Why does YouTube toy with your emotions?

Post Reply New Topic

I am so upset and distraught.
So I was on YouTube and I somehow stumbled on to videos of a kind man in China saving abandoned cats. I was crying with relief, as I love watching people or animal's lives being saved by other people or animals. It gives me a sense of security and restores my faith in humankind.
But then I saw several comments that said that the man wasn't saving the cats, he was just trying to look good for YouTube and was actually selling the cats to people who eat them.

This really broke my heart and I cried and cried and wished I hadn't watched the videos. What made it worse was the man saved a group of cats that looked terrified and just when they felt like they were beginning to trust the man (who was feeding them and giving them love), he sent them to a woman who said that she'd love to adopt cats as pets, and she was even kissing and cuddling the cats when he brought them round to her home. But the commenters said that it's all an act and that the cats were going to be eaten, probably inhumanely too (like cooked alive). My heart hurts. I really did cry so hard when I saw those comments and I nearly felt like putting an end to my life, because these things upset me too much and I just cannot deal with it.
Do you feel the commenters were right, or do you think the man was genuinely saving the cats and giving them away to happy, loving homes???

Sometimes I think my life would be happier if I had less emotional empathy. (Which is why I get frustrated when people try to condition me to believe I have no empathy just because I'm on the autism spectrum ).

I understand.

I've just unfollowed someone on Facebook because they keep posting animal abuse stories to raise awareness.

I don't need to see those. I treat animals well. I'm informed enough thanks.

Sounds to me like the commentators are spreading hateful propaganda.
I try not to read comments.
I don't know if there's a way to turn them off.
Emotional empathy has been my downfall, I can't stand seeing/hearing about cruelty, especially towards cats, which I love.
I live in dread of seeing a dead cat by the side of the road when we go driving because I actually saw one not long ago.
I had a complete breakdown over that cat.
My partner has to say, "it's only a bunch of leaves!" or something whenever I see something up ahead on the road and have to close my eyes.
I told him to say it's something else even if it does turn out to be a cat.

I had to do that too on Facebook. I don't like seeing animals tortured. I wish I could do something to save all these animals but I can't. I don't even have much money so I can't even support animal charities.
Ohh, WHY are there such cruel people in this world? Why? I heard of someone who didn't have time to look after their dog any more so they chained him up in the middle of nowhere and left. Fair enough if you're no longer able to look after your pets because of circumstances but why couldn't they have took the dog to an animal shelter, or at least phoned up services that take unwanted animals in so that they could have come to collect the dog? Or give the dog to a friend or a relative? There are loads of humane alternatives, and although it's still heartbreaking to have the dog taken away from its owner, it's still better to have the dog go to a new home than tied up and abandoned. What is wrong with people? Don't they know that animals have thoughts and feelings too? Don't they know that?

If I got upset at every idiot on YouTube, Twitter, whatever......I'd be upset for the rest of my life.

You have idiots everywhere. Just know that they are idiots, and that you're not an idiot.

I've had to detach from some media to keep sane.

To be fair, the commenters might be trolling. Insisting Chinese people must be torturing and eating the cats seems like racist trolling.

That's what I'm hoping. Just because it's China. I hate China due to the COVID pandemic, but I don't hate Chinese people nor do I think all Chinese people are heartless predators that eat cats and other animals.
But one time I saw a video shared on Facebook of 2 women rescuing a cat from a drain, but the comments on the video just said that those 2 women put the cat there on purpose then taped themselves rescuing him to make themselves look good. So what do you believe? My heart tells me to believe the video, not the commenters.

The "commentators" just wanted to be as*holes.......

Prehaps they have had years of practice?

I feel like saying the rescue was staged is a cruel slander to make if it's false, but even if it were true wouldn't be terrible so long as the cat wasn't hurt. That's the type of slander that someone could make without it being racially motivated though.

Trotting out the tired racist cliché about 'oh, you know those people eat pets' is just trolling unless supported by evidence since it's meant to appeal to ignorant prejudices and make people's rage short-circuit their ability to think critically.

You have no way of knowing which is right. The video or the commentators.

But its more likely that the commentators are ignorant idiots.

I once tuned into a live UTube feed of ...an elevated camera pointed at a canal in Venice. Just a live feed of a venice. Folks walking around the old town, and canal. Surprisingly pleasing to watch. Visual musak...relaxing electronic wall paper...while doing my taxes (or some task like that).

But then I noticed the live comments. Ended up getting in an argument with some twit in the UK, who said "I know that place.... that's...such and such a neighborhood in London!".

Another person, and I both told him that "it's obviously Venice", but he debated with me. And I even said "look... the caption even says 'Venice, Italy'". But he replied that "you cant trust everything you see on Utube", and insisted it was the Bumfuck neighborhood of London.

Well...the guy DOES have a point. Some stuff on Utube is dubious in credibility.

But the guy himself was an example of how Utube viewers, are an unfiltered flood of humanity from around the globe who can also include individuals of dubious intellect, honesty, and or sanity.

YouTube comments are the worst. Anything in the comment section should be considered trolling until proven otherwise, and given the common ignorant stereotype that's being propagated there, those comments are almost definitely just trolls being trolls.

Things get unclear when troll style comments mix with things which actually happen.
And some people simply get their jollies by focusing on the negative sides of things & making sure everyone knows that.

What that commenter referred to does happen, and the rescues of large numbers of cats do happen, here are a couple headlines, I'll let whoever wants to go find the content on their own,

From the South China Morning Post,

From the Humane Society of the United States,

Will share this bit of content from that,

And now a bit of a tangent related to commenters on YouTube; I am constantly amazed by the number of people who come to YT live feed chats and ask in chat "What is going on in this?" which is a question they could answer for themselves by taking three seconds to read the video title.

It is the height of absurdity when they come to "La Plata, Missouri, USA | Virtual Railfan LIVE" and ask, "Where is this?"

Joe90,

Youtube comments fall into several categories;

Ignorant
Moronic
Meaningless comment for the sake of it
Trolling
Funny
Factual

99.99999999999% of comments fall into the first four. Don't waste your time reading any of them, there is no useful knowledge to be had there.

I do know that most YouTube comments are written by 14-year-old kids with poor spelling skills and think they know everything.

But some internet videos are of people just acting even though they don't want the audience to know that. Some people deliberately torture an animal then film themselves 'rescuing' the poor animal to boost ego and look good to the public by sharing the video.

There's more BS on the internet than anywhere else, which is why there's so much misinformation.