Ah, YouTube.

[perprocrastinate]

This is probably really old news, but I'm relatively new to YouTube.

It's full of users who automatically assume superiority over ANYONE. The lot of them are arrogant and ignorant, and can't even tell when they've lost an argument.

Can anyone please explain to me their reasoning? For I, myself, can't even begin to wonder. 

 This one user commented (on Valentina Lisitsa's Heroic Polonaise): "She did a great job, and this is an extremely difficult piece, but I didn't like how she played some parts. For example: At the very end she should not use the pedal!! That seriously took away the whole seriousness of the ending. Like I said she did a fabulous job but I've heard other people play it better. Myself included."

Then I replied: "I don't think you included enough shameless self-promotion in that comment. You forgot to mention how you traveled back in time to show Chopin your flawless performances of all his pieces. "

Then he/she replied: "It probably sounds that way. This piece is very hard and it's taken me awhile to learn it fully without mistakes. So I think I have the right to say whatever I want to say when it comes to this piece! Sorry, but I can play it better. So please stop hating cause I'm sure you can't play it. Oh and I'd bet anything that Chopin would LOVE my interpretation of it. He won't like Valentina's so much. Don't get me wrong, she did an amazing job, but there were some part's that she butchered."



Jealousy, maybe concentrated egoism?
 

[austinarg]

It's the Internet. Everyone can say what they think in total anonymity without fear of a serious reprisal. I've learnt to cope with them a long time ago, just as anyone would have to cope with their everyday a-holes.

[rachmaninoff_forever]

I'm gonna log on youtube and flame that guy right now!

[Bob]

I wouldn't bother reading any comments on youtube music performances. 

[blink83]

It's the Internet. Everyone can say what they think in total anonymity without fear of a serious reprisal.

Yep. Apparently they think it gives them permission to be complete prideful assholes

[emill]

I have been managing the channel of my son since he was 10 years old (YouTube requires guardian or parent supervision for anyone below 18) since 2006 and we have received strange and utterly inconsiderate comments. As a rule we do not respond to any comment good or bad in public (nor delete them), except if it seems really like an important query or from "friends", but this is done through PM (private mail).

We almost never delete any comments, even unfair and uncalled for ones and these are often engaged by other readers in our defense.  As long as comments are within some degree of civility then its okay. There was only one time I deleted, when the post's only comment was that my son looked like a PIG ... well it had to go as it was really way off and too personal.

As was mentioned earlier some would like to be  proud assholes!!! Just do not mind them nor respond to them.  They would really be ecstatic if people engaged them in their game.

Of course it would be best as a personal rule ... which we have tried to stick to, if one keeps his posts within the bounds of civility.

[zezhyrule]

Youtube comments are not a fun place to be. Probably contains some of the lowest lifeforms on the internet, at least on a mainstream site. 

[49410enrique]

it's one of the main reasons i love vimeo so much more than yt...

[perprocrastinate]

I got sucked into another argument on the same video, and it was a massive waste of time.

But I discovered that trolling is quite fun. Not sure if I'm doing it right, though.

[austinarg]

I got sucked into another argument on the same video, and it was a massive waste of time.

But I discovered that trolling is quite fun. Not sure if I'm doing it right, though.

Ah, the old art of troll trolling. Few things in life are so enjoyable.

[rachmaninoff_forever]

I got sucked into another argument on the same video, and it was a massive waste of time.

But I discovered that trolling is quite fun. Not sure if I'm doing it right, though.

I actually was going to flame him, but someone else is doing the job for me! 

I read through the comments and this hopefaithjoy guy is getting destroyed lol

[ajspiano]

LOL - youtube comments = biggest waste of data storage ever.

Not that unlike facebook comments...

Seriously, those guys that crap on people like lisitsa are DELIBERATELY trying to spark a reaction. I guarantee they are not competent pianists.

If someone has both the arrogance AND the performance ability to genuinely suggest that they are a better pianist than her they'd be at a piano competition, not on youtube. AND -- they'd probably be aware that its subjective anyway and that being a tool won't win them points with the judges.

In my experience, competent pianists have a greater appreciation for the discipline required to master a piece and so are never arrogant and likely to flame a performance unless the performer is arrogant. They might be critical, but never like that - "butchered" is not a word that would be used unless they really altered the piece.

[fftransform]

Almost certainly not the case in this particular situation, but aren't you also being presumptuous in assuming that the person who you're speaking to is not an exceptionally good musician?  In doing so, I don't see any difference, really, in her comment and your response.  I get a lot of these types of comments/conversations on my own videos, and they're very annoying.  People who obviously know very little about music leave all sorts of idiotic and inflammatory comments, or, alternatively, very pseudo-intellectual ones.  But if you can't argue with them based strictly on the points (or non-points, as the case may often be) that they're making, then you're no better, and you shouldn't adopt the attitude that you are, considering it seems to me as though that's a fairly large component of what you're complaining about.  I mean sure, sometimes a comment might just be, "this is sh*t," or some such similar vacuity, and there's not a lot that you can do with that (in which case I don't have a problem with somebody just responding in kind), but that's the case less often than one might assume.  As well, you could always come back at them with a "request" for them to explain why, at which point, if they try to give any justification for their comment, you can come back at their actual argument.  But honestly, posting this thread reeks of, "look at me, I think I won an internet argument," so it's fairly petty and self-congratulatory in not entirely-dissimilar ways from that which you're whining about.  You really weren't arguing with any of the points that the person made or forming any actual argument, so I don't think that you should come at this with the attitude that you "know how to argue" and the other person doesn't.

[rachmaninoff_forever]

Almost certainly not the case in this particular situation, but aren't you also being presumptuous in assuming that the person who you're speaking to is not an exceptionally good musician?  

The burden of proof is on the person with the positive claim.  Whoever said that they're a good musician has the positive claim, so they have to prove it.  So that's not presumptuous at all.

It's the same thing if I told you that I was Yuja Wang.  You're not supposed to prove that I'm not Yuja Wang, I'm supposed to prove that I am Yuja Wang since I have the positive claim.

[ajspiano]

in some cultures you'll find that its guilty until proven innocent.

[j_menz]

I am Yuja Wang

Haha, I always suspected as much. 

[emill]

in some cultures you'll find that its guilty until proven innocent. 

hehhee... the temperature in this thread is rising!!

If my son can get a good piano scholarship in the US next year, a usual advice we have been giving him is to speak out his mind about things rather than just keep it to himself, the usual Filipino/Asian way. We warn him that he will be "trampled" upon by any Tom, Dick and Harry if he responds like most native Filipinos/Asians with meekness, preferring to just let go of remarks.

Often I hear the same complaints among my much younger colleagues in the faculty where I teach (not music) that their 'western" students are so "brash, disrespectful and confrontational". These observations often coming from those faculty members who have not studied abroad like in the US.  

I feel this frankness and seeming aggressiveness among westerners is NOT disrespect but the culture of their country and peoples which often extends itself to the internet. It is no wonder that the internet in general and YT in particular seems so full of "useless squabbles" over remarks and posts which could have been better left alone from the viewpoint of the native Filipino/Asians.  

To me hopefaithjoy's remark is clearly a personal opinion and her assessment of her playing skills is the same ... a personal assessment, which she does not need to prove, sort of a take it or leave it proposition. Any response/challenge to a personal opinion is an invitation to a never ending exchange which often will become acrimonious.  Again all of the forgoing is IMHO! peace

[wildman]

FAIL TROLL IS FAILURE

I join the fight 

[wildman]

I've encountered many a troll debater in the internet. If the person lacks civility or just really enjoys being raged at, I just delete my comments.  So it appears he's fighting a phantom user. 

[rachmaninoff_forever]

in some cultures you'll find that its guilty until proven innocent.

Seriously?  I don't see how that's productive at all.  Because that's what happened in the Salem Witch trials.  They were guilty until proven innocent so you could say that anyone was a witch without any evidence and they would be hung unless they were proven innocent.  

I could say that everyone on pianostreet is a terrorist, and you guys would have to go to jail until you're proven innocent?

Did you also know that in India, it's illegal to kill cows?!

[fftransform]

The burden of proof is on the person with the positive claim.  Whoever said that they're a good musician has the positive claim, so they have to prove it.  So that's not presumptuous at all.

It's the same thing if I told you that I was Yuja Wang.  You're not supposed to prove that I'm not Yuja Wang, I'm supposed to prove that I am Yuja Wang since I have the positive claim.

The person is not talking about epistemic proof.  The person is talking about presumption.  I presume that you are not Yuja Wang; therefore I am being presumptive, just as the person he is complaining about presumed that their ideas regarding interpretation of Chopin are somehow objectively "better" than Lisitsa's (which they probably are; most four year olds' probably are), and just as the OP himself presumed that the person to whom he was responded had inferior taste.  I have no interested in proving that you are not Yuja Wang, nor does that have anything whatsoever to do with the original poster's comments.  Perhaps you should read what he said before trying to dissect a response to it.  As well, I do not care if you are Yuja Wang; we are talking about good musicians, so even if you are Yuja Wang, you do not fall into this category.


From the original post:

It's full of users who automatically assume superiority over ANYONE.

We are talking about presumption, not "proof."

"She did a great job, and this is an extremely difficult piece, but I didn't like how she played some parts. For example: At the very end she should not use the pedal!! That seriously took away the whole seriousness of the ending. Like I said she did a fabulous job but I've heard other people play it better. Myself included."

Then I replied: "I don't think you included enough shameless self-promotion in that comment. You forgot to mention how you traveled back in time to show Chopin your flawless performances of all his pieces."

Is the idiotic "argument" that takes place.  Nowhere does the OP's response reference a request to prove that the person trashing Lisitsa is actually a better pianist.  The OP is complaining about people's presumptions regarding the superiority of their taste in music and taste in interpretation.


Try reading, next time.