Kickstarter is a useful platform for people to raise the necessary funds to make and bring products to the market. Unfortunately, as with anything that involves money, there are also scammers who use Kickstarter to cheat money. Identifying scams on Kickstarter is not easy, just like nobody knows you're a dog in the internet.

Cartoon: Peter Steiner

Case study 1: Reckless Deck
I'm disappointed to say that I've this product that was never released. In 2017, I wrote about Reckless Deck which are idea cards on character designs. That Kickstarter raised US $68,196 but the product was never launched and 1,362 people lost money.

I'm kinda in the same situation as Arleesha Yetzer since I would consider myself a content creator and Youtube artist.

I visit the Artist Lounge subreddit often and it's common to see people talk about the few miserable Likes they received for the art they post on social media. You can sense the dejection from those posts and it's depressing.

Let me share some insight that I've gained from the 27K followers on Instagram and 286K subscribers on Youtube that I've amassed over the years.

The likes are absolutely worthless.

Likes may not even mean what you think they mean.

People may hit the Like button because they have seen the post, or out of habit, or just because the Like button is there, or for whatever reason. Yeah, sure, some people may hit the Like button because they do like your work. So what? So what if there's a Like or no Like? So what if you get 10 likes or 100,000 likes? How would your life change?

Understand what's happening here. Your focus on meaningless & useless numbers is making you feel depressed for no good reason. Getting 100,000 Likes is not going to make your life better, but getting 10 Likes will make you feel depressed. Snap out of it.

The only number or metric you should care about is how much time it takes to scroll through all the work you have created over the years.

I shared these thoughts on Facebook and someone commented that Likes and subscribers "can actually mean income". True. But that income will come at a much later stage, which could be months or even years. And that income will most certainly not be consistent and not significant unless you know what you're doing. It is your work that will translate to income, so keep working on your art. Stop distracting yourself with useless Likes.

And don't be distracted by the number of Likes and followers another artist has. Instead imagine the work that's required to make that happen.

Having made over 2,000 videos on my Youtube channels over the years, I've received the occasional hate comments.

In this article, I'll share with you tips on how I handle hate comments on Youtube which can come in the form of negative, rude, insensitive comments.

I do not consider comments calling out obvious mistakes as hate comments. E.g. You get called out for pronouncing some word wrong, you made a mistake with facts. I love comments that point out my mistakes because I don't get it right all the time, and the comments help others know that there's a mistake and information may be wrong.

Artists can be a fragile bunch of people. There are artists who associate their art with their self worth. When negative things are said about the art, these artists think the negative things apply to them too. Just because your art sucks doesn't mean that you suck, unless of course if you don't improve then it's not about the art.

Haters got to hate

You can't control how others think of you. You can only control things within your control. People post mean comments just because they can and for no other reasons. Arguing with these people is just a waste of time.

Should you delete hate comments?

On Youtube, you have the option to delete comments or hide user from channel.

Hiding the user from the channel is the better choice because the hate comment is made visible only to the hater. Others won't be able to see the comment. This works great for hate comments looking for a reaction.

I can't remember the contents of the hate comments I've received because I always hide these comments before I can even comprehend what the hater is saying. If I see a hate comment, I hide it in a split second. If the comment doesn't have any constructive criticism, I'm not going give it any thought followed by comprehension.

It's important to note that these haters probably will forget what they post seconds after they made the comment. But you who's going to read the comment is going to remember the hate comment for a very long time. So is it worth it to let the comment get to you? It is unavoidable that some comments will get to you, especially if they hit certain triggers.

Do it for your audience

Another reason I hide hate comments is so that my audience don't have to waste time reading them, or worse be affected by them.

Hate comments from growing too fast

You can get hate comments if your YT channel grows too fast. Haters may think you're just lucky to be picked up by the Youtube algorithm so they post hate comments due to jealousy.

People who post hate or negative comments constantly are not your audience. If they like your content, they won't be posting hate comments. If they don't like your content, they can post hate comments and you can delete them.

How to prevent hate comments from getting to you mentally

Just delete or hide the comments faster than your mind can comprehend the comment. Your time is better spent creating art or doing something more productive.