How to deal with critics.

I have been creating content for about 8 years now, mostly for YouTube in a channel with over 500k subscribers, I also work for an online school with over 300k students signed up. During this time I've had awesome reviews, good reviews, bad reviews, angry reviews and all kind of ways to say both good and bad things, so I have had to learn how to deal with reviews, specially the bad ones since those are the ones that stay in your head the most

In this article I would like to give some advice to people who are starting creating content for the internet in order to help them pass through comments that can ruin your day immediately.

One for the reviewers

This is important to say and say it loud *words matter.

The way you say something, the way you give advice, feedback, or the way you complain matters to someone, so it is important to keep in mind that there are humans behind the content that you consume everyday so you can express what you want in a way that helps other grow, instead of just making them feel bad about it.

And keep in mind that if you have been rude to someone, any moment is a good one to retract yourself and say sorry.

The pain of bad reviews

I know, I know... depending on the day you are having, receiving a bad comment can really ruin your day, like I have had sleeplessness nights just thinking about that one comment that bashed my work, or that one rude person that keeps leaving bad reviews on my work. I have seen people leave the public space just to avoid dealing with rude people. So yeah, it is super important to have a plan or some advice to deal with this kind of comments.

I mention this just so you know that it is not only you, everyone receives bad reviews, even those who have been doing this for years. And you are not alone when feeling bad about it, you are not being dramatic and you are not overreacting to the words of someone you don't even know. Feeling bad about this is not only valid, but it is something every creator has to dealt with.

I understand that for many of us, getting our work criticized feels like being pointed towards you personally, so it is understandable tho feel bad about it.

How to deal with bad reviews

After validating our feelings, let's go to how to deal with this.

It is not personal (normally)

First of all, you are not your work and your talent or capacity can't be measured through just one thing you have done, so, don't take it personally.

Of course, in some cases the hate and the bad reviews are, in fact, personal, but in those cases it is important to use the blocking tools from social networks and to keep the haters away from you, block the noise and focus on those who want you to grow and for your work to get better.

Switch your perspective

A coworker I admire a lot always remember us how important is that someone invest they time in the content we create, in our case we teach programming so He keeps reminding us about the value of someone investing their time for learning.

This is important for me because it helps to keep working in improving the content I produce, but also to keep myself humble.

Learning to receive positive feedback it is also learning to be humble, because sometimes even if the person that leaves their review tries to do so in a positive way, it feels bad when someone didn't liked your content.

As important as the time you have invested producing content you also can think about the importance of people watching or consuming your stuff, so when someone comes to say stuff like "Audio was horrible", think not only about how that makes you feel as a content creator, but also, how does bad audio makes you feel as a consumer.

Keep your perspective as a consumer in front of you while reading reviews on your content.

Respond with kindness

This sounds silly but it is super effective. I understand if you don't have the wellness to go around responding with kindness to bad reviews, specially to the ones that didn't express the same kindness, but yeah, it works.

Try it out sometime, read what the consumer says, breath and then answer with ass much kindness as you can, wait for the response of the person behind that specific review, most of the times they will change their tone and that will probably lead them to also express what they liked about your work, not only the bad stuff about it.

Express gratitude about their feedback, express how does that make you feel in a kind way, express the importance that your work haves for you, express your intentions to make your work better or how much effort you are putting on creating.

Block the haters

Don't let the haters set the tone of the conversation, don't let them create noise around the positive feedback, just block them without hesitation or guilt.

Negative feedback is always louder

When was the last time that you received an excellent service and you stopped to express how good the service was? Like, when was the last time you order food that was excellent and you decided to express it to the personal? And now think, if instead of that, the food had been awful, what were the chances that you would have express that?

Now copy this quote "Negative feedback is always louder" paste it on Google Docs, Pages or Word, now print it and stick it in front of you and always remember it.

Like, this is probably the most important advice in dealing with bad reviews, they do not express the general feeling about your work. There is no general rule but for every bad review there are plenty of more people that felt good about what you did but didn't take the time to express it, and it is normal we are all like that, we tend to say stuff when we feel cheated or when we feel bad about something but not when we feel good about it.

This is also a reminder to say kind things to the people that produce the work you love, to leave good reviews, to thumb up the video, to subscribe, to like, to say "thank you", "awesome work", "keep doin these" and so on.

Remember, a bad review does not mean your work was bad!.

Don't expect everyone to like your work.

In México we say "No soy monedita de oro" which means, I am not a little coin of gold. The proverb means that no one is a coin of gold that everyone is going to love, and the same applies to your work, it is not a "monedita de oro".

For example, you can learn programming with videos, books, tutorials, live codings, presential classes, online courses, with a mentor, without one, through conferences, etc. There is no universal way to teach programming, and every person is going to like one way more than others, expect to have bad reviews not because your work is bad, but because it is going to work for some people but it won't for others.

 Final thoughts

Just to summarize, there will be bad reviews, remember they are louder and nothing is a coin of gold, except well... coins of gold.

Be kind, if you fell like that, don't take it personal and in case someone makes it that way, feel free to block they, leave no space for the haters and the noise they produce.

Learn to accept constructive feedback with humility because remember, these people are also investing the only thing you cannot buy back, time.

And above all, do not stop, produce content for you, your creativity, you will get better at it, you will find your audience and you community, it just takes time.