I am so OVER all the hostile/holier than thou comments on silly little Reels. I don’t post any video of myself or my daughter riding, but I do love all the little pony gals, etc. Why are people so mean? Is there a safe place for this stuff?
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Why are people so mean? --my thought would be the mean people are envious --who didn’t want to be the little girl with the pony? There is no outlet for the envy --so the mean people post mean things --perhaps it makes them feel better now that they have possibly hurt someone whom they envied.
As to your second question “Is there a safe place for this stuff?” --on the internet, probably no place is safe.
Before I retired from teaching HS (40 years), I was one of the first teachers at my school to create and implement on-line opportunities for my students to do at home if he or she missed class. It would have been very rudimentary on-line learning, that by the time I left teaching, had become a full-blown on-line classroom that a student could log into and participate from home. At one point I was asked if I would agree to have my lectures video-taped so that what I said in class to present a lesson (10-15 min of introduction on why we were reading Dante, author, historical context or similar). The videos would then be put on my classroom website for students to view or review.
I said absolutely not.
I had seen “dubbed” videos where the speaker’s words were replaced . . .so no.
My kiddos and grandkid are all grown up. They left home before posting on the internet became a thing. Today, I don’t think I would post anything of them or about them on the WWW. I do post pix and videos of my horses on FB --and sometimes of me if it is a really good picture --but not my kids.
FYI here is one of my favorite “dubbed” videos --I can only imagine what one of my very clever HS seniors would have done with a video of me discussing Dante!
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This is the best one!
“I was a natural at pony club”
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I don’t usually read comments on reels, but occasionally the algorithm shows me a video of someone doing something stupid, dangerous, abusive, or all 3. If I decide to take a look at the comments, there are usually multiple people pointing out that this is a bad idea. Some of those comments can come across as mean, but frankly I’d rather someone have to read a mean comment on their video than to keep making poor choices with their horses (if in fact the person was actually educated by the comment, which isn’t always the case).
As another option, people just like to get away with being jerks on the internet because they can’t do it in person without getting called out.
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Because even if it has your name attached to it, the internet allows people to feel more powerful because they are more anonymous. Also, people are A holes.
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There is a large contingent of animal rights people out there who will scream abuse on any video of a horse doing anything that resembles work or living in other than what they consider to be the perfect way.
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I also think there are horse people who are quick to scream abuse, too. I have a little insta for my pony, and I’m very, very careful what I post in case someone screams abuse. 
Her little insta is a nice place to meet fellow equestrians and see cute horses and animals, but there is always that fear that someone will come after me. So far, I thankfully haven’t encountered it, but I have read comments on other people’s instagrams, namely big rider’s posts.
That said, I don’t think most people would behave like this in real life, although who knows, to be honest.
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Because the Know-it-all Keyboard Warriors can spew their hysterical ignorance freely.
No repercussions, free to ignore input from someone who might have actual IRL experience.
Pearl-clutching is rampant 
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Oh my thank you for the video, it is hilarious!
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Thank you for the link. This is my new favorite movie
Also, regarding “the internet” it goes both ways when people post publicly. People who don’t know better proudly post extremely bad horsemanship (ex. little kids hanging on a horse’s face where their only stability is a harsh bit), then feel offended when mistreatment (ex. a horse bucking and skipping about on their first jump session after a break) is pointed out. Other people post entirely non-controversial material that people freak out about. If a post is public, the public will respond.
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Here’s Josh Johnson’s take on the TikTok ban which then goes into what you can expect when posting to the various social media sites. It’s hysterical and so true. I usually play videos like these when I go to bed and fall asleep to them. This one, I stayed awake for the entire thing.
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I post quite a bit of horse/riding content on IG. Although the occurrence is fairly rare, I handle “mean” comments promptly- be deleting them. You have full control of your own page, and it’s quick and easy to get rid of hate. My page is somewhere I get to to celebrate my horses, and I don’t owe anyone space for negative/rude comments 
.
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Wait, there are comments on the reels on Facebook?
Oh the weird things I learn here on COTH.
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Depends on the reasoning for the hostility, and where you draw the line on what you mean by hostile.
I just saw a reel this morning of a small child velcroed to a barrel horse, not wearing a helmet, with giant spurs that barely passed the saddle pad. Comments were all about how unsafe that set up was for the child.
I ride pleasure horses, so I get shit constantly about “why they move like that”. 
I try to turn it into an educational experience where possible - I’ve ridden the H/J horses, I’ve ridden the speed horses, and I prefer the pleasure horses (at least the ones with natural talent, not the ones mechanically forced to crawl along too slowly).
I generally don’t see hostility unless the kids are doing something dumb or something that doesn’t benefit the pony. To piggyback on the above, if it’s a full whack job who is just being hateful - delete/block.
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Oh, yassss…
& Sometimes the hysterical SHAME! is laughable.
One that stuck with me was from a breeder of - IIRC - Lusitanos, who posted a pic of a foal whose mane they’d clipped close.
Went on to explain their herd was pastured in a huge field (acres) that had briars & manes/tails got tangled.
The Karens piled on about how cruel it was to “torture” a baby, how terrified (not) the foal looked, ad nauseum.
To his credit, breeder tried replying politely to all of them.
Nope, they were determined to be horrified & just kept upping the OMG!!
Anyone trying to side with the breeder, provide examples of how NOT abusive this was got catclawed as well.
Fun times on the interwebz
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If you wanna see mean, go ahead and comment on a barrel racer’s video that her TODDLER really ought to be wearing a helmet when they’re careening around a pattern on mom’s horse 
A million of the internet’s finest will be at you with pitchforks and torches.
I try to teach my algorithms not to show me horse videos, at least not all the ones with the kids, I can’t take it.
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Because not enough people know to do this. They try to argue.
I’ve also been curating my feed, hiding and blocking people/pages that post stupid or foolish things (or AI art) so I don’t have to see it. There’s an endless supply of horse trainers/coaches who are feeding a misconception, or redefining a word in order to make themselves appear superior/holier than everyone else because they don’t do/use/believe in that. I don’t want to see that. Me pointing out where their initial premise is false isn’t going to change their mind, and unlikely to reach the few reasonable people reading it either because I doubt anyone reads all 500+ comments on these things.
I’ve found it necessary to do everything - block the poster, stop seeing posts from the poster, and hide the post - or FB just feeds me more because I “engaged” with the thing.
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I love the block button. Block block block. Mute, unfollow, delete.
Curate your online experience y’all. You’ll be happier!
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One of my favorites also. My late husband never saw the humor.
Sometimes I see a video and think, oh, the comments on this will be epic!
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