Lol nah, I was just sitting around looking at stats and noticed that Zappies/Barb Hut were both floating around 4-5% usage with 53-56% win rates. It's still a bit early in the meta to make a call since people are still experimenting, but it struck me that I hadn't heard ANYTHING about the changes, for better or worse. Like, total radio silence. It seemed weird given how every month there are critical posts like "why didn't they touch Zappies or Barb Hut, 0% usage cards that need some love".
I don't need praise to feel confident in my decisions, just like I rarely let negative feedback change my decisions. But this was a nice reminder that 'listening to the community' can be hard if its entirely negative all the time. Many replies were along the lines of "silence is good" but that's not how humans operate - no one can absorb thousands of negative opinions without internalizing it on some level.
The comments I receive (especially ones that tag me directly on Reddit or Twitter) aren't a balanced representation of how the community feels about a given card, deck, challenge, etc. It's always, always going to be disproportionately negative and even if you deliver on what people want, you will not receive praise for it (just silence).
I empathize with "kids today" who grow up in a social media dominated environment - I see many players on Twitter desperate for some sort of social validation, or taking massive umbrage with a perceived slight or disrespectful comment. I am certain my mental health would have suffered if I had to interact with social media at their age (I first got Facebook in university when it was still only college students).
I felt the need to put it out there to people that 'the community', whether it be your followers or Facebook feeds or YouTube comments, will likely never give you the validation you are seeking. So relying on the praise of strangers will only lead you down a spiral, the only mentally healthy way to be proud of your work is to have a process and stick to it. If the process works, you will get the results you seek. A person has to be comfortable with their own work (regardless of external feedback) in order to exist in the public eye for extended periods of time. So it was more of a generalized support for the YTers and pros who felt discouraged by their community than a cry for help myself.
If I do snap and end up naked in the streets of Helsinki, claiming to be a reincarnated divinity, you may absolutely throw this post back in my face. :)
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