How to cope with CRITICISM on YouTube | Elle Meadows GREAT BRITISH YOUTUBERS with NEIL MOSSEY 007

How do you cope with bad comments and criticism of your videos on your YouTube channel?
@ElleMeadows has been uploading for 6 years with 55k subscribers.

My name's Neil Mossey and I help high-achieving creators and performers to make more people happy. The GREAT BRITISH YOUTUBERS PODCAST is to help you keep your YouTube channel going.

GREAT BRITISH YOUTUBERS | YOUTUBE TIPS AND TRICKS full series playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLtZM4-pHDwPmfZSonvf366y7rmJLV5dFG

ELLE MEADOWS YOUTUBE CHANNEL: https://www.youtube.com/user/HiyaElle

How to cope with CRITICISM on YouTube | Elle Meadows GREAT BRITISH YOUTUBERS with NEIL MOSSEY 007



TRANSCRIPT: (CLICK PLAY ON THE VIDEO ABOVE)

Yeah I just don't care what other people think because it wasn't for them!
[Music]
And then just decided that like it wasn't... ohhhh,falling off my little tiny stool!

THIS IS THE TRANSCRIPT - CLICK PLAY ON THE VIDEO ABOVE!

This is the Great British Youtubers Podcast with me Neil Mossey, it's great to have you here!
Today we're going to meet Elle Meadows.
Elle has been youtubing for six years and has 55000 subscribers.
This is part two of our chat and the first part is linked in the description below.
Elle Meadows is there something that other youtubers do that you don't do?
Post regularly.

I don't post regularly anymore um...

I’m definitely like - I used to be a post weekly video kind of girl, um and then I went on hiatus and I was gonna come back and do the same thing and I tried to do the same thing for about eight weeks, um and then just decided that like it wasn't... oooh, falling off my little tiny stool! Um...
Then I decided that kind of you know the weekly schedule, the gruelling schedule really wasn't making me happy and I couldn't see it-- unless I took on I don't know like assistants.

There was no way I could do it.

Is there... is there anything that you would say to your 1000 subscriber self?

I’d probably say to my thousand subscriber self "pace yourself".
Don't put your all into every video because it's completely unsustainable - and I also say understand who you're making videos for.

I was constantly fighting against my branding which was this teen and tween sort of market persona.
I was making that content but then secretly kind of hating it and hating myself for becoming - for being that person - because it wasn't who I was.

I wish I’d realized that I was just playing a very marketable character and that the more I pushed that - the further I pushed it - the more I embraced it - the more I would be able to build a brand.
I hadn't realized that you can disconnect the person you put on youtube from yourself.

It could be more of a character as opposed-- for a lot of people the persona is just an extension or an exaggeration of themselves, whereas who I was playing which was like a very Americanized English person - it wasn't me and I could separate that.

I could see her as a character and a brand and if I’d recognised that and put more energy into refining that brand...

I don't know, I think it would have helped both my channel and my self-esteem because I would have recognised that this person wasn't me and that actually having this really strong branding is something that will really help you go far.

That's really wise Elle!
Thanks!
Should we take a break?
Do you want - should we just have a little drink?
Neil, the saddest thing is I've finished my tea!
I’d offer you some of mine!
Oh thanks!
I've got really cold dregs, we're all good.
And you too at home feel free to go, get a drink.
Join us.
I said that really creepily!
[SLURPING NOISES]

What is... I think you might have covered it beautifully right there but is there anything else that is the hardest part of being a youtuber?

Probably what goes on behind the scenes in the youtube community.
Again, I’m quite far removed from it now.

So I started hanging out with people who are actually quite a lot bigger than I was just through kind of chance meetings and chance events and I’m still friends with a few of them now or like...
if you know a lot of them I haven't seen for ages and if I bumped into them it would be absolutely fine but it's hard to know who's your friend and who's just hanging out with you because you want to take photos together and you know cross-promote your instagrams or whatever or if you only interact with someone on twitter not because you're friends but because it helps your brand to be associated with them.

I think everyone genuinely or most people genuinely want to be friends but there is always that question mark under the friendship of is this real are we friends or is this just a cross-promotion thing?

It's a weird community when the power dynamics between people and like who has the most views whose the most subscribers or whatever - like those power dynamics are everywhere and people really buy into it and it can really...

It really affected me and it can really damage your self-esteem and this whole thing at conventions was... there's always after parties and if you - I mean we're kind of talking at least 20000 subscribers here if not way more like - I was really lucky to be sort of where I was in terms of my social standing in the community at the size I was.

I really-- I actually really enjoyed that side of things like the hustle and...
because I was good at it.
But it's stressful because you feel like if you don't get into a party you're like lesser somehow, you're not worth it, and that is really representative of what your experience can be or at least what my experience was.

I think that being said I really enjoyed the majority of it.
There is just this recurring power dynamic at play and the hustle and the networking like you have to be good at networking.
You have 55,000 subscribers though, and you have 3.3 million views.

One of your videos has got 1.2 million views?
That must have felt pretty special?
Um yes I know like, it was a really slow burner uh, basically it blows up every April 1st and gets like a few hundred thousand views on April.

But I actually the first year that it happened, I didn't notice I like... because I posted it and I think it did like it was an okay video. The following year, it blew up again and I didn't notice and I was suddenly like oh why is that video got like 400000 views or that...

That was before I even had my channel monetized so it wasn't like, I missed out on so much money!
Yeah and then every year from there it's kind of like gotten a few hundred thousand views and it kind of ticks along so it's been really slow coming like - you say "I’m like oh yeah that video has got a million views!" Oh yeah? Oh yeah!

What tiny improvement would you make to youtube if you had the the power or the ability to?
A scroll function like on facebook.
When you can just scroll and it recommends you random stuff!
You don't have to pick from a list of suggested videos.

You can just scroll.
That'd be great.

If I had to change something about YouTube culture it would probably be um, that we reward - that the YouTube algorithm would lean more towards like valuable content or educational content, meaningful stuff...

I feel like something we haven't even touched on this video is like criticism?
I think criticism doesn't generally bother me.
Just because I am under no illusion that there is going to be ways that my work can be improved.
And so if you go in being like oh well this is good but it could be better... but you know it's part of a process.

This is a stepping stone towards better content.
When someone comments like "oh I didn't like this".
Firstly it's not a surprise that there was something that someone could not like.
Because you had already anticipated there being flaws.

But also, you can then sort of turn around and say like to yourself - not to them - and be like: "Yes there is inevitably this flaw in this content, but why do I care about your opinion because are you an expert?"

I think it's so much more important to value like industry professionals and your peers and people whose opinion you would value in day-to-day life, and specialists, experts like... value their opinion on what the flaws of your content might be or ways you can improve might be.

Don't necessarily care so much what just a random person thinks you could improve on or what a random person thinks like... if someone criticises me personally and say like "oh I don't like this thing about your physical appearance"

I could just be there and be like: "Okay! I mean I don't either. Or that's your opinion but don't bother me!" You know.

Or, thanks, anonymous avatar!

Yeah.
It's just that thing of like if you go in knowing that your content could be better, you could be better, basically never assume that something is perfect because FYI perfection is a myth, then it's really hard for anything to kind of catch you off guard and upset you because you're already aware of what issues there could be.

I feel like I’m at a point now where I want to make content that I would want to watch or content that I would want to show my friends, and so actually it...

I've kind of gone full circle from making content for myself to making content purely for a consumer - back to making content for myself and my friends.
And that's a place where happiness is more attainable and satisfaction is more attainable, because you're only making something for yourself.

I feel like lots of people say that and I never really grasped it until now.
Yeah I just don't care what other people think because it wasn't for them.
By all means enjoy or not and or don't enjoy this content but actually I made it for myself, or I made it for my friends to watch or I made it for my family to watch, or you know and so it isn't so important that people other people enjoy it.
Is there anything, any closing thoughts or... or anything that... that we haven't covered, that you might like to share?

I don't know about you but it really freaks me out that the most common "What I want to be when I grow up" from kids is a youtuber.
How weird is that?
It used to be like what?
A princess? An astronaut?
Now it's a youtuber?
That's crazy guys! It's crazy!

I think like as a society we need to go back to valuing quality over quantity and sort of focus on, I don't know, I’m very big on skill mastery and original thought or attempted original thought.
Creativity. Intellectualism, like-- I like to learn, I like to make, I like to grow, and I feel like with youtube being as popular as it is there is the opportunity for it to be such like a positive platform where people can learn, and share, and make and turn a profit doing that.
But there's also the risk that it can become incredibly like vapid and vacuous and I think that's something we should collectively try and avoid.

Oh! I tell you what we haven't done!
Could we pose for a thumbnail?
[Music]
[LAUGHS]
Hang on, let me take the microphone off.
[Music]
Can you come close to the camera?
[Music]
You have my permission to just put that in at the end!
And please hit the subscribe button if you want to see more Great British YouTubers.
There's a playlist and a podcast. All the links are in the description below.
I'm Neil Mossey and I'll see you on the very next Great British YouTubers.

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