About The Community
Before starting StevieSnacks, I was very, very turned off by the way people treat each other when communicating on the internet. I had long since grown tired of the flame wars that burn up the pages of forums, and was disgusted by the way that people criticize and insult people they don't even know on sites like YouTube.
So it was with great fear and trepidation that I decided to post my first video on Oct. 21, 2007. I expected the worst. Almost immediately the comments and emails started coming. But it wasn't at all what I expected.
I had prepared myself to face the same kind of garbage that seems to show up in the comments on even the best videos, but nearly every person that commented was polite, encouraging, enthusiastic, and most of all, thankful.
At first I thought it was a fluke, beginner's luck. But it wasn't. As the site began making the rounds on the forums, and as the videos attracted larger and larger audiences on YouTube, the emails and comments got even more positive. They got personal.
For a while it felt like I could barely keep up with the way the site was growing, but after a year, I began to reflect on what had happened. I tried to figure out why I had almost none of the garbage on my sites that I had feared would become problem.
I still don't know the answer to that question, but I can say that the people I've had the honor of corresponding with during this adventure have been some of the most polite, thankful, and inspiring people I've ever dealt with. Their enthusiastic support has been a constant source of inspiration as I work on new lessons.
That's not to say that I've never come across a bad apple. I've deleted comments, blocked troublemakers and even gotten some flack on external sites for being the type of player that I am. But if I were to compare the percentage of positive to negative, I'm pretty sure it would be about 99% positive. To me, that speaks volumes about the kind of people that are attracted to this site.
StevieSnacks viewers are awesome and have blessed my life to the point where I really feel like the luckiest guy in the world for getting to make these lessons.