Nobody Reads Anymore

Sometimes I am just disappointed in my generation. Why? Our attention spans have decreased, it’s like nobody likes to put their thought into anything, unless it’s 100% visual.

You ever wonder why I’m not famous for what I do here? (actually, I’m glad I’m not!) It’s because I write, and the vast majority of Internet users do not like to read. There are only a few hundred or thousand people online who still read and write things. I’ve always been good at expressing myself in writing, whether it’s here on this blog, or leaving my thoughts on a video or article. But I’ll never be as big as those who make YouTube videos or art.

Part of me should be glad I’ll never reach that high because the more famous you are, the more idiots/non-constructive comments you will receive. You could comment on someone’s video from their vlog channel saying you agree with their opinion on something for example, put a lot of thought in it, and once it starts to get noticed by other viewers…. that is when you get those lurking who may disagree, but they don’t have the balls to read your comment to try and understand what you mean. So what do they do? They quickly skim for the first thing they think is stupid and say something dumb and short to throw that person off balance.

Here is the best example I can give:

See, this is one of the many reasons why I don’t want to comment on YouTube videos anymore, because nobody reads to understand! Or people are just bossy, mean, or think you’re dumb depending on what you say. Toxic AF

This comment originates from a video by a YouTuber who I met at the Lordi concert. In the video he talks about what’s great about being a Metalhead. As you can see, I offered my own input on what I like about being one. And what does this random person who decided to reply do? He/she doesn’t even read my comment, they take the first thing they think is stupid to try and make me look like I have no idea what I’m talking about. The link in his/her comment leads to a picture of a group of Metalheads sitting on a bench together:

It’s obvious that they were trying to convey that all Metalheads are the same, as you can see here that these six Metalheads appear to all be dressed the same. Some Metalheads dress like that, some have long hair, some have short hair or none. Some of them dress in more gothic fashion, some like to wear dark makeup, or some blend in completely with society. It’s a diverse community due to the number of different subgenres. We all have our unique taste and sense of style as a Metalhead.

So, it’s clear from this, is that this person refused to see the whole point of my comment where I explained why I thought being part of this subculture makes you stand out. If they had actually read the whole thing maybe they’d understand what I mean and come up with a constructive reason as to why they disagree. But nope, instead they chose to take one teeny tiny part of my words to state their disagreement. So many people have that TLDR attitude on YouTube unfortunately. 

Also, I didn’t want to bring this up, but it appears that I will have to now.

Several months ago on here, I wrote out my thoughts on the elitists in the metal community, then a couple of months later after that post was published, I woke up one morning to discover I had a lot of traffic here overnight. It turns out that that was because someone had started a Reddit forum from that very article about elitists that I posted. After reading it for a few minutes I took the article down so the trolls could not be fed.

On that forum, the posters proceeded to pick out pieces of my article in order to make fun of me. One of them kept repeating “Then don’t go near the pit,” “Then DON’T go near the pit!” “THEN DON’T GO NEAR THE PIT!” in quotes at every part of the article when I mentioned why I didn’t like mosh pits, tying them to my experience at one when I saw GWAR. It’s clear they did not bother to read and understand why I don’t like moshing, instead they just decided to quote every single time I said something against moshing in general, even before I brought up my personal experience.

They acted as if I should have known better, but since I had not been to many concerts, I won’t know how to avoid the pit until I experience it! Since I hadn’t before that concert, I didn’t know where was the right place to stand to avoid it.

The other posters were just being immature referring to me as a special snowflake, and saying troll-like language in response to quoting small things that weren’t part of the main idea from the article without actually reading it such as “lolololololool” and “lol kekek”. Those were cringe-worthy, but there were some that tried add fuel to the fire where one lurked on to the page where all my fictional crushes were, saw what I said about Optimus Prime and was like “Jesus fucking Christ..” there is a good chance they did not read to understand why Optimus is special to me. Those kind of reactions are not new to me however, given what my YouTube channel was 7 years ago.

Finally, one of them who appeared to lurk for a while, decided to find all the bands I had featured so far on Metal Monday and list them all based on what I chose like “Nightwish, Ghost, Sabaton, Lordi, Megadeth, Delain, more Sabaton, etc.” perhaps it was an attempt to say that in other words my music taste is shit.

Well, to the lurkers who decided to start hate on me briefly from that forum: maybe you should read the article first before you make fun of me in a child-like way, or perhaps grow some balls to say it to me here, insolent cowards. Also, thank you for briefly increasing my traffic, it’s just what I needed! Oh, and don’t worry, I’ve got so many other things for you to hate about me. But in the meantime, perhaps you should learn to acknowledge your own flaws, not take them out on me because you’re jealous you don’t have the level of creativity to create a blog like mine. 

This is where I start singing Sincerely with Love to you by Lordi.

As much as it bothers me that nobody reads anymore, I won’t be able to change that. We live in a visual world where our attention is best grabbed by pictures and videos, generating a discussion. I’m a visual learner, but somehow I have developed the skills to be an efficient reader and writer. I didn’t start using social media (minus MSN) until I was about 17, only then did I notice over the years that people were reading less and less.

YouTube sensations rose, artists too, and gamers. Then, only did I come to the conclusion that our attention span is so low that we’re too lazy to read even a paragraph of something because we believe reading is something we should only be doing for professional purposes. I could share an article on Facebook about something I value, or news related to a band I like, and sometimes even my own friends do not bother to read the article. I’m not going to point fingers at anyone specific, but I’ve seen it. I can tell when someone has just skimmed through it.

How can I tell? Well, it’s simple, I read the article first and if someone makes a statement that has nothing to do with the main idea about what bothers them, or they justify themselves quickly, that’s how. I may sound a bit demanding, but when I share an article online, I want to know your thoughts, I would expect you to at least come up with something constructive. How do you do that? You read it.

Seriously, when people just skim an article or comment and speak failing to see the main idea or base their opinion on just the headline, that’s aggravating the situation to me. I want to be able to discuss with you what you think, and I can’t if you just skim or pick out that little thing that bugs you.

I find myself decreasing my social interactions online. I rarely comment on YouTube videos, Instagram photos, or anything on Facebook. Some of you might tell me I shouldn’t let stupidity stop me from speaking my thoughts, but sometimes you just reach a certain point where you wanna say “fuck it”. 

Fortunately, there are some people out there that actually do take the time to read these things. When I came across Metal Blast’s interview with Mr. Lordi, I watched the video version and read the text version on their blog, and then I left a thoughtful comment on the blog page. The author reached out to me saying he appreciated my words because nobody leaves those kinds of comments anymore. I KNOW RIGHT???! The YouTube video of that interview people enjoyed more and left comments on that instead.

I love to watch videos and look at pictures, of course, but I also enjoy reading books, articles, and all that shit. Imagine, ten years from now nobody will want to watch videos that are longer than a minute.

If only more people read things today.

👽Emily