(somber music)
- "Hey, I went through your channel recently,
"I bought two turtles and just after two days
"one of them's not moving.
"I'm tensed.
"Would you please help me?"
Where'd you get 'em from,
and did they have the spots when you bought 'em?
"Yes, I bought 'em from a pet shop,
"they had those marks and I was not aware of any deficiency.
"So what do I do now?
"Can you help me please?
"They are not more than two months.
"Please guide me if you can,
"I really need help, I don't have a vet in my town.
"I was really expecting a little bit of help for my turtles.
(sad groaning)
"People say everybody shares videos and pictures
"to get famous, to get likes, comments and followers.
"That's the motive on social media.
"But when I saw your channel,
"I thought it was not like that,
"that there were some people here to help.
"Today I realized they are correct.
"Followers and likes are all that matters.
"You too have so many pets,
"so I thought you would understand how it feels
"when your pet is sick, so I asked for help.
"Anyway, my turtles died.
"I couldn't get 'em cured.
"But please, if next time anyone comes to you for help,
"Do listen and guide them."
Praying emoji.
My favorite part of being a YouTuber
is being blamed for the death of animals.
Every single week, when I had nothing to do with them.
My second favorite thing is selling merchandise.
And apparently people really wanted the potato design back,
which is weird, 'cause it was
one of my worst selling designs.
I love it, it's the one I wear the most,
but per your demand, it's back.
I put it up on Instagram a couple days ago,
and half the stock already sold out. (laughing)
So, uh-oh, it might be gone before you buy it.
Also, it's extremely hot in this room,
as comfortable as it is,
it's very comfortable and very soft,
but I can't have the air conditioning on,
because it's too loud for the video.
And I lost my potato t-shirt.
Um, buy it.
So that example is just one of the many messages I get
on a disturbingly usual basis now.
They're pretty much all over Instagram,
I have DMs turned on, 'cause you can't turn them off,
Instagram doesn't let you.
Even if they did, I still wouldn't want to turn them off,
'cause a lot of times I can just quickly help someone out
with a simple question,
and sometimes I just wanna talk to people.
I also have my own connections on Instagram,
I need to be able to talk to them.
But people get very personally offended,
when I do not respond to messages.
And I wanna focus on the ones
that assume, I owe them the task
of being their professional veterinarian,
every time they have a question.
Oh, first off, if you send me questions,
and you don't expect a response
but a response would be nice, that's fine.
Just don't rely on me to respond, no matter what it is.
Like a year or two ago, I would try and respond
to every single message,
but it was taking up to four or five hours a day,
so now I spend about an hour a day,
meaning I can get back to about five to 10% of messages.
So statistically speaking,
the odds are not in your favor for me to respond,
but again like I said, no problem messaging me,
whatever, pictures, questions,
anything you want, that's legal.
Somehow down the road
of me slowly becoming slightly more popular
as more people find the channel,
people just automatically assume I am all the resources
that they can get from their own exotic veterinarian.
Now not everyone has access to a vet,
not everyone's around an exotic vet,
not everyone's vets are good.
There's a lot of awful vets.
I get messaged about bad vets more often than good vets.
They'll ask me a question, they'll be like,
"This is what the vet told me to do."
It's the exact opposite of what I would do
or pretty much anyone else
that knows how to research an animal
and that's, it's like 50-50 with vets.
It's not looking good.
Obviously, there's a lot of great resources.
I usually use vets as a resource
for the technology they have, like X-rays
and blood work and fecals and stuff that I can't do myself,
but I digress, that's just a vet tangent.
So there are those unfortunate people that contact me,
and I am basically their only hope.
Now that's not true, you can post in all sorts of places,
yes, some of those places will tear you apart,
like maybe a Facebook group.
There are some good Facebook groups.
Or my Discord server, even, whatever you want.
Ah, don't join the Discord, it's weird.
Today I just want to focus on those
that really have to kind of ruin my day
by putting responsibilities on me that aren't mine at all.
Now, if I give you a piece of advice
and that advice ends up being wrong, and kills your animal,
then yes, I am in the wrong.
But if it's my fault simply because I don't respond
to your very lengthy and complicated message,
then it's not gonna work out.
And it's entirely your fault.
Now, some of these are aware
that it's not my responsibility.
Like, this person asking about,
I think it was their Pac-Man frog.
"I've tried everything to get him to eat.
"Please help me with this and tell me
"if I should see a vet and if it's worth the money.
"Most likely my parents won't even take me to see a vet,
"even if it does treat amphibians."
What your temperature at?
It may be too cold.
"My temp is at 75 degrees."
"I just found him dead."
I asked a question, and they answered,
and then I never saw the response,
because my inbox got flooded out.
So they waited three days for me to respond,
and then he, it was just dead.
Now this one's a bit different,
because it's a Pac-Man frog,
and they are kinda just known to drop dead.
But it sounds like this was not a very immediate thing,
this was kind of an ongoing thing.
So take that one as you will.
So definitely, the worst ones I get
are when they message me about something
that's completely fixable, completely doable,
but either something they just simply
have to Google themself, do themself,
or immediately go to a vet.
Like, I can't do surgery over an Instagram message.
Even if you came to my house,
I still can't do surgery on it.
I don't know how to do it.
And so these people will send me a message,
and then I won't respond.
So they'll send me another message,
maybe a little angry or a little more irritated,
they're like, "Come on, why is he not responding?
"I deserve all this attention from him, he's taking awhile!"
And then they send the third message.
Still nothing.
And then maybe they wait like a week, instead,
because I still haven't responded.
They're like, "I know he's reading these,
"he's just ignoring me.
"So I'd better send another message a week later."
And then three weeks down the line,
I'm scrolling through my old messages, I click it,
and then I get the chance to read through
this entire timeline of their animal just slowly dying,
and they just more desperately keep sending me messages.
And I'm wondering, like, do they message other YouTubers?
Do they message other people they look up to,
or is it just me?
And a lot of them I know are just me,
because they'll literally say,
"You are the only person I trust in this community."
Which is flattering, but also terrifying,
'cause, I mean, I really don't post
many more resources than the average pet keeper.
Like obviously we're all gonna,
there's gonna be people that know way more than me,
and then I'm gonna know way more
than some beginner about whatever.
So sure, I might be able to help out,
but apparently I'm the only one that can help them,
and so they're pretty much like,
"Well, if Alex isn't gonna respond,
"it's not my responsibility.
"I guess he's just gonna die,
"it's meant to be, it's destiny.
"Thanks, GoHerping for letting him reach his destiny."
And then there's some others,
where it's probably too late for me to do anything.
(somber music)
"My chameleon has a lazy eye, and mainly this morning
"he's been staying close to the bottom of his cage
"and hanging upside down.
"He's barely moving, his eyes are shrunken in,
"I don't know what to do.
"He died."
I mean, they didn't send any pictures,
I don't know how quickly they noticed this issue
with the chameleon, they just were like,
"Hey, my chameleon's not looking good."
Five hours later, he died.
And I saw that, I think, like,
maybe that night or something, after 5:00 p.m.
So don't think I'm, like, ignoring these.
I literally just don't see them at all,
'cause I only check my messages every so often.
"Well why won't you check 'em more often?"
Because like I said, a year and half ago,
when I had 30,000 subscribers,
it would take me four to five hours a day
to answer every message.
And then there's these.
Warning, this one's a bit more graphic,
so you might want to skip to this time code
if you don't want to see a very sad turtle.
If you do, then,
"My friend was watching my turtle a few weeks ago.
"When he was cleaning the tank, he put the turtle
"in extremely hot water on accident.
"The turtle was fine,
"but it kinda has a blister around its body.
"You know, just a little blister,
"I don't know, is it okay?
"Can you fix it, over Instagram DMs, you know?"
Why am I laughing at this?
How do you...
How do...
How do you accid...
(groaning)
How do you accidentally drop a turtle in boiling water?
It's like, oh, whoops,
I grabbed the wrong turtle from my turtle soup.
I didn't mean to do the pet one,
I meant to do the one from the Asian market.
I only screen shotted a few of these,
and that was like, one that really stood out.
'Cause one, I don't why you dropped it in boiling water,
two, I don't know why you thought
I'd be able to do something.
(mumbles) the chat for this boiling turtle boy.
And then some other ones,
"And one more thing I'm just curious about,
"isn't that guy with the big hair,
"isn't that your boyfriend?"
Wait, no, that's the wrong one.
So I said no, and then he said,
"You just have like a connection in the eyes when you smile,
"but I get it, I believe you of course.
"And another thing, you have an Instagram just you,
"and not your animals?
"You are handsome, I want to see more of you."
So he was just trying to see if I was available.
And then he made his move. (laughing)
A lot of these people just start out so friendly.
"I've been watching your channel for awhile now,
"and I just watched your reptile room tour.
"I have a pair of cresties that I can't have
"'cause we're moving.
"I was wondering if you could maybe take them in.
"Thanks a bunch!"
Hey, where are you located?
"I'm in Oregon.
"If we're too far away to work something out,
"it's totally okay.
"Could we work something out?
"Okay?
"No?
"Please?
"Frick off!
"I dropped a brick on each of their heads."
Now obviously he didn't actually hurt his animals.
People always do these threats to really dig in the fact
that you're responsible for their suffering,
and they're not.
So I just responded with, xxx is lame.
I'm completely unbiased on x.
I don't care, I don't have an opinion.
But it was his profile picture, and I wanted to go with it.
"Full off animal nerd."
And then I just sent this picture. (laughing)
He blocked me.
What else do we got?
There was this fun one.
A person that got a ball python off of Craigslist.
They had a couple questions,
and they sent me this picture.
Uh, this is also,
it's not as common as others,
but there are a handful of people
that misidentify the animals that they purchased,
and then they ask me a question, 'cause they're confused.
So I told this person, like, yeah, that's not a ball python.
They get, like, five feet.
You have a full sized boa constrictor.
And they were like, "Oh, that makes sense."
So this person was actually fine.
We talked for a few minutes, I think,
I don't have the other screen shots.
They fixed everything, that one was fine.
Other ones, not so much.
They have this thing that they think is a thing,
but it's not the thing, and they're like,
"Uh-oh, I have this thing instead of that thing."
And then I just kind of slip out of the DMs,
'cause I'm like, okay, have fun with that!
There's also the people, now, okay,
this happens every single day, probably 10 times a day.
And this is probably something you've done, statistically.
I've you've DM-ed me, you've done this thing.
You say, "Hey, Alex, can I ask you a question?"
And then you don't ask the question.
So, what I do is see it, I hit accept, I'm like, sure.
Then you just disappear into my DMs.
I know, like, in person it makes sense,
like, hey can I ask you a question,
like, is a polite way to get started.
This is Instagram, where I get to the point.
Just ask your question, 'cause you're gonna say,
"Can I ask you a question?"
I'm gonna say yes,
then I'm never gonna see your question ever again.
Not rude or anything, you can just ask it.
You don't have to ask permission to ask it.
It's just a waste of time for both of us.
Okay, that's my PSA.
I'm really getting off topic here.
I'm just going through fun messages.
I could just have a whole series
dedicated to what goes on in my Instagram DMs.
I'm trying to get some other rants.
Another one is I learned that young'ns,
like, underage people,
understand that strangers online are not to be trusted,
and not to share information with.
The problem is, the more followers you have,
the less of a stranger you appear.
People, it's like, they're like,
"Oh, well I know him pretty well,
"I see him in videos, he seems chill."
Which hopefully I am, but not everyone is.
So what a lot of kids do is they automatically assume
that this person, specifically me, or whoever else,
is much more trustworthy.
Therefore, they just give me all their personal info.
They're like, "Hey, this is my full name,
"this is where I live, if you're ever in the area,
"just come on over, open house.
"The home is yours, come on in.
"You're my favorite YouTuber, feel free."
And the weird part is, I've had adults do this.
Last month, I looked at their profile,
they looked at least 30.
They lived, I think, in South Carolina,
so you know who I'm talking about if it's you.
They literally were just like,
"Hey, if you're ever in the area,
"this is my full address and name.
"Come hang out."
Now, there's like, the minuscule chance,
maybe they were trying to bait me.
Maybe they were like, oh, I'll kidnap GoHerpes,
by acting like I'm a welcoming home.
So maybe that's what that one was doing.
It didn't work.
I responded, and I was like, no.
So, sorry, your plan failed.
But there are those very young people
that just distribute their address
to all their favorite YouTubers.
I don't know why.
Please don't do this.
The worst part is, I usually just have to block you,
'cause I don't want to look like
I asked for it or something.
So I really just don't respond.
I just hit block, and now you can't see my profile.
So, it's a lose-lose situation.
Keep your address to yourself,
unless you order something on the show.
Thank you, that's my second PSA of the day.
Well, I had a few examples there
of people blaming me for the deaths of animals,
so I thought I would just do a full video on it.
I mean, you get the idea,
I really don't have to do any explaining.
I'm not your vet.
I'm not responsible for your animal,
unless I give you a piece of advice
that is directly harmful to your animal.
And even then, I mean literally,
the signature on my email is I am not a vet.
Anything I say is from experience or research.
I think that's what it says.
The lesson I learned here is I just have to say
go to the vet more often,
which I hate saying that.
When I have a question that I post it,
and there's just 12 go the vet responses,
it's really annoying.
It's like, I hadn't thought of that.
Like yeah, I'm aware of the vet,
I'm just asking here for advice,
like, and ideas or whatever.
Go to the vet isn't helpful,
especially when so many of the vets suck.
Not only around here, but everywhere, as I've learned.
Maybe some day I'll do a video on vets.
Also, that's not my job.
I didn't sign up for that.
I signed up for making videos on my animals,
and giving you care advice that I can, based on what I know.
Not so that I can be yelled at for killing your animals.
So I really just got tired of screen shotting them.
I only had a few on my phone right now.
But, there's plenty.
I could start making a collection of them,
but hopefully this video will maybe decrease that number
of how many I get.
But let's face it, the people that do this
probably have too short of an attention span
to even watch this entire video.
So that's too bad.
I'm not your vet, no other YouTuber is your vet.
Just find a vet if you need a vet.
Maybe you don't need a vet.
Maybe you just have a question.
Send me the question, that's fine.
Where's this video going?
Don't expect a response, stop letting your animals die.
Thank you, PSA over.
Whew!
(laid-back music)