For nearly a year I have not been accepting comments on my new blog posts due to having received ones I considered to be negative (I would rather not repeat these ones) or ones I was unsure about. For example, on my blog post about living with family and friends before living alone, someone commented saying that my flat looked nice; however they ended the comment with, “but…,” and I had no idea what else they were going to say, so I deleted the comment. Another comment that triggered my uncertainty was one that just said, “Um,” and that was on my post about meeting two of my favourite YouTubers in Bournemouth. Again, I had no idea what the person was trying to convey in the comment, so I deleted that one too (that same person also left a more negative comment on another one of my posts). I also had to delete a couple of comments that I considered to be spam as they promoted products and features that did not particularly interest me and I felt did not fit in with my blog.

While I have not been accepting comments on my new blog posts, I have seen some mixed messages made about some of my online content outside of my blog. There is one particular Internet forum where people mostly post mean comments about bloggers and YouTubers (although there is some positivity on the forum), but I would rather not mention the forum by name. In a thread about a certain blogger/YouTuber someone shared pieces of artwork I did of that blogger/YouTuber and people on the thread gave both positive and negative feedback about the artwork. Someone even posted saying they felt uncomfortable about my artwork being shared on the thread whether people were making fun of it or not and I completely agreed with the person who expressed discomfort because I felt that the person who shared my artwork did so without my consent and I initially had no idea how they found the pieces, so I archived them on my Instagram (the person could possibly have found them on there), which means that I’m the only person who can see them now. Also in that same thread, someone else made a malicious comment that was possibly about one of my vlogs where I attend a blogging event and meet the blogger/YouTuber. I found that post very hurtful and confusing because I didn’t know if it was about me or the blogger/YouTuber. Finally in another thread about the same blogger/YouTuber, yet another person made a mean comment about my question I asked the blogger/YouTuber in their latest Q and A video as well as their answer and this made me think if I should continue with participating in future Q and A videos or not.

Towards the end of August 2018 I received some overall more positive comments on my blog post where I determined if restaurants were autism friendly or not (it is currently my earliest blog post and I did publish another post before it, but I deleted it because I was worried it would cause controversy) and this made me want to reinstate the feature that allowed readers to leave comments on my blog.

In conclusion, while I have had some negative things said about me outside of my blog during the time I wasn’t accepting comments on it, I was happy to see some more positive comments made on my earliest blog post to date and I am content to receive comments on my blog from this post on, but I will still be checking my comments whenever I receive e-mail notifications of them to see if I should approve them or delete them depending on their tone or even if I think they’re spam.

Similar blog posts to this one:

How it Feels to Receive Difficult Comments on My Blog, YouTube and Social Media: https://stompgal87blog.wordpress.com/2017/10/02/how-it-feels-to-receive-difficult-comments-on-my-blog-youtube-and-social-media/

Further Thoughts on Receiving Difficult Comments and the WordPress Commenting Procedure in General: https://stompgal87blog.wordpress.com/2017/11/09/further-thoughts-on-receiving-difficult-comments-and-the-wordpress-commenting-procedure-in-general/

What Receiving Likes on My Blog, YouTube and Social Media Means to Me: https://stompgal87blog.wordpress.com/2017/11/19/what-receiving-likes-on-my-blog-youtube-and-social-media-means-to-me/