7 Tips For Proper YouTube Etiquette In 2012

It’s a new year and we are all looking to make 2012 the best year of our lives. One area of our lives I believe we should focus on is our YouTube viewing/comment etiquette.

I’m not one to ever want to read the comments people post on YouTube. Mostly because I know what to expect: angry and immature people have no idea what they’re talking about, but I never knew just how bad it has gotten.

To quote Urban Dictionary’s definition of YouTube, it has become  “A cesspool of illiteracy, misogyny, racism, idiocy, hatred, violence, barbarism, intolerance and general lack of humanity that has not been seen since the middle ages.” No truer words have ever been spoken.

1.  CAPS LOCK IS CRUISE CONTROL FOR FUN!…not.
We get it. You love the band. If you didn’t, you probably wouldn’t be watching the video. It’s OK to tell the world your love for the band, but let’s try our best to not yell at everyone over the internet.

Here is a guy commenting on Rise Against ‘s video for Prayer of the Refugee:

Not only do I have this guy yelling at me, but apparently his dad is too.

2. Don’t bash people who dislike the video
Everyone is entitled to their opinion. Just cause someone hits the dislike button doesn’t mean they are a stain on the underwear of life.

This is a perfect example of what I’m talking about.You will find these types of comments on EVERY music video known to mankind. This comes from the first page of comments of Muse‘s video for Resistance:

Yup, that just happened.

Four comments in a row of the same joke in a matter of hours. Let’s be a little more creative, peeps!

3. Don’t write paragraph long comments saying why your favorite band is better
My eyes get clobbered with a wall of text when people have to explain in gruesome detail why Metallica is better than Megadeth or why the kids these days have horrible taste in music and why they should listen to classic rock.

You could spend an afternoon when you’re bored reading these and just laughing at how angry these people get:

For pages and pages of comments, this back and forth bickering occurs. If you’re like me, you could just sit back, relax and laugh as people take their anger to the internet. Can’t we all agree they’re both great metal bands?

4. Don’t spam.

This is self explanatory. This ties in with a pretty simple rule for anything to do with passwords. KEEP THEM SAFE! Hackers are always lurking around. Always have a good password and keep it to yourself.

The other type of spamming that occurs is people re-posting chain comments. These are way annoying and pretty much serve no purpose:

Here is another one you find frequently:

I think that guy’s reply pretty much sums up what all of us think when we see these chain-mail comments.