When I first started out on YouTube there were a lot of folx who posted nasty comments. I’ve written about the comments about my weight, hair, teeth, and clothing that were unkind before so I won’t go into them here. One of the things that I haven’t written about before is the technique comments.

Sometimes, these comments initially come across as helpful, but when you read them more closely, they are backhanded, or rudely written know-it-all garbage.

In art there are few absolute right ways of doing things. there are things that are safer- keep your hands out of the line of your cuts when you are carving wood as an example. Or rules that help to keep your paintings looking good for longer- use lightfast and archival materials. Or paint fat over lean so your oil paintings don’t crack. Or paint oils over acrylics but not the opposite, because the acrylic won’t stick to the oils.

And so on.

Recently YouTube started to feed me videos by this creator. She’s got good vibes, but whoa her comment section is a minefield of wallet wagging you-have-to-do-this kinda comments. Watercolors are like that. They attract people who are precise meticulous kinds of artists.

When I started to post my “automatic” drawings that combined ink drawings with watercolors- done loose and flowy every video told me I was using watercolors wrong.

Too much water!

Too little water!

What a waste of paint!

Use better paper!

Are those student grade?

That’s NOT what an automatic drawing is.

All comments from accounts with no videos. A bit of searching revealed that some of the folx posting these comments hadn’t picked up a brush in years and years. Their whole purpose was to tear people down. Trolls.

​That sucks.

Anyway, now that I’m older I’m not getting the same kind of hate that I used to on YouTube and generally online. I’ve learned to be liberal with that hide and block button. I report nasty comments for review on YouTube even if it’s not on my channel.

I suspect that years and years of blocking, muting, hiding, and reporting has left me with fewer trolls who troll art pages than the average person.

I posted my first video on YouTube in 2009, but joined in 2006 (I think) and that’s given me a lot of blocks, hides and reports.

All that said, I think it sucks that these people are still out there with their hate.