 Freedom, let's talk about Trolls. Trolls are those people online whose entire existence is defined by getting a reaction out of you and bringing you down. Oh my god, do we know that? Why is he telling us this? I'm bringing this up because Trolls are a huge part of the YouTube ecosystem, and it's important to understand how to utilize Trolls as a way to grow. That kind of sounds strange when you put it that way, doesn't it? Trolls don't help, we're only here to insult your mom. In this video, I'm going to provide a few relevant examples of trolling, and I'm going to use this channel as an example. What do you mean? I don't troll this channel, all of my input is valid. Before we get into all that, I need to ask you a very valid question. At what point is someone trolling? Many times people will leave a comment, and because we all say this in our heads, we have context that doesn't really translate to text. So for instance, if I were to say that your video quality is bad, of course, I may know in my head exactly where I'm going with that, but if I'm not communicating that properly, that can be a troll comment. A lot of times, something that you may take to be a troll comment can actually be someone trying to help you, but maybe not understanding how it's coming across. Engaging these comments and asking for more information often is the best way to handle this, because you never know who's actually trying to help and who's trolling. Starting conversations with these people can help you kind of get the ball rolling on some conversations, and who knows, you could end up making a friend. Why don't you ask your mom what I mean? Like she totally knows because I told her last night. Other times people are just not believers in your brand. For instance, a lot of people question George's authenticity because of how happy he is in his videos, how over the top and just gushing he is. Let me share something with you about George. George is the same happy, optimistic person in person that he is on his videos, and this is just who George is. Now, of course, maybe he on his videos dials it from a 10, maybe an 11, but he is in fact that person. It might be kind of hard for a lot of people to believe, but that's just who he is, and that's the kind of content he enjoys creating. Happy people can't be trusted. They make medicine for that. So when you have someone on your channel who you're not really sure if they're meaning well and maybe just coming off, I don't know, maybe a little trolling, or if they are indeed trolling, the best idea is to treat this person like they are your biggest fan, or that they could be your biggest fan tomorrow. You never know what relationships will develop out of YouTube comments. Some of my best friends to date were at one point fans, or at least people who found my content. What do you mean? You only have like five subscribers. You don't have any fans? Everyone has fans, whether it's your mom who watches everything that you upload religiously on Facebook when you post it, or whether it's an entire audience full of people that you're doing stand up for. Everyone has people that enjoy what they do, and many times when people don't realize that they were maybe unintentionally trolling or that their comments might have maybe been taken wrong, or that their inner dialogue gave some kind of context that was missing in the text post, a lot of people will change their tune, or they will bring themselves out into the light as nothing more than a troll. One of the things that I absolutely love about this community is the fact that even the trolls are the nicest possible people once you get to know them. Don't call me nice. I don't want to be nice. I want to be like awesome and epic. Never, ever, ever become confrontational with one of these people. That's not gonna help you at all. In fact, a lot of times what you're going to end up doing is playing directly into their hands. A lot of people will use this against you later, or they will use this as a justification for why they didn't like you in the first place. Often, just being happy, being friendly, and being helpful is the best possible solution. Just like if you worked for a multi-million dollar corporation and your job was on the line, that's how you want to protect your name here on YouTube. What are you talking about? You only have like five subscribers. That's like not worth protecting. It's not really a brand anyway. Anytime you pour your heart and soul into something, or attach your name to something, that is your brand. That is something that you are working to complete as a whole, and that's something worth protecting. It can be anything from your channel art to your company logo. This can also be the way that you interact in your videos, how you begin and end them. This can also just be how you interact with your community. All of that is what makes you, you, and what makes being part of your community that much more special. I am getting so bored right now. Tell me something I don't know. All right. Well, how about this? Trolling is nothing new. Trolling has been going on since anybody ever tried to do anything. Trolling is a byproduct of a few different things. Now, trolling among friends is usually lighthearted and really only a joke. However, online usually it's not necessarily lighthearted and it's really not a joke because it does hurt people's feelings. In the old days, let's say back in the 70s, 80s, 90s, further back than that, maybe these people were called hecklers and they would show up to comedy shows and plays and things like that. And they would ruin the entire show. Going back even further than that, these are the people who would throw rotten tomatoes at court jesters in the King's Palace. Are you trying to say that YouTubers are like court jesters? Like they don't even wear the same silly hat. Recently on this channel, Keemstar put out a video reminding everyone that entertainment quality is in fact very important. In fact, it's one of the most important things. I spend a lot of time talking about the metadata, the tags, title, description, optimizing that way. However, if your content's just not there, well then there's no amount of tags, title, description, or sharing it that's really going to help at all. And a lot of trolls kind of latch onto this or let's face it, a lot of them have absolutely no clue what goes into really making a video like the one you just produced. What's the matter, you don't have anything there? Uh, no, but I have a cousin who's like over famous, but you can't meet her right now because he's in the Swiss house with his wife on vacation and she's a model. It's also vitally important that you understand that engaging these trolls is really the key to helping yourself grow as a creator. Because through some of this that may be taken as trolling, you can actually grow your quality, grow your brand, your subscribers, your views, all of these things that we use as metrics for growth. I'll use an example from this channel. For instance, there were some people who at first I thought were trolling about the quality of the videos I was putting up. So all I did was I dropped a few comments saying, what do you mean? Explain what you mean. And through a few different conversations, I got the quality of these videos higher and higher and higher. It's still not perfect, but it's something I'm working on. And if Adobe Premiere would stop crashing, I would really be nice. Is that why you had to steal a bit from Ray William Johnson with his troll? Also, any videos that require any sort of planning, if you just take a little bit of time to plan ahead and get to know your audience, get to know your trolls, you can actually maybe put in a couple of Easter eggs or throw in a few comments to combat trolling before they even happen. This is usually more of an advanced technique. And it's something you should definitely do tongue in cheek. But if you address an issue or a quality concern before they do, well, it's kind of like making fun of yourself before the bullies do. It really does work. And it takes a certain amount of sense of humor to really pull off and to do well. I would tell you to be more creative, except for the only thing creative about this video is the fact that your mouse is manufactured by creative. Just like in the business world, you have to keep in mind you have an image to protect. So you can't really engage these trolls in a negative way. Staying positive, asking questions and interacting as if this possible troll is your biggest fan is going to be your best source of gaining new fans, even if that troll does not respond well. Other people who see it in the comments will eventually look at it and go, Hey, this is a nice guy. He's really trying. And if that doesn't work, asking loaded questions might also be an okay idea. Are you trying to pantomime like you're typing or are you just trying to tickle me? I hope that this video has been helpful for you. If it has, let us know in the comment section down below. My question to you is what do you do when you have a troll on your channel? Has this video made any difference whatsoever? And I think that this is going to be the only time I will ever do this ever. But freedom, I want you to give me your trolliest comment. Go ahead, let me have it. Let me know if you were a troll, how you would try to get on my nerves. And in the comments down below, I'm going to try to see if I can tell the trolls from the non-trolls. This might be fun or I might regret it. Till next time, I'm Anthony with freedom. Like, subscribe, comments please. And we will grow together as a family because this is the freedom family. You are part of it, we are all part of it, and we're all growing together. So grow with us and partner with freedom. That play now button right there on the video bar is all you need to click to get started. In this video, I'm going to provide a few relevant examples from this channel, and I forgot the rest of the line.