I’m a big fan of YouTube. By default, this also makes me a fan of anybody brave enough to post a video of their talent, whether it’s singing, dancing, comedy, gadgets, etc. You are all awesome people and cyberspace would be far less interesting without you.

I have frequent YouTube sessions whereby I watch the videos of others. A few days ago, during one of these sessions, I came across a video and was shocked beyond belief. At this point I would like to take the time to assure you that there was nothing wrong with the video which, incidentally, was a cover of Adele’s ‘Rolling in the Deep’.

The video I’m referring to was professionally shot and the singer was aesthetically pleasing to the eye. I enjoyed watching and tried to rate the video (thumbs up) but found that ratings had been disabled. Naturally, being curious (or slightly nosey, perhaps) I wanted to find out why this might be and so I began to read some of the comments.

Here are some of the choice words people in our questionable society chose to post on a complete strangers video:

i leave this video with the worst scare of my life ………

U SUCK

u can tell ur lip singing

you suck. this sucks…

FAKE

lipsinking???

You just fucked up the song

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

ahhh make it stop !

ooommmggg… wtf. Shit.

my mom came running into my room yelling the heck was all that racket

no , no , no , no , just no.

stop singing please !!!!!!!

OMG you seems to be so untalented,i bet you cant play any instrument

nice lip singing!

eyebrow raising.. stuck up ?

ego much?

b4 u start complaining bout ur ex get ur roots done girl ur hair is ugly

Word of advice… Your not all that, so stop acting like it.

your ego is to big for this song

Boo u fucken suck !!! U just ruined the song for alot of peoplee how daree u!!

omg so fake

bitch

wow im sorry i really hope you dont get famous.

Dude your voice is annoying as fuck!

i just died! thats so fake! -__-

you sound like one of those cheesy cartoon-disney singers…your voice got on my nerves.

SHE SUCKS! SO STOP BEING SO NICE TO HER & TELL HER STRAGHT UP SO SHE DOESN’T EMBARESS HERSELF!

i’m puking(

this hurt my ears!! -.- soo annoying holy crap

This sucks…sorry.

To clarify, yes she was lip-syncing because this was a professional video that was done after she had recorded the cover in a studio and had the song mixed, etc. Not even the crème de la crème sing live in their official music videos. We know this. I mean, it would be silly to think that all three Christina Aguileras sang live in the video for ‘Candyman’. For starters, there’s only ONE Christina Aguilera.

Back to the video in question…

The comments on the singer went from bad to worse in quick succession. People commented on things like her hair and how fake she was as a person as though they knew her in real life.

Now, I’ve thought long and hard about these actions and the mentality behind it. I may require some help in understanding this better…

·         Person searches for Adele – Rolling in the Deep cover or at least Adele – Rolling in the Deep

·         Person comes across cover video in question

·         Person becomes curious by the number of views and decides to watch

·         Person decides he/ she does not like the cover

·         Person decides to listen to/ watch entire video that they have already concluded they do not like

·         Person decides they MUST post a comment sharing their hatred of a video they do not like

·         Person complains how they just wasted 3 or 4 minutes of their life watching this video (no constructive criticism given)

·         Person returns to video they dislike to add further hate comments because it’s ‘fun’.

Yeah, I still don’t get why people do this, especially when a lot of people doing the hating do not appear to have uploaded videos and therefore are safe from being opened up to such hatred.

Personally, if I don’t like a video, I tend to navigate away from the page and watch another video.

I’m not saying that people should only leave nice comments with rainbows and unicorns in mind, but perhaps mommy dearest was right – if you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all.

There is a way to leave feedback on videos posted by others. (Be constructive in your criticism. Don’t get personal. Don’t be outright rude.) Hating is NOT the way.

Can’t we all just get along? Like, pretty please?