“
There have been
occasions where
my home address
was given out on
Facebook along
with my telephone
number. So far my
home number has had
to be changed twice.
“
It is true. Whether you are on YouTube with 50 or 100,000
subscribers, or you are on Twitter, Instagram or any social
media network, you will encounter trolls.
It’s more apparent on YouTube, however, due to user accounts
being completely anonymous. Anonymity online sometimes
can bring out the worst in people, which is why a lot of
companies avoid YouTube, or simply switch off the comments
and direct people to their Facebook presence.
I have been a reviewer for almost five years now and as the
channel has grown, especially in the last year, the trolling has
grown along with it. In nearly all cases, the old adage of “a
minute to type, a second to block” holds true, the back-end
of YouTube has some very fast and easy methods to ban
people from making comments on live shows and comments
on videos. However, along with trolling are the people who
like to take things a step too far.
It was no secret, in the early days of the ‘Vaping with Vic’
channel and up to May of last year, I was on disability. To
be more precise, Employment and Support Allowance. First
on the support group then brought down to the work-related
category as my health problems slowly got better. I made it
no secret on the YouTube channel either. The Department of
Work and Pensions, which takes care of all benefits, regularly
had a look at my bank account. Any money coming in from the
YouTube channel was instantly seen by the DWP as I held the
print offs of the bank balance to them at the beginning of every
year. It may surprise people to know, that people in disability
can earn some money, not a lot, but some.
The trolling back in 2016 and going into 2018 started to take a
dark turn, due to me being disabled. There is trolling, and then
there is directly impacting peoples’ real lives. Over the course
of two years, I was called into the DWP on seven separate
occasions for an anonymous report that I was committing
benefit fraud. Of course, the report was anonymous which
means the person who made the claim couldn’t be tracked, but
the fact that some people out there took it upon themselves
to make a false claim of benefit fraud just shows what kind of
people are out there.
There have been several occasions where my home address
was given out on Facebook along with my home telephone
number. So far my home number has had to be changed twice.
It doesn’t end there. Like clockwork, every year on the run up
to the May Vaper Expo, there is usually one or two emails sent
to me from throwaway accounts where the person sending it
has warned me not to go. Otherwise I will be given two black
eyes.
Even up to December 2018, with Vaping With Vic now an
actual company, the threats have shifted from reporting me
to the DWP, to reporting me to the Her Majesty’s Revenue
Commission (HMRC) for tax evasion, even though the
company has been around long enough to actually file its first
tax return.
There have been some instances where it has felt like myself
and the channel have been under attack from a select few
people, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
I myself have been branded a ‘bully’ by some small groups of
people, due to my habit of calling people out in public. Lately
other select people have branded me a ‘cyberbully.’ Yet, in
these same groups where they all hang out, if you look back
on the history of the Facebook group, you can see them giving
out information about me. What I clamed in benefits, how
much I must have got in benefits, the address of the HMRC to
report me for benefit fraud.
When ‘trolling’ starts to impact someone’s life, which it has for
me on several occasions, that’s when it crosses the line.
Even while I am typing this article, only yesterday, another
reviewer in the UK used a silhouette of me on a live show, with
a title that they are going to ‘speak their mind’ about a reviewer
in the UK. Turns out the image and the title were clickbait
designed to draw in more viewers to their failing channel.
If it was me that did something like that I would have been
hauled over the coals for it. Yet, it’s ok for them to get away
with practically anything they want to, and for the most part
they do.
When it all comes down to it, it’s mainly pure and simple
jealousy that has caused people to go on the attack, and when
it comes down to it, the more they attack, the more the general
public can see exactly what’s going on. The sad part in all
of this is an old saying which rings very true if you are in the
public eye which is: ‘No one sees when you are provoked,
they only see when you retaliate.’
I could just pack it all in and walk away. However, the vast
majority of the time, the interactions I have with the folks who
watch me are positive. I have helped probably hundreds
of people give up smoking in the last year alone. Over the
lifetime of the channel, the numbers are anyone’s guess. And
when it comes right down to the heart of the matter, that’s what
keeps me going. It’s the fact that the channel has, and still is,
helping a large number of people switch to vaping to live a
healthier life compared to being a smoker.
Follow Victor online: Vapingwithvic.co.uk
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