Not everyone's a fan of caving it seems

Caver Keith

Caver Keith

Active member
I have a YouTube channel which has had a lot of unsought publicity of late.

It's mostly non cavers who watch the videos and the most popular comments are: "Why?", "I couldn't do that" and "You must be mad!" Although most commenters aren't quite as polite as this.

Recently the comments have been more along these lines:

fatwalletboy2
After the Thai rescue I think this type of caving should be outlawed.  I can see the allure and sense of adventure a young child may gain from this activity but fail to see what grown adults get from this pointless pastime.    People talk about exploration etc but a) in caves what are you really likely to "discover".....more rock more passages more tunnels etc.  Big deal.  B)  Who for example has the role of regularly checking water levels in this video in this cave......they are swan in banging their heads about and smiling to camera whilst wading through mucky water at chin level on the way in........what if on the way its risen too much trapping them. It wont be all smiles then.......totally pointless exercises and risky unless you have all the bases covered.  No good just relying on the mornings weather forecast and hoping its going to be a dry day......plus you can still get stuck somewhere until a wet day then its good night vienna if you havent freed yourself.?

And

John Xin
People are super stupid doing this, this isn?t any ?sports? at all, purely dumbass?

Any advice on the best way to respond to comments like these?
 

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Boy Engineer

Active member
I wouldn't bother replying. I think a lot of folk who post comments (present company excepted) are simply trying to create a feeling that their 'voice' has been heard; perhaps because of the supposed 'all about me' world we now inhabit. Most populations have a bell curve of personality types and there's bound to be some at the thin end who post (in our opinion) stuff we disagree with. A few comments from a minority is the price you pay for potentially positively engaging with others. There will doubtless be folk who are inspired to give it a go.
Keep the videos coming, although I still struggle (no pun or irony intended) with the Daren squeeze shots.
 
F

Fulk

Well-known member
Hmmm . . . interesting. I?ve occasionally tried to argue with people who slag off caving (although, to be fair, most reaction I?ve encountered tends to run on the lines of ?I couldn?t do that, but good luck to you?; I?ve actually met very few people who take a totally hostile view of caving).

Sometimes I?ll say, ?What do you do for a hobby, then?? And suppose they answer ?I play golf?. ?What, you spend your free time bashing a silly little ball round a field full of holes? Was it Mark Twain who opined that ?Golf is the best way yet invented to spoil a walk in the country???. And it doesn?t half piss ?em off.

Or suppose they say, 'I support our local rugby team'. 'What, you enjoy watching 2 and a half dozen half-naked blokes chasing a misshapen ball round a muddy field?' (with the same result).

So I say, ?Fine, you do what you enjoy, I?ll do what I enjoy ? let?s just leave it at that?.
 
darren

darren

Member
I always tell people they sound just like my Dad. He always thought I was mad etc etc. Never did any exercise himself and smoked 20 fags a day., lucky to survive the heart attack when he was 62 but he couldn't walk afterwards. In a way it was a relief when the lung cancer killed him 3 years later.

Doesn't have to be true.
 
badger

badger

Active member
comments born out of ignorance, why find more rock, more passage, etc, cause when you leave this mortal earth you and a very few may be the only people on planet earth who have been there, apart from the deep oceans can many people say that.
or you could reply, that every time we get in a car we potentially run the risk of dying so maybe we should outlaw driving or go back to when I first started driving when we had no accidents as we had a man with a red flag walking in front of the car. ;)
 
cap n chris

cap n chris

Well-known member
Caver Keith said:
It's mostly non cavers who watch the videos and the most popular comments are ........ and "You must be mad!"

.....

Any advice on the best way to respond to comments like these?
Click to expand...

Agree with them and send them this link to their national anthem.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kDhYT9Jc_uY
 
JasonC

JasonC

Well-known member
Boy Engineer said:
Most populations have a bell curve of personality types .....
Click to expand...

That must explain the bell-ends who post ignorant nonsense on Keith's excellent videos  ;)
 
PeteHall

PeteHall

Moderator
To be honest, it's a bloody good thing for the Thai boys (& other kids) that there are grown up idiots out there who like caving and are good enough at it to get them out when they get into trouble!

If adults just left the kids to it, because caving is pointless, I'm sure the situation in Thailand would have worked out very differently...

Are those trolling your videos suggesting Rick and John should never have learnt to cave?
 
2xw

2xw

Active member
I wouldn't respond to YouTube comments either positive or negative. It's full of trolls and miscreants. Why waste energy with these types when chances are they're not even serious anyways.

Reply with a picture of your bare arse
 
Laurie

Laurie

Active member
Why are cavers even bothering to look at this sort of thing?
Let others have their point of view, why are we even acknowledging them, we're hardly committing a sin?
 
kay

kay

Well-known member
I suppose we're bothering to look at this type of thing because if such comments  start to arise in sufficient numbers you'll get some MP thinking it's a bright idea to have an official training and license scheme for caving, or to have an annual levy on cavers "to pay for the costs of rescue", or even to ban it altogether.
 
Pegasus

Pegasus

Administrator
Staff member
Consider replying simply with a link to www.newtocaving.com

Information about the sport of caving with positive images and wording.

:)
 
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crickleymal

New member
Most of the comments I've seen on YouTube tend to mark their owners out as fuckwits. When I say most I mean 99.9%. Why anybody wastes their time commenting nowadays beats me. If half of them were reasonable it would be OK.
 
I

Ian Ball

Well-known member
Luckily I don't have a youtube account or a google account so when I feel the need to reply to some buffoonery, I can't anyway and get away with blood pressure returning to normal.
 
SamT

SamT

Moderator
Ignore them all (turn comments off??) , life's way too short.

Haters gonna hate etc etc.
 
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