My friend and I have a youtube channel together. People think I’m the ugly one

One Reddit user shared a heartfelt story about the struggles she’s facing with her best friend, Sarah, due to comments about her appearance on their shared YouTube channel. Despite having a supportive boyfriend and a solid friendship with Sarah, the negativity from viewers—who constantly compare her to Sarah—has started to take a toll on her self-esteem. The user is now grappling with how to handle these feelings and protect her relationship with Sarah as their channel grows. Read more about her emotional journey below.

‘ My friend and I have a youtube channel together. People think I’m the ugly one’

We’re both 18+, our channel has just under 10k subs. I’m calling my friend Sarah, which is not her real name. I’m being purposely vague. I always knew that I wasn’t the pretty one. We’ve been friends since we were really young and I’ve seen her go from awkward kid to really, really pretty. In school people always asked her out and they’d do extra stuff for her that she never seemed to notice. I used to be jealous, but we’ve talked about how I felt back then, I have a boyfriend who makes me feel beautiful now, etc. and I thought I was over it.

Recently, since we gained more subscribers, people have been making comments about how sad it must be to be the ugly one. Some of them say my name but most of them talk about my features that make it obvious that they’re talking about me. I’ve even had people privately messaging me to suggest plastic surgery. It’s hurting my relationship with Sarah. I know she’s prettier than me but until this it wasn’t really a problem anymore. Being compared to her constantly is hurtful.

She’s suggested that we make both of our instagrams private and make a joint public one so that we can better control the new h**red towards me. I’m worried that will just bring up questions and I’ll have to explain that I’m so hurt by people saying this stuff and it’s damaging my friendship so much that we’ve both had to be private. She even suggested that if it gets too bad, we should phase out the channel because it isn’t worth becoming bitter towards each other because of youtube.

I just want to know how to feel better about being friends with her. Sarah has never made me feel ugly, it’s always been other people. She’s the kindest person I know and it makes me even more annoyed because I know she doesn’t have control over this any more than I do.

Take a look at the comments from fellow users:

ThisIsYourFriendAron −  Sarah matters.. You matter.. Those fuckers don’t. One way to take control from them though is to do a video highlighting it, saying you’re hurt, but saying you’re trying to make it through. Self esteem about looks doesn’t go away over night, trust an expert lol. But developing thick skin and reminding yourself why you have so much value is key to moving forward.

brook_marshall −  I can definitely say I know what it feels like to be the “ugly” friend. Being infront of such a huge audience there’s no way of escaping judgement, no amount of time and energy spending to avoid reading comments in fear of others judgement is worth it. It doesn’t matter much coming from from a complete stranger but honestly if you are confident in yourself those comments wont matter.

And if you cant say at this moment you are confident enough in yourself to realize those people are wrong, you should work towards a goal and become a more confident person. Life is so short and so precious don’t let people bring you down. You are beautiful in your own way. You dont deserve to be put down and compared to anybody. You are yourself and as long as you are true to yourself and work for what you want you will be happy and no amount of negativity can being you down. Much love.

maximum-salt-mode −  First of all Sarah is a damn sweetheart for doing everything then she can to protect you. Unfortunately it comes down to you and what you allow your self to be bothered by. I suggest watching jelly Nelson’s documentary. I also suggest doing a QnA with Sarah and get her to talk about how much she hates seeing those comments about you.

BluePen07 −  If random anonymous people 1. Care about how you look, and 2. Are compelled to message you about it/ comment meanly on it, I guarantee 9 times out of 10 it’s people insecure about either their own looks, or people who are insecure generally.

People care most deeply about the issues closest to home for them, and if looking good enough and being good enough is an insecurity on their minds, what better way for an immature person to get it out of their system than to comment anonymously on a YouTube video? These comments say everything about the people making them, and nothing about you. I hope you and your friend can sort this out!

nullsage −  Ok, so about twenty years ago I was in a somewhat similar situation. Not the same, just kinda similar. I ended up having someone else do comment moderation. I have a thick skin, but at some point personal attacks can get overwhelming. I also “split” my business persona from my own identity, if that’s makes sense. That gave me a bit more distance between the comments, and myself.

That meant anonymizing some stuff I do, not mixing every aspect of my life on social media, and generally not taking things personally. I am not my projects, if they fail or are great, the criticisms are not related to me, even if the critic is talking about me, or what I’ve done.

If I were you I’d probably make a private personal insta, for you as a person, your friends and family. I’d also keep your public insta related to your channel, and you can have someone else manage that with you, so you don’t have to see every abusive ass on the web. Nobody would have to know your insta went private, only that what you’re posting to that account changed focus to just the channel’s content.

Rasperr −  Honestly, I anticipate this to get downvoted to all hell – but you need to work on yourself. A lion doesn’t lose sleep over the opinion of sheep. These are faceless strangers who’s comments you’re literally letting impact your self image and worth.
Why do you care what a bunch of hate filled turds have got to say? If it wasn’t you – it’d just be someone else.

One thing I always keep in mind when confronting this: “You will never be criticised by someone doing more than you, you will only ever be criticised by someone doing less. Remember that.” – Nipsey Hussle. Keep doing your thing, ignore the hate – focus on your mission that you set out with when you started the channel – keep growing, get famous, make bank.

TARA_notmydog −  Girl, keep your head up high and let them hate all they want. It just shows who they are, and it says nothing about you. Maybe Sarah is just more preferable for the majority of guys, it’s just how that is. I’m sure there are lots of guys who think you are the prettier one, and just don’t comment – or are not interested in your content. There is no shame in being a different kind of pretty – there is in calling people out when you don’t see it.

People with hate on their minds and in their hearts are often the ones who scream the loudest, try to shut them out. Please know there are different flavors of being pretty. I’m sure your boyfriend thinks you’re f**king stunning, believe him on that.

mydamn2cents −  Unfortunately, this is how celebrity works. Once your face is out there, people start slamming you unless you are undeniably gorgeous or (ideally and) you are very talented or something (the anonymity is not helpful either). People also find it easier to slam lesser known people.

As your channel grows and you build a community, they will probably attack you less because (as other people pointed out) they might have their own insecurities which may prevent them from attacking a more popular person maybe? At this point, it is best to avoid reading those comments. I do not think meddling with your Instagram accounts would be very helpful since the hate stems from your YouTube videos.

Sqeaky −  I always knew that I wasn’t the pretty one. We can know wrong things. Things change. Different people have different standards of beauty There is more to life than being pretty. Don’t define your self worth by something that will certainly disappear, as all physical beauty does.

theglencoeclub −  I’m an identical twin. We work together publicly, and have for most of our lives. One of us is always referred to as the ‘hot’ one. Which one has changes depending on a variety, yet unpredictable factors. A few years ago, it became a problem, because one of is had occupied the ‘pretty ‘ spot publicly for too long, and we were concerned if we didn’t take steps to flip that role it would be solidified. I’m telling you this to say that the public must create a dichotomy of pretty/ugly with two women.

There is nothing you can do, the only thing you can do is to mitigate what you expose yourself to. Its painful and awful, but know it has less to do with you and more to do with this division that essentially is designed to punish women from speaking publicly.