"Youtube Like/Dislike Button: Meaningless"

It's always interesting to read the comments in Youtube videos nowadays and see the amount of emphasis placed on the like/dislike button.

The problem inherent with the like/dislike system is that people will generally thumb down anything because they feel like it. The patterns for what videos get thumbed down is normally random.

I'm writing on this because I've noticed on my own videos - and a few other similar channels - that we've had a whole spate of thumbs downs over the last few weeks. It can only be a few Youtubers going around thumbing down every single video, because it's almost across the board and only one or two thumbs down at a time.

Now, I could rant and rave and disable the ratings, but glancing at the number of "likes" I can see that the videos are very much liked by a majority of the viewers I have, compared to a minority of wholly negative Youtubers. For example, the latest round of reviews have a very respectable 50 or so positive "likes" and one or two negative "dislikes".

Unfortunately, sometimes people just feel like being negative. The like/dislike button on Youtube gives an outlet to those people who have no creativity of their own and only wish to enforce their negative views on everyone else.

So - probably my mantra for this year - don't let it get you down! And don't disable the ratings chaps, the Youtube search algorithm identifies this and puts ones without the ratings lower down the pecking order...!