Titli’s Absence Explained
20th November 2016
It’s been a long time since I posted a video on Youtube. Truth is, it’s been a long time since I even went on Youtube. Why? Where have I been? What have I been doing?
In the last video I posted, a gardening video as it happened, I explained that I felt that Youtube had become an unpleasant place to be as a creator. People said to me, “don’t let the haters get you down”, but after a while you just get fed up of reading abusive comments day in, day out from people you’ve never even met and who know nothing about you. I also got fed up of having to correct people who would make up stories about me. For example, there was one idiot who insisted that I was married to a Pakistani and started posting this untruth on several of my videos.
Then other people said to me, “this is the price you have to pay for being famous”. I don’t want to be famous. I never wanted to be famous. I started posting videos because it was a fun thing to do, not because I expected to become some kind of internet sensation. It provided a very modest income – enough to pay the bills each month but not more than that. I never wanted it to be more than that.
Then there were the people who think that because they have been watching your videos for a while they have a right to know everything about you. They believe that you owe it to them to tell them every sordid little detail of your private life. When you don’t tell them what they want they get abusive.
And then there were those who posted comments and expected instant answers. When the answer didn’t come within five minutes a torrent of abuse would follow. These morons failed to understand that I don’t live in their phone like Siri, or that I live eight time zones away and at the time of posting their comment I was tucked up in bed.
The final straw came when someone posted some really nasty comments about me. I’m talking really unpleasant. People have been charged with commiting hate crimes for less. I decided to report their comments to Youtube. A few days later I got a message back saying that the person concerned had not breached Community Guidelines and no action would be taken. Clearly the Community Guidelines are there to protect the interests of Google and not the poor saps who generate their income.
It became really easy for me to walk away after that. I turned off all notifications and haven’t visited Youtube since. I don’t read any comments on any of my videos and I never will again. I’m sure there are people out there who may have had genuine questions about some of my recipes. To those people I say “sorry”, but this is the price you pay for being part of a community that thinks it’s OK to hurl unprovoked abuse at other people.
Rather than sit at home and twiddle my thumbs I started a local gardening business. Things are still going well. I am coming to the end of my second year and I am still busy at this time of year putting people’s gardens to bed for the winter. I have enough work lined up to take me into December if the weather allows it.
So from April to December I can be found in someone’s garden digging, pruning, tidying, hedge-trimming, tree-chopping, and weed-killing. I have quite a number of “loyal clients” for whom I am their go-to gardener. I have both weekly clients and those who I might only see a couple of times a year. Most of my clients have come from word-of-mouth recommendation. I love what I do, but more importantly I spend a lot of time outdoors in the fresh air away from a computer screen. I’ve made friends with some lovely people, including two wonderful nonagenarians. There are some clients of a slightly more tender age who have asked me to “sort their garden out”, usually because plants and weeds have got out of control. Often they tell me that the transformation is so miraculous that I have inspired them to take more interest in their garden. I have come to think of myself less as a gardener and more as a Weaver of Dreams.
So to satisfy the curious I’ll share a few other things with you.
When I’m not up to my elbows in dirt and hedge-clippings I can often be found on the end of a bell rope. Watchers of Titli’s Busy Garden will know that I’m a keen campanologist; what you may not know is that I’m also the Tower Captain at the local church. Not that I have any religion. Global events and recent events in my own life have left me with the distinct belief that if God exists at all he’s far too busy to care about this planet or the people on it. Why would He? There are billions of planets in the Universe just like ours, filled with intelligent life. That is my belief and you are perfectly entitled to yours. You are not entitled, however, to try and ram your beliefs down my throat or tell me how to live my life.
I brew my own beer and have started making my own wine from produce in the garden. Only last week I bottled some excellent plum wine which is drinkable now but will be much better in 6-9 months’ time. I’ve used a surplus of apples this year to make 5 gallons of delicious cider.
My husband and I celebrated our 10th wedding anniversary this year. If all goes well I shall be a grandmother next spring.
So, enough about my private life. Really, that’s enough for you to know. It is quite possible over the winter that I may post a few videos. I’ll spend long enough on Youtube to upload each video, but no longer than that. I’ll leave people to make comments if they wish but let me stress once again that I will not be reading them.
I must say a big thank you to everyone who continues to watch my videos and wishes me well. I’ll leave you with a little teaser… Be prepared for some rather obvious changes in my next video!
