- Hey, good morning everybody,
and welcome to the vlog.
I hope the start of your day is absolutely incredible.
Every now and then I gotta be honest with you guys.
I gotta ask the question.
Why do people hate me?
Come here (Indistinct), come here girl.
She is so beautiful.
And I often think to myself,
I'm not a really hateable guy, at least in my life
I've never been hated
by hardly anybody except on the internet.
And I do get quite a bit of hate on the internet,
and I have to ask myself, why is that?
And let me just be clear,
back in the day when I used to get hated
really got to be, I mean, when I read negative comments,
when people would do terrible things,
say terrible things about me, it really bothered me
but now it really doesn't.
I guess I've grown to the point where I just realized that
99% of the hate that I get
is either from people that have never met me
or people that are just assuming things about me
that they don't really know.
It doesn't bother me anymore at all.
I mean, like I read a negative comment
and I actually kind of feel bad
for the person that's making the comment.
Why would you take the energy to make that comment about me?
And listen, that doesn't mean
that I don't deserve some negativity,
and I don't need to be scrutinized
about the things that I do.
Because certainly I think that
everyone should have some scrutiny on them
especially people that work with animals.
(upbeat music)
So let's take a look at why people actually do hate me.
And the truth is is that
in the past I've certainly made a lot of mistakes.
When we started on the internet 13 years ago,
things were different.
I did Byte videos.
I did sensational videos.
And the truth is is that,
the majority of the people back then that loved it.
Ultimately years later started to hate it.
But it was different back then,
some things were more acceptable back then
than they are now.
And I stopped.
I listened and I stopped doing those types of Byte videos.
Did the people that hate me stop hating me?
No, they just found another reason.
And that's kind of the whole point.
I am willing to learn and I'm willing to change and adapt.
And I can tell you,
I don't know that you could pick anyone that has changed
and adapted more in the last three years
than I certainly have.
So certainly,
I've made my fair share of mistakes in the past.
And rather than taking those down
and pretending like they weren't there,
I've left those videos up
I'm not gonna hide from my past.
I accept the fact that I did some things
that I'm not even proud of at all.
I wanna show people that you can live
you can learn and you can change and you can adapt.
And now I hope I have a more better
positive outlook on things.
And I really wanna try to continue to inspire people
without creating all of that negativity.
That really followed me from my past.
Now let me just start by saying I didn't do byte videos
because I wanted snakes to look bad.
That was obviously never my intention.
The truth was is that when snakes are biting me
I was trying to make it like it wasn't that big of a deal.
I would call him cheeky monkey,
we would laugh about it.
And like I said,
back then it really helped get a lot of eyeballs
on our content
which ultimately meant we could share that kind of passion
and that love of animals.
And that's really the way I looked at it.
It wasn't like, I was like, oh, I'm making snakes look bad.
I was thinking I could bring a tension to snakes.
And sometimes sensationalism does bring attention.
And once you get that attention
and then you can really use that attention
to push your agenda.
And that agenda was just for people
to love these animals so much.
But again, times have changed.
Back then, there was a lot of crazy videos out there
that if you did now, you would get in a lot of trouble.
And some of the YouTubers now have kind of paid the price
of things that they've done in the past, myself included.
But at the same time, I've changed a lot
and it is kind of frustrating every now and then
when you see somebody say something
about something you get eight years ago,
think about your life
and something you did eight or 10 years ago.
If you were still being judged by it,
not saying I shouldn't be judged guys.
'Cause I completely agree with you.
I'm just saying that at some point
you've got to look at the merits of what you're doing now
and the changes that you've made
and kind of leave that in the past.
But hey, but I'm gonna be honest with you.
Those haters they'll always find a reason.
Then next reason was that people said
that my animals were kept in too small of cages,
which looking back, I kind of maybe agree with them
in some cases,
I definitely had some of my bigger snakes
in cages that I think should have been bigger
and I made that change.
I did the Reptarium, now I got huge enclosures.
And I'm continuing to do
I've continued to upgrade the best I possibly can.
And again I'm not trying to like defend myself in the past.
I don't want you guys to think that at all.
I'm just trying to say that
it is kind of interesting that even after all the change
and the positivity that I try to bring
that there's still that small group of people,
and they're vocal.
The vocal minority is the saying.
And I think it's really weird.
Listen, I'm gonna be honest with you guys.
And I know this is gonna sound a little bit rude for me
but if you're 30 or 40 years old.
And for the last two and a half or three or four years,
every day you've just woke up
to try to say something bad about me.
You might wanna reflect on yourself a little bit.
You know what I mean?
Seriously, it's really about you, not about me.
I mean, listen, do I deserve some criticism?
Absolutely. Will I make mistakes in the future?
100% I will.
But at the same time, I try so hard
to be the best person I possibly can be,
to try to do best for the animals
and get people excited about these animals.
It's just really weird to me that
there would be people that would hate me,
because they don't even really know who I am.
And if they spent 10 minutes with me in person
I have a feeling they might change their opinion.
All right guys, they are now available the coloring books
which are really more like a coloring comic book
to be honest with you.
This is "After Hours At The Reptarium"
just amazing illustrations that my friends did.
You can color these guys, they're available.
You can go to thereptarium.com and get you some,
'cause I'm telling you what, this is amazing.
This is volume one.
And definitely when we're sold out of volume one.
We're not gonna make any more.
So make sure to get volume one
and then we'll maybe start working on volume two.
Now let me just make sure you understand.
There's a difference between hate and criticism.
Criticism is something that I'm always looking for.
I want you to be constructive with your criticism.
But if you come at me
and say right off the bat, that I'm terrible,
that I'm an animal abuser, that somehow my content sucks.
That's not criticism, that's not constructive.
That's just hatred.
You know what I mean?
I mean you wouldn't go in person
and probably say those things to my face.
And it's really easy with the anonymity of the internet
to kind of punch up things and say, hey, blah, blah, blah.
But the truth is is that,
the only reason I'm making the video on it
is to kind of show that silly thing really
like it doesn't help anything, it's not hurting me.
I mean, our businesses are doing great.
Everything is going fantastic.
And it doesn't affect me emotionally personally.
And it's something you might wanna think about for you too.
If you've maybe do that to somebody else.
I watch a lot of YouTube videos,
a lot a lot of YouTube videos.
And if I don't like one, I just click off.
I don't feel the need to tell someone
that I hate their content.
And I certainly have never obsessed over anybody
about trying to make them fail.
Because me failing doesn't help the reptile hobby.
If you guys think that I'm the worst thing for the hobby,
that's just crazy.
We bring so many people into the hobby
'cause we show him like we love these animals
and how much they mean to us.
And then people would go from fearing them
to thinking they're amazing.
And then ultimately, maybe even keeping them
or at least having a better appreciation for 'em.
So even if you don't like me as a person
which is completely fine by the way.
If you don't like my hair, you don't like the way I look,
you don't like my cheeky talk or whatever the case.
That's fine, I have no problem with that.
But certainly you can't see them somehow harming the hobby
because that's just kind of crazy.
And maybe a few years ago when it really did affect me,
I understood, because maybe someone that wanted to get
under my skin or like, oh I want Brian to be miserable,
or I want to tear Brian down.
And I know that what I'm saying about him
is really gonna affect his mental state.
I could understand that in a way.
It's a very hateful thing to do, but I do get it.
Now that it doesn't bother me.
I wonder why they would do it.
I'm not kidding you
there are people that wake up every morning
and go on a little Facebook group
just to talk about what I've done in the vlog today,
and how bad of a person.
I just think that that's really sad.
I mean, it really is.
Again I'm not saying perfect, I'm far from perfect.
But the truth is
the things that typically are said about me,
about me wanting fame, money, I'm arrogant.
Anyone that knows me knows that those three things
are certainly far from the truth.
Do I do things to make money? Yes.
Do I do things to create a following? Of course I do.
Does that motivate me? No it doesn't.
That's not at all why I do that.
So it's kind of interesting thing
because it's almost like when I read things about me,
it's like I'm reading something about somebody else.
'Cause I'm like,
there's no way they could be talking about me.
And again, I'm not saying it affects me.
I shouldn't even be spending this vlog talking about it.
I think the reason I brought it up is just simply because
I want the world to be a better place.
And I wish there wasn't this type of the hatred,
not just towards me.
'Cause again, it doesn't matter.
I can take it.
Other people can't, I'll be honest with you
a few years ago, when it really affected me,
it really did bring me to the brink
of like wanting to end my life.
That's why I had to get a grip on it.
I had to realize that
these people's opinion to me mean nothing.
And literally there's a saying that says
don't let people rent space in your head for free,
and I no longer do it.
And I tell you that was one of the most liberating things
that ever happened to me
is when I could literally look at a bad comment,
a hateful comment, or any kind of hate about me.
And literally go, that's on you man.
That's reflecting your view of yourself,
not your view of me.
Because that's the type of person you are.
And that's the only reason why
I'm even spending any time talking about it
to be totally honest with you.
Some of the hate is really self-serving
to be totally honest with you.
And what I mean by that is that people will complain about
my clickbaiting, which was, hey listen
we have sensational titles and thumbnails
to get people to try to click.
That's part of YouTube.
But then they'll go and complain about that.
But then they use my name and my face in their thumbnail
which is clickbaiting and sensational people that go.
So it's kind of hypocrisy.
It's weird that people would say like,
I don't like Brian because he clickbaits people,
but then they use my name to clickbait their video
to get more views
because that's what it's about.
And listen I don't even really mind
to be totally honest with you.
If you wanna use my name
and the title in my face and your thumbnail.
I mean good for you.
I mean, whatever it takes to get views
especially if your video is good.
Now if your video is bad
then I wish you wouldn't use my name.
But my point is is that
the game is to try to get people to watch and to grow
and so on like that.
And that's okay.
It's completely fine if you do that.
But it's just kind of funny when people complain
about me doing it
and then they're doing the exact same thing.
So the real purpose of this vlog
was really to kind of address this thing
because I've had a bunch of my friends on social media
that have literally reached out to me
over the last few months and said like,
they don't even wanna post.
They don't wanna post on YouTube.
They don't wanna post on Instagram because they get hate
or they turn off their comments and stuff like that.
And I wanna tell you, if you ever decide
you wanna try to go down the path
where you're gonna be in the public eye
whether it's YouTube, TikTok, Instagram,
whatever the case may be.
You have to really understand that it can't bother you.
It can't get to you.
It can't affect your future.
Literally you have to somehow numb yourself that
however that is.
For me it took to get to the brink of almost wanting to die
to realize that I had to stop caring.
Other people can do it like that.
Lori, obviously she never cared.
And that's really important.
So if you have a vision and you wanna reach people
with the things that you're passionate about,
don't let people slow you down
because unfortunately the more successful you get
the more people are gonna be against you.
That is just the way it is.
It doesn't matter who you are.
Every single person that gains a following
has a group of people that hate.
They always say if you don't have haters
you haven't arrived.
Well that's gonna happen.
So prepare yourself and mentally realize
that the people that are attacking you
really are suffering on the inside.
So you should have empathy for them
and feel bad for them because let's face it.
It's not normal for someone to hate someone
for a long period of time for no reason,
or for reasons that don't really make sense.
If somebody is doing something wrong and then says,
Hey listen, I'm changing.
Then you shouldn't continue to hate.
You should actually say, hey, that's awesome.
They listened to me.
And by the way, for you guys out there
if you've got constructive criticism for me
put them in the comments
I would love to read what you'd like to see me change
because I'm always willing to grow.
I'm not too big of a person to realize
that I have faults and I'm willing to change.
So feel free.
Have had it down in the comments.
Tell me what you think about me.
Tell me what you think I need to change.
Remember constructive really comes from love.
It comes from a place where people want you to change
so that you're a better version of yourself.
It doesn't come from hatred.
And if you have hatred in your heart
you really need to start thinking about you
and get better about you
because I'm worried about you as much as anything.
Again, it doesn't affect me, but it certainly affects you.
So I hope that if you wanna go forward
don't let those people stop you because trust me
if they do it, then they win and you don't want them to win.
With all that said, I'm getting off my soap box
and I'm going to step down and say
have an absolutely amazing day.
If you don't mind,
you can click a video too if you like that,
if you want you can subscribe to my podcast over here.
I talk a lot about this type of stuff.
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hit the subscription button if you don't mind.
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Have an absolutely wonderful day.
Remember be kind to somebody,
and I promise I'll see you tomorrow.