Navigating the Feedback Loop: The Impact of Criticism in the Digital Age

00:00:00: Welcome to another episode of the Off The Record, The Academind Podcast, podcast today

00:00:06: with

00:00:07: Maximilian.

00:00:08: And me, myself, Manuel.

00:00:09: Hi.

00:00:10: Manuel, that was a really bad introduction.

00:00:13: Is this negative feedback?

00:00:15: It might be.

00:00:16: Did I ask for any feedback?

00:00:19: No.

00:00:19: How do I care?

00:00:21: Obviously not.

00:00:22: But how would that feedback help me?

00:00:25: Just that it's bad, but this isn't anything constructive.

00:00:28: But that's what we and every person who creates something or shares something or does not

00:00:37: just live in their house and never leave it or never use the internet have to deal with,

00:00:43: right?

00:00:44: That's true.

00:00:45: And first, this was a great introduction now, I think, and second...

00:00:50: Thanks for the positive feedback.

00:00:51: Yeah, that's a positive feedback.

00:00:52: And second, that's today's topic.

00:00:54: We want to talk about negative feedback on the internet, how we deal with negative feedback

00:01:00: now and some years ago.

00:01:03: And to get started, I just want to talk about the general feedback culture that we have.

00:01:08: As you said, especially for us as online creators, anything you post, anything you create leads

00:01:15: to feedback, positive and negative one.

00:01:17: And we want to focus on the negative one because especially if you're getting started, the

00:01:22: negative feedback is the one that stays in your head.

00:01:25: Let's say it like that.

00:01:27: And I would say not just if you're getting started, right?

00:01:30: I guess there is this saying that like one negative comment is worse than 20 positive

00:01:38: comments are good.

00:01:39: So that one negative comment that sticks in your head and you think about it and you can

00:01:46: read 20 positive comments in a row.

00:01:49: If there's one negative comment, that one will stay out, stick out.

00:01:53: And I think that the crazy thing is that it's not only us who have this experience, but

00:01:58: I think that many people who create something, maybe also some singers, any kind of person

00:02:04: creating anything always gives the negative feedback this power.

00:02:10: And everybody knows that it's often not worth it.

00:02:14: We don't talk about negative feedback in general, by the way.

00:02:17: It's this unconstructive, hater-like feedback that is the one we talk about.

00:02:23: And although you know that by not ignoring that person, you give this person so much

00:02:27: power, you keep on thinking about that feedback.

00:02:31: And on the other hand, that of course is probably what gets certain people to behave like that

00:02:38: because they might know which power they have.

00:02:42: It's also worth noting that I would say this is exclusive to the Internet.

00:02:46: It does not matter what you're sharing or creating.

00:02:48: I guess everyone knows that even if you just post in a forum, in some online board, you

00:02:54: might get very negative replies from time to time.

00:02:58: But it's not something we know from the real world, right?

00:03:02: I mean, of course you get feedback there, you get complaints, and of course you also

00:03:06: have occasionally customers, if you run a restaurant or something like this, who misbehave.

00:03:12: I'm not saying – it's probably wrong to say that you don't have it here, but

00:03:15: the rate is most definitely much lower because on the Internet where everyone is anonymous

00:03:25: and can post basically without consequences, of course it's way easier there to behave

00:03:33: like that.

00:03:33: It's the lack of respect.

00:03:35: It's the lack of respect.

00:03:36: Because in the Internet you don't see the other person, so you can't just write whatever

00:03:40: you want.

00:03:41: But if you have to go to somebody who created something, who cooked your dinner or whatever,

00:03:46: and tell him this is not good, let's say it this way, then you attack this person,

00:03:53: so you kind of disrespect this person a bit.

00:03:55: And the hurdle, doing this in real life, is a totally different one than the one on the

00:04:00: Internet where you just have to type something and then turn off your computer and goodbye.

00:04:03: Yeah, because you have to live with the consequences there.

00:04:06: If I tell a real person face-to-face what you did sucks, I have to live with the consequences

00:04:13: that I'll get back feedback, so to say, that depending on what I say it might get

00:04:20: physical.

00:04:21: But even if not, I have to live with the fact that that person may now react and will react

00:04:27: to what I said.

00:04:28: And on the Internet that's not the case.

00:04:31: So you provide feedback, you get feedback back.

00:04:34: And on the Internet, feedback is only in this written form and this won't hurt you

00:04:37: because if you're not a creator and you're just an anonymous person posting, hey, this

00:04:42: is shit, then you don't care because you didn't do anything.

00:04:44: But the creator who put his thought, his time, his money maybe into creating this content,

00:04:50: well, for him or her, it's hard to ignore that because you put your energy into that.

00:04:58: Yeah, absolutely.

00:04:59: And I guess that's something bad that also, of course, kind of came up and occurred together

00:05:08: with the rise of social media and the importance of social media, right?

00:05:12: It probably started there.

00:05:14: I guess it's not a secret that comments on YouTube or social media platforms in general

00:05:20: or also on news outlets and their websites are amongst the worst places on the Internet

00:05:25: because it's all hate and negativity there.

00:05:28: So I also want to make it really clear, we're talking about a super low rate of negative

00:05:34: feedback and especially hate is really rare and most of the feedback we get and I would

00:05:42: guess most creators and people who create stuff get is positive.

00:05:48: It's really positive or it's maybe negative feedback but not hate feedback but constructive

00:05:54: feedback.

00:05:55: That can also have its downs, we'll get to that, but that's the thing.

00:06:00: Most comments are positive and yet it's the rare hateful one that gets you.

00:06:06: But isn't that something, I'm not a psychologist, but isn't that something that if you have

00:06:11: lots of great experience in a year, for example, then you have one bad one.

00:06:15: Isn't that the one you, some years ago, you never forget, you know?

00:06:19: You think about the positive ones but you forget more of the positive ones but the negative

00:06:23: one always is the one you remember, at least I do.

00:06:27: So maybe that's also a personal thing but I don't know.

00:06:30: I don't know.

00:06:30: I would say it really depends on the severity of the experience.

00:06:36: Like if a close relative died, obviously you're going to remember that the person is dead

00:06:42: but also the feeling back then.

00:06:44: So that's going to stick.

00:06:47: On the other hand, I can recall negative experiences outside of the Internet which I totally forgot

00:06:53: about now, which I guess, well, I couldn't remember if I forgot about them but they're

00:06:57: not there in my day-to-day thought process.

00:07:00: If I think about the year 2022, for example, it was a very positive year overall for me

00:07:06: personally because a lot of good things happened in my very personal life.

00:07:10: I got married and so on.

00:07:11: But of course, in that year, there also were negative things and I can recall them if I

00:07:17: think about it but it's not the first thing that comes to my mind.

00:07:20: So I must add that if you're getting married, the fact whether this is a positive or a negative

00:07:26: thing, this takes a few years normally until we can finally decide.

00:07:32: Okay.

00:07:32: Whatever.

00:07:33: I'll leave that there.

00:07:34: Yeah, I'll leave it there.

00:07:35: No, but the thing is it depends on the person obviously but still I think that negative

00:07:40: things tend to stick in my brain at least a bit more.

00:07:44: So maybe it's also this content creator online thing that ties into that.

00:07:48: As I said, I'm not a psychologist so maybe this is totally wrong but that's maybe also

00:07:52: one of the reasons why this one negative comment is the one you think about.

00:07:56: And I want to add something.

00:07:58: We do this for more than seven years now.

00:08:01: So we definitely take this different now, I must say.

00:08:06: We see negative comments, yes, but if I remember back 2017 or 2018, these really hurt, I must

00:08:12: say.

00:08:12: These were really bad.

00:08:14: And then once you create more things, you create content, you get good feedback, then

00:08:19: you start thinking, hey, actually many people like what we do so it can't be that bad, right?

00:08:25: So why would I worry about that one percentage that always hates instead of just trying to

00:08:31: create even better content for the people who like it already?

00:08:35: So I think the more experience you have, the bigger you get maybe, depends, the better

00:08:40: you can deal with that negativity.

00:08:42: And of course, it helps that we have a lot of data points, if you want to call it like

00:08:46: this nowadays.

00:08:48: If you're getting started, well, for one, I have to say when we got started, we really

00:08:52: didn't have to deal with a lot of negativity and hate back then, but of course, occasionally

00:08:57: there was one.

00:08:59: But when you get started, you have less data that shows you that what you're doing seems

00:09:05: to be good, which, by the way, does not mean that you can't improve and we'll get to that

00:09:09: as well.

00:09:10: So that is important.

00:09:10: But when you get started, you have less data.

00:09:13: Now we have thousands or millions of views and sales of online courses.

00:09:20: We have thousands of reviews that prove that people like our courses or positive comments

00:09:28: and likes on YouTube.

00:09:29: We have like – most of our videos have like a like ratio of 99% and so on.

00:09:35: So that, of course, shows you that what you're doing seems to be good and that helps with

00:09:40: dealing with the occasional hatred that does pop up.

00:09:43: It does.

00:09:44: But when you introduced me, when we found this Academy thing, for me, it was very, very

00:09:51: difficult because there was this guy, you, and then comes another guy.

00:09:56: Today, sometimes it's strange, but you're still the person that more people know in

00:10:01: context with this channel.

00:10:02: But still, if people follow this thing for a few years, we are two people.

00:10:07: So the first feedback we got in the first videos when I was introduced, I wasn't too

00:10:13: confident because it's hard to show your face in the Internet, to come to a channel that

00:10:20: existed already, and then to read feedback which says, who's that guy?

00:10:24: We don't want that person.

00:10:25: I understand.

00:10:26: Weren't too many, but still, this wasn't nice.

00:10:28: But that's many years ago.

00:10:30: So nowadays, if I read that your eye sounds like an AI voice, then I know that maybe sometimes

00:10:36: it's not AI.

00:10:37: Yeah.

00:10:37: No, but that's, you can, based on your experience and based on the positive feedback you get,

00:10:43: you can find ways to easily deal with negative feedback.

00:10:47: Still, it never feels good when you read it, to be honest here, I guess, because I don't

00:10:53: read negative comments and say, yeah, cool.

00:10:55: Who does?

00:10:55: Absolutely.

00:10:57: But the interesting thing, of course, is that now we talk mainly about hate and comments

00:11:02: which are not helpful at all.

00:11:05: Now, of course, what you also have are comments that do contain feedback that can be helpful,

00:11:11: though you also have the special twist that some of those comments are still worded in

00:11:15: a pretty hateful and negative way.

00:11:18: And that's, by the way, the part that annoys me the most.

00:11:21: If you read something by someone who wrote it in a super unfriendly way, clearly meant

00:11:27: to hurt you or at least written in a way where the person didn't really think about how it

00:11:33: would be received, but they got a good point.

00:11:37: That's really annoying, I have to say, because the first reaction is, ah, you, I don't care

00:11:43: what you write, but then it sticks in my head and I think about it and you think, wow, yeah,

00:11:49: he has a point.

00:11:51: There is a good point there.

00:11:52: We should do that differently.

00:11:53: That's annoying.

00:11:54: I never thought about that, but I know what you mean, yeah, because this first reaction

00:11:59: is this no, no, no, but then again, go to bed in the morning and say, maybe, yeah.

00:12:05: For example, if you would get feedback about the podcast that would be like, yeah, you

00:12:11: talk too fast, for example, like that, which I occasionally do, for example, and it would

00:12:15: be written in a nice way and long, but still it would kind of hurt me a bit and I would

00:12:20: say, no, that's my style, but then I would see, yeah, maybe he's right.

00:12:23: But then to be honest, this would be constructive feedback, right?

00:12:27: Isn't that the direction where we are now?

00:12:28: Because this is constructive.

00:12:30: It's well elaborated.

00:12:31: It's clearly negative, but if he has a point, then it's constructive.

00:12:37: At least that's my take on that because I can't tell people how they have to write their

00:12:43: feedback appropriately to make it valuable feedback for me.

00:12:46: So I guess if you write in a more offensive way, but you got a good point, then this is

00:12:50: something we have to consider.

00:12:52: But pure hate, and that's the fine line you talked about or you wanted to talk about,

00:12:56: there is a fine line between pure hate and negative feedback written in a very aggressive

00:13:02: way.

00:13:03: Yeah.

00:13:03: And I mean, you could write constructive feedback in a broad variety of ways.

00:13:09: You could write it in a way that can easily be received and then maybe also used.

00:13:17: So you could write it in a friendly way.

00:13:19: You could make it clear that you're a fan or you like what we do in general and that's

00:13:24: why you care and why you want to share some feedback.

00:13:27: That's good.

00:13:28: That's then easy to read and incorporate.

00:13:30: At least you can think about incorporating it.

00:13:33: Then you can write it in a pretty neutral way and then, of course, as I said, you can

00:13:37: write it in a relatively negative, often arrogant way, which makes it hard to deal with it and

00:13:43: to pick it up.

00:13:44: But, of course, all these examples are still, well, not constructive.

00:13:49: Very negative feedback is negative feedback, but they do have a point that can help you

00:13:54: to improve, whereas, of course, pure hate does not have anything helpful at all.

00:13:59: That's the point.

00:14:00: And one last thing about that, different ways to write constructive feedback.

00:14:05: You don't know the person who writes it.

00:14:07: You don't know his mood, his situation, which is no excuse, but everybody has good or bad

00:14:10: days.

00:14:12: but wasn't meant that bad or that aggressive.

00:14:15: So it's also on us to not be too picky on that or to, you know, he can't say that, she

00:14:23: can't say that.

00:14:23: But as you said, there is a sure line between that type of feedback and this pure hate.

00:14:30: And pure hate is something like if you release a video, one minute later, this is not feedback

00:14:35: because you didn't even watch the video.

00:14:36: And sorry, if you don't like the topic, then don't watch it.

00:14:40: But this is, I think this is where we want to go into this really pure, negative, unconstructive

00:14:45: hate feedback, whatever you want to call it.

00:14:47: And I mean, that's something I never understood and I never will understand.

00:14:51: Why would you leave a hateful, destructive comment below something you didn't like?

00:14:59: I would say I never had that urge in my life.

00:15:03: Of course, I was annoyed because of maybe videos I watched or maybe I watched like a

00:15:10: movie which I didn't like and I waited for it to become better and it didn't become better.

00:15:14: But never in my life did I then send them an email or a comment below the video.

00:15:20: I just turn it off, I switch to a different video.

00:15:23: Maybe I never watch videos by that person again, but that's okay.

00:15:26: And sorry for interrupting you, but that's also feedback for us.

00:15:29: If the videos don't get clicks, then we see obviously this is not the topic people care

00:15:34: about.

00:15:35: Or we can see that in the analytics on YouTube, if people like switch off after one minute

00:15:39: in a 10 minute video, obviously there seems to be something wrong there.

00:15:43: Still, and I want to make this example.

00:15:45: If I click a video with a title and a topic that I don't care about and then leave negative

00:15:51: feedback, this is like going to McDonald's, knowing I hate a McRib, buying a McRib and

00:15:56: then hating in the McDonald's restaurant that the McRib is bad and sorry, this is something

00:16:00: I will never ever understand.

00:16:02: I don't get it.

00:16:03: Yeah, me neither.

00:16:04: That's really weird.

00:16:06: But yeah, I guess that these are the times we're living in or that's like a negative

00:16:12: side of the internet.

00:16:14: Though, of course, I will say that also if we think about constructive feedback, that

00:16:22: often is helpful.

00:16:24: It does have good points and obviously no one's perfect and you have to improve constantly

00:16:29: and we want to improve and so there's lots of feedback that is helpful.

00:16:33: But there also is a kind of feedback that's maybe written to sound like constructive feedback

00:16:41: and maybe it's meant as constructive feedback.

00:16:44: I wouldn't assume any negative intentions here, but it technically isn't.

00:16:50: And a good example here is if someone writes, hey, your English is not good enough.

00:16:57: That might be the case and we are not native speakers.

00:17:01: It clearly is not on that same level and it clearly improves with every year we're doing

00:17:08: that.

00:17:08: But I'm not going to live in the UK for three years before I start doing videos again just

00:17:16: because you wrote that comment.

00:17:19: And that is what the intention of the comment was, I think, though, because I can't suddenly

00:17:26: overnight change that.

00:17:28: I mean the English I have, my English level is what I assembled and built up over all

00:17:37: those years and it only gets better by using it, not by not using it.

00:17:42: I'm just smiling because I remember, this was some years ago, we, I don't know if it

00:17:48: was you or me, whatever, got feedback like English level not sufficient, not good.

00:17:52: And we could see based on the analytics, I think it was on YouTube, I don't remember

00:17:58: the platform, doesn't matter, where this person came from and based on the name, we also saw,

00:18:03: you know, what country this person was from.

00:18:05: It's always the Germans.

00:18:06: It's always the Germans and it's crazy.

00:18:08: So it's not a native speaker.

00:18:10: Native speakers rarely care about our accent or our English level because for them, obviously,

00:18:15: it's obvious that we are not native speakers, but they understand what we say, so it's fine.

00:18:20: But the Germans, and as I said, we are German, so we are allowed to say that, are always

00:18:24: the ones criticizing other people for everything, including their English accent.

00:18:30: Of course, not all of them, but it's really funny that like in the, I don't know, the

00:18:35: 10 or 20 cases of English criticism we got over all those years, as you said, I think

00:18:42: there wasn't a single one or maybe just one or two by native speakers and all the rest

00:18:48: were either Europeans or especially often Germans and like you said there, I think,

00:18:56: well, yeah, you just wanted to make your point, right?

00:18:59: Yeah.

00:18:59: And the thing is, as you said, what should we do?

00:19:01: Should we stop creating content then?

00:19:03: But basically, this is what you want to do.

00:19:05: Thankfully, many people watch our content, buy courses, so they seem to be quite happy,

00:19:09: although we are not native English speakers.

00:19:12: And that's a good example, I guess, for this not constructive feedback in the end because

00:19:17: what should we do?

00:19:18: It doesn't help.

00:19:18: Yeah.

00:19:19: And just want to hook in there real quick and that's, of course, just one example, but

00:19:24: there are plenty of such examples and as always, it's like a thin border and definitely also

00:19:29: depends on the personality of the person who wrote it and the person who received it.

00:19:34: But I also had something similar in like a course where I taught like a certain concept

00:19:41: in the React course where I teach how to handle form submissions.

00:19:44: It's not too important here, but where then I got the feedback, hey, you should be using

00:19:49: that library for doing that.

00:19:51: I was like, no, the point of the course and of this section is to teach you how it works

00:19:56: under the hood.

00:19:56: That's exactly the point.

00:19:58: So maybe I didn't get that point across, then that's the thing I'll get out of this feedback.

00:20:04: But the main point of the feedback itself was maybe with a good intention, but it wasn't

00:20:11: helpful and that's also something you, of course, have to deal with.

00:20:15: It's not that difficult to deal with because at least it wasn't hate or anything like that.

00:20:21: But I guess the main thing is not all feedback can always be incorporated or is always helpful.

00:20:28: And considering all these thoughts we had, I think that the fine line between this constructive

00:20:33: and this hate feedback is that whenever you want to expose someone or the other person

00:20:38: wants to expose someone, so the person writing that feedback, then it's hate or then it's

00:20:43: unconstructive because exposing someone never helps.

00:20:46: Telling somebody, hey, you could do this better because this and this and that, that's okay.

00:20:50: Not just telling you, telling another person, I don't know, not a good feedback.

00:20:55: Yeah, absolutely.

00:20:56: I mean there are plenty of occasions of well-intentioned, good-written, constructive feedback being

00:21:04: shared which are super welcome because if you're creating something or if you're producing

00:21:10: something, you're in a bubble, you're in a tunnel often and it's hard to tell how something

00:21:16: will be received by the people watching your videos or buying your product and therefore

00:21:21: feedback is super important.

00:21:24: That's why we read those comments even though we have to deal with that occasional one hateful

00:21:30: comment and so on.

00:21:31: But it is an important aspect, it just gets made harder by those people who on purpose

00:21:39: or not sprinkle in those hateful comments or share that pseudo-constructive feedback.

00:21:47: But actually it would be easy if you read the comments, read the good ones, read the

00:21:53: constructive ones and ignore these extremely negative ones, then it would be easy, right?

00:21:58: But it's all about that.

00:21:59: These negative ones not sticking in your head and still make you think about those, that's

00:22:04: the core problem every creator has, I guess.

00:22:07: I must say for us it works good in the meanwhile.

00:22:09: To be honest, we read comments, as you said, not as much as in the past, I must also admit,

00:22:14: but we still read our comments.

00:22:16: What we should do maybe is provide more feedback to the good comments because that's something

00:22:23: that isn't done as it should be because you always focus on these negative ones making

00:22:28: the negative people happy instead of thanking the people who like the content.

00:22:33: That's maybe a takeaway from my side here in this podcast, if I think about it.

00:22:38: And I don't have anything to add at this point.

00:22:41: I don't know if you got any.

00:22:43: No, I also got no further comments here, fittingly.

00:22:47: No, but I think that's it.

00:22:50: As we said, every creator or every person who shares something on the Internet, no matter

00:22:56: what it is, has to deal with that.

00:23:00: We'll probably never understand why people are sharing hateful stuff.

00:23:04: But yeah.

00:23:05: As you say that, of course you can argue, well, that's part of your job.

00:23:08: What are you complaining about?

00:23:10: And I agree.

00:23:11: It's part of the job.

00:23:12: We just wanted to talk about this because I think this topic is an important one and

00:23:16: not a new one, but a topic that never gets old.

00:23:19: And that was basically the idea.

00:23:21: So we are aware of that.

00:23:22: This is our job or part of our job and we can deal with it.

00:23:25: Absolutely.

00:23:26: But it's also less of a complaint, more of a topic we considered interesting for the

00:23:32: podcast.

00:23:33: Obviously, we're dealing with it.

00:23:34: It's all fine.

00:23:35: I don't understand why some people are like that.

00:23:38: I probably don't have to understand it.

00:23:41: It's maybe interesting to get that look behind the scenes, though I guess everyone who does

00:23:48: anything in the Internet knows about that.

00:23:51: But yeah.

00:23:52: The main takeaway is if you want to share feedback, please also keep in mind that the

00:23:57: other person – The main takeaway is we don't care, but that's obviously not the truth.

00:24:02: The other person is also a human who reads it.

00:24:05: So unless you want to hurt them, don't try, don't do it.

00:24:10: But yeah, that's the main takeaway.

00:24:11: So we hope for constructive and positive feedback for this episode.

00:24:17: Your English.

00:24:18: Your English.

00:24:19: No, and if you got any feedback, it's always great to read your feedback, because as Max

00:24:24: said, we are far from perfect and we want to improve, but we also want to have fun when

00:24:28: doing our job.

00:24:29: And so that's it.

00:24:32: So hopefully see or hear you in the next podcast.

00:24:36: Bye bye.