YouTube Gaming Star PewDiePie Turns Off Comments For Good

[Laser Priest]

Trying to provoke is kind of a sad thing, sir.

You are most welcome. I like to educate the uneducated, though it appears that some are un-educatable.

I'd love to actually have a discussion, but it's abundantly clear you aren't looking to educate. You aren't looking to make a point or even follow your own. You're just looking to insult.

Well, jokes on you. I'm too stupid to insult.

 

[Ephidel]

I'd love to actually have a discussion,

I don't really have the space to quote all of your posts, which I really want to do.

Suffice to say that you've done some fantastic work discrediting the value of your own opinion here in this thread.

You're just looking to insult.

Really? I like history, I like to read how things happen. If you feel for any reason that my conduct has been wrong, please flag my posts as I wouldn't want to have broken any of the Forum Rules or unintentionally caused offence in any way.

Well, jokes on you. I'm too stupid to insult.

Do you really think so? I mean, you've gotten to over 15000 posts in 3 and a half years. You must be doing something right, right?

 

[TessaraVejgan]

Well, whatever works for him I guess. His channel his rules.I watched some of his videos and some I liked some I didn't.

 

[Laser Priest]

I like to educate the uneducated, though it appears that some are un-educatable.

I wouldn't want to have broken any of the Forum Rules or unintentionally caused offence in any way.

Well, good thing you've broken rules and intentionally attempted to cause offence then.

But glad to know I've discredited my own opinions. I would say I haven't considering I've actually made points while your argument has been grasping at random straws for cheap attempts at pathos or semantics as if they actually make for a standpoint, but you've shown me the error of my ways. Thank you.

 

[RedDeadFred]

As much as I want to dislike the guy for his videos, he sounds like a pretty good person. Besides, he must be doing something right to make that much money. If it was as simple as just screaming into a mic while playing video games, everyone would be rich.

 

[Nemu]

Signs you are an older, out-of-touch gamer: You see this headline and immediately think "WHO?!?"

I honestly don't know how content providers read comments on sites like YouTube, and I say that knowing someone with an "A Song of Ice and Fire"/GOT content channel. I think she is INSANE to read her comments.

 

[Denamic]

His comment section was a hate furnace powered by bile golems and populated by arguably sapient drool-goblins. Good riddance.

 

[Strazdas]

however him dimsabling comments, just like anyone disabling comments on youtube is just a sign of being unable to take criticism and literaly not giving a fuck about your community.

The problem with comments is not actually criticism to his videos. Those kinds of criticism post rarely exists in his videos. The problem is the mud slinging between fans of PDP and the haters.

Do you also think that's the same reason TotalBiscuit turned off his comments? Because he can't handle critics? Both of them are turning it off for other reasons, like not "she who will not be named"

I agree that among the comments there will always be bad commenters. Luckily in The Escapist, they get banned, on youtube that is harder to achieve, however i found that actually using the report function works wonders. He really does not even have to read it, having a place to discuss among fans bellow the video is far more important than having the author actually read it. discussion is important - thats how things get done. removing said discussion is detrimental to humanity.

TotalBiscuit has admitted that he is terrible at handling critics. he even deleted his own reddit account which was quite a thing in there and then explained it a bit more over a few posts [http://www.reddit.com/r/Cynicalbrit/comments/1xrx27/in_light_of_tb_abandonning_his_own_subreddit/cfe3rgc]. You really should have picked a better example, like NerdCubed or something.

Want an example of massive youtube person engaging with his fanbase? Nigahiga. He actively reads and responds to comments, and yet somehow it does not make him gray haired or anything. and somehow his youtube comment section isnt vile or toxic. He was the number 1 on youtube some years ago however now dropped down a bit. been following him for 9 years.

at this point I honestly think youtube comments are beyond defending

If you never try you never succeed. I had good discussion in youtube comments as well. people are people everywhere.

The YT comments section isn't designed for discussion. Stupid bait-y comments get voted up and put on top, so everyone ends up just replying to those comments. You want discussion, go to forums with moderators.

Youtube has moderators. Its just that most people complaining never bother even pressing the report button.

Honestly I liked his early videos better when he was just being himself. I was a subscriber for a little while but quickly left because I simply couldn't stand his persona anymore.

you mean when he was trying to forcibly undress his GF on camera? because that happened.

And you're continuing to speak as if some sort of discussion is silenced which leads me to wonder if you read anything other than the last sentence of my post.

There is no discussion on youtube. There is only the shitstorm. PewDiePie encourages people who want to discuss it to do so through his other social media. The YouTube comments only produce hatred and bile. No discussion. If the problem is the comments, then yes, shutting them down is a good solution.

Yes, it is and yes there is. Now if you dont read youtube comments you may not know about it, but then dont comment on it.
Oh, and you claim a solution is to move all the haters to twitter spamming? doesnt that service got enough of them as it is? shutting down comment section on ANYTHING is a BAD solution.

 

[Jumplion]

Making millions whilst people starve. You know, for context. Because doing a funny voice, makes you more worthy than the lives of millions of people.

PewDiePie does a bunch of charity work fairly often. If I recall correctly, raised about 250k in donations for Charity Water and matched it dollar for dollar or something to that effect. Did a few other charity events here and there to. Not saying this as an excuse for him while millions starv in your eyes, but I mean, you know, you're one to talk when you should probably be helping said starving people instead of complaining about a dude making a living. Just sayin'.

Like him or not, I personally don't really have much of a problem with him. He seems like a nice enough guy, and honestly I think the most prominent YouTuber turning off comments should ring some bells for YouTube to heed, if not for the community then for their bottom line as comments often link to further videos and create a whole loop of potential revenue for them. Hopefully they'll figure out something to assuage the comments situation because of this precedent.

 

[The Enquirer]

Well, I can say Pewdiepie did tell me somewhat what ALS is. Thought it was a stupid thing, but now I understand what it's about at least.

And yeah, I don't think I would like his videos just from the stuff I see here. If he's serious, he's kind of cool though.

Ah well, Life as usual for me. Never really watched the guy anyway.

Also, about youtube comments. When I read them, they tend to go off on tangents really quickly that don't relate to the video. I guess there's a reason why they're called youtube comments nowadays...

You know, oddly enough I thought the same thing. It was nice to see someone finally go around and explain what it was, how it feels and the significance of the challenge.

He also seems like a pretty cool guy when he's just acting like himself, not putting on that act.

 

[Addendum_Forthcoming]

$4 million a year.

Four million dollars a year.

A. Year.

Driver, let me off at the next stop please.

Now if only we had another planet I might be able to escape to.

Yes, this is ridiculous. It's almost insulting to think I spent 5 years at university to earn a measly 90k. I feel a certain 'One does not simply' meme coming on. This ... this shit right here ... this is why we can't have nice things.

 

[Fsyco]

Making millions whilst people starve. You know, for context. Because doing a funny voice, makes you more worthy than the lives of millions of people.

At least he doesn't make his living farting on stage.
You do realize that people don't just throw money at him, and that it isn't a binary choice between feeding the hungry and supporting the Pewds? He makes his money off ad revenue. In really simple terms, people give him money so that they can show off their product near him, and in turn hopefully make a profit from all the new people who have heard about the product. At no point in this proccess is 'give money to poor people' a good idea for the business. PDP can do with the money whatever he likes (and apparently donates a bunch of it to charity), but the people paying for adspace have no incentive to just throw away their money.

There's also the monkeysphere. Sure, the fact that people are starving sucks, but their suffering doesn't really impact me in any meaningful way. The human brain just can't wrap itself around the idea of 'millions starving'.

 

[Addendum_Forthcoming]

There's also the monkeysphere. Sure, the fact that people are starving sucks, but their suffering doesn't really impact me in any meaningful way. The human brain just can't wrap itself around the idea of 'millions starving'.

Really good point ... it is a bit bewildering. I think it's more a safety mechanism. The world is a shitty place, but if the whole weight of it were to rest upon your mind I'm pretty sure the suicide rate would skyrocket. When I was younger I visited a whole bunch of places, even places fairly well off in world standards (such as the Philippines) are worlds away from what are almost 'petty' problems we have in a Western lifestyle.

Like the time honoured 'Finish your plate. There're people starving, y'know.'

When I was a kid, I scoffed and rationalised being fairly wasteful as;

"Well it's not like my food and the entirety of market consumption dynamics is going to magically disappear because I don't eat my carrots."

Even when you look at the statistics (not just of food) of precious resource consumption and the like. It's a bit hard to picture how the US and Europe alone account for nearly 87% of the consumption of things like galium and indium and the like. Those two materials absolutely crucial in electronics and semiconductors. That there is simply not enough gallium to support the entire world having access to an iPhone or laptop, and yet we don't even bother recycling it in any large degree.

And we only have 30 years of the stuff remaining, so even if the rest of the world was to try to'catch up' to the technological potential of the West, in terms of computer ownership and the like, it's never going to happen simply because the resoure will likely be consumed utterly.

The idea that it is literally impossible for most parts of the world to be technologically sophisticated in any degree is kind of a mind boggling thing, in most aspects. Pretty unthinkable, that in order to fulfill the demand of us having the newest cellphones and laptops, the rest of the world is basically denied a resource critical to modern development.

 

[BeerTent]

I like how things are timed in such a way that when I felt an itch, and I had to scratch, he was like, "DON'T TOUCH YOUR JUNK!"

It's like he was really here. Founding a religion now.

 

[RA92]

The YT comments section isn't designed for discussion. Stupid bait-y comments get voted up and put on top, so everyone ends up just replying to those comments. You want discussion, go to forums with moderators.

Youtube has moderators. Its just that most people complaining never bother even pressing the report button.

YT is too large to be moderated. They can't even check claims on copyright infringement on videos without an automated system (which is poor by itself), let alone the hundreds of comments on each of these videos.

 

[Strazdas]

The YT comments section isn't designed for discussion. Stupid bait-y comments get voted up and put on top, so everyone ends up just replying to those comments. You want discussion, go to forums with moderators.

Youtube has moderators. Its just that most people complaining never bother even pressing the report button.

YT is too large to be moderated. They can't even check claims on copyright infringement on videos without an automated system (which is poor by itself), let alone the hundreds of comments on each of these videos.

you are assuming that checking for copyright infringement is done by same people or takes same amount of resources. this is false assumption. Moderators can easily be free enthusiasts of which you can find plenty, wheras copyright infringement claims (assuming most arent riduculous like the cop sirens being copyrighted) need specific legal knowledge people and a lot of resources to process manually.

Also even with automated system, lets say it works like reddit - 5 people report you your comment gets hidden. if reasonable people watching youtube would report bad comments, they would quickly get hidden and out of the way.

Its also worth noting that by default a reported comment means a message is sent to the uploader who has ability to delete comments, but it can be configured to not send such message (as it would probably be a lot of spam for big names)

 

[DerangedHobo]

*Snip*

I'm a hateful jaded bastard, I'm not going to deny that and despite me calling his content "swill" I can't harbour any malice towards the guy. He became a multi millionaire for making low rent (that's not a subjective opinion, that's pretty objective) content over and over again. The guy is a genius or has a horse shoe the size of china up his ass, maybe it's both. I never understood having malice towards creators in the first place, they wouldn't be there making money if there wasn't an audience buying into it.

I wasn't insulting pewdiepie for having low quality content, that doesn't make any sense. I'm just saying that the "bar" in terms of entertainment, especially when it comes to entertainment aimed at children and young teens, is set horrifically low. Look, I'm going to sound like a snob here, I get that, but when things like honey boo boo and storage wars get great rating don't you feel a pang of guilt or sadness? Like some asshole is just making this shit, knowing it's utter garbage and getting a fat stack of cash out of it? Again, you can't blame someone who produces "bad" content and makes money off of it, they're just fulfilling a demand but doesn't mean I have to like it.

I should close this saying that when I use the term "swill" I mean the generally low bar entertainment and media has, I'm not going to be one of those assholes who says "MUSIC WAS SO MUCH BETTER BACK IN THE [INSERT TIME PERIOD HERE]" but just looking at content from an objective basis now it's insulting. The utter fucking dog shit that is put on television, on the internet, sold as video games etc. is painful. Like I said, I'm not better than this, I buy into dumb simple entertainment but just throwing your hands up and going "Well it's just not your taste" is avoiding the issue here.

 

[immortalfrieza]

Great, not all hate letters and comments will be directly sent to e-mails, facebook, twitter, ect. I am not defending this guy. Far from it, I think he's garbage and refuse to even watch anything of his directly to avoid giving him money. I've seen things indirectly from other sources, and can see just how horrible it is. I'm just saying that the hate comments will find their way. And it will put a damper on those who were actual fans.

Not to mention that PewDiePie, like everybody else with a bit of sense who's ever posted a video anywhere knew damned well that there was going to be plenty of haters, arguments, whatever if he was going to post popular videos. He could just simply enjoy the good comments and IGNORE the bad comments like a mature and rational human being. If he or anyone else that does this wasn't willing to live with some bad comments he should have never uploaded anything to begin with.

To PieDiePie I'd say this: Video uploaders can do turn off comments, doesn't mean you or anyone else should. If you and others don't like comments, get off of Youtube.

 

[Ghadente]

I never saw much appeal in this guy, rather just play video games myself then watch someone make noises and screech constantly while playing them.
Baffling how much some of these people make just for posting videos, not sure why youtube or google or whoever pays them, pays that much to them. Hey more power to them I guess. there are plenty of other careers that are way overpaid as well.

As for the turning off comments, i feel like there has to be some simple solution to filtering out spam, trolls and other nonsense. Make someway to ban users from commenting or only allow certain subscribers to comment on a channel's videos, regulated by the owner of the channel.

You could always just ignore it, don't feed the trolls.
Anyways, it's really not a big deal and probably doesn't deserve so much media attention, like most things reported.

 

[Vicarious Reality]

The only reason to censor comments is because you let them hurt you