that they said is anything that was like, like rape or B.C. Alley or anything like fringe shit. You're not allowed, you're not allowed to draw, but you can do that missionary shit no problem and that's fine. What the fuck is that bullshit? That's the weirdest kind of context possible. It is pretty stupid. Only missionary. I just love vanilla. I guess they just wanna make, everyone to make vanilla porn, I guess. Well, cool. Anyway, you know, it turns to school. The absolute cowards. Yeah, it's embarrassing. Fucking across the board demolish them is what I say. Anything, even the tiniest bit risque, anything that can be confused for risque. Which would be obliterated. If you want to know more, I made a great video on my channel where I'm talking about this called Jack versus Jack in it. It was great. Oh, I watched that. 10 out of 10 of that video that said lamb-based Patreon. Excellent. We've got on a tangent here. Going back to the Patreon Lounge Discord. Here's something that we've discussed among ourselves recently a lot. Too much to a heated extent. From Jackboy in the Patreon Lounge. When do you guys think the PCPHQ will happen and then no proper grammar or syntax after we're just, I'm gay? Well done. I'm glad you're comfortable with that. He's queering. He's here and he's ready to stay. I mean, I don't know, dude. Maybe within the next year? I mean, plans are, keep an eye out around May of next year, I guess. I don't know. I'm just gonna level. People, I'm just gonna level with you. The more money you give us, the sooner it's gonna happen, all right? I'm just throwing that out there. It's true. That's true. That is true. I think it's just gonna happen. It's entirely dependent on how much you open your wallet is when this shit's gonna go down. It is a major operation to like, we all have to like readjust our entire lives if we're gonna make this happen. So it's a big thing. So it's gonna take a while. People need to get established and financial security has to happen for a lot of people. It will happen piece by piece, I am sure, when it finally does start to happen. It won't be a sudden change. If you want that insider info, really like the key players you have to look with your binoculars for are Nate and Digi. And wherever they go, then that's where it's gonna be. They unfortunately decide the fate of our lives. Oh yeah. Well, I am 100% committed. It is my goal in life, so we'll see. And it's just a matter of the financial things being where they need to be. So more money, the faster it happens. Legitimately, it's not a joke. It is my goal in life, so we'll see. Any more questions? I'm scrolling through. These are pretty bad. These are not very nice. They're not very choice. I can check out the fucking Twitter if we wanna go. No, no, no. We threw them their bones. It's kind of silly how the people in the Patreon lounge, they just throw away that chance of getting the questions asked. It's true. I don't understand. Here's, no, that's a terrible question. Never mind. Wait, okay, I got one. Here's one question here. We've been going a while. I'm ready to call it. Let's do one more here from the Twitter. Okay, so here we go. At, okay, this is where it's like, at L33CH, I think it's like leech, but it's like with numbers and shit. Okay, so at leech asks, should we have a public execution of all crippled people? Referring specifically to you, Ben. Great job, fucking bait. Great question. Great question, yes. I'm leaning towards you. And that's all. And that's all for today. No further comment. Presented without comment. Resounding yes, goodbye. All right, well, okay, on that front, thanks for listening, everybody. Make sure you pledge to our patrons. You can get those Q&A questions in. Preferably, once you read a dictionary or grow a brain or a soul, please. So you can ask good questions. I've said it before and I'll say it again. They have money, but not necessarily wit. Yeah. Slammed, fucking slammed patrons. And of course, people, don't forget. Five dollar pledges, get you access to all the bonus episodes. There will be nine out by the time this comes out. So that'll be very exciting. Very exciting, yeah. Very, very, mwah. All right, bye. Hang on, we got red bubble stuff. You can buy merch. We got PCB logos. We got stickers. Check out Hippocrates Twitter. He's using those, putting them on things. Extremely helpful. Check out my Twitter for that information. Yeah, yeah, he's using them. And is there anything else I'm missing? We're on iTunes and Google Play. I do it every week. It's a lot of effort. Listen to it so it's not wasted. Thank you very much, Tom. All right, thanks for listening, everybody. And we'll see you next week. Oh, bye. Goodbye.