Some Friendly Advice Needed

[Jak Angelescu]

Hey guys… I have something that’s been going on that’s slightly personal, but sorta not. I’ve been trying to keep it off the forum because I don’t want to come off like I’m complaining, but after today I could really use some words of advice from my friends on here.
Okay, here’s the truth. When Syn gave me the shoutout, I was of course completely honored and moved to tears. I immediately had close to 1,000 followers almost overnight and endless amounts of messages. Everyone wrote me things like “Wow, you MUST be good! Syn says so!” And “I wanna learn from you! Syn says you’re the best!”
Now naturally, I always would respond with, “That’s really kind of you but I’m far from the best and I have a lot of work to do.” I’ve been reaching out on a daily basis to many different people helping them with guitar the best that I can. But within the last few weeks I’ve been receiving things like this…
“When you go to do your tutorial, you BETTER be right. I won’t watch it without Syn’s seal of approval on it.”
“You can’t play it up to speed yet and you’ve been working on it for two years? I thought Syn said you were the best.”
“After this I’m sure you can do Afterlife, Syn says you’re amazing. I DARE you to try that one.”
The shoutout was seriously a dream come true. And I am so wonderfully happy that Papa Gates and Syn (and all of you!) saw my potential. But now it’s becoming a thing of high expectations to now where I’m absolutely TERRIFIED to post anything up on Youtube or on Instagram. I’ve received messages like, “Wow. I just watched one of your jams and I can’t believe YOU were the one who got his attention. You’re not that great.” And “I’ve been playing that song perfectly for years and he never cared about me. What makes you so special? You still don’t have it yet.”
Needless to say, the bullies are starting to come out. I’ve been trying so hard to tell these people, “I never said I was perfect. Syn never said I was perfect, either. All he said was I played the INTRO of ONE song perfectly, that’s it.”
So long story short, I could really use some kind, reassuring words. I always keep telling myself “The people who matter the most think highly of you. These other people don’t matter.” But I DO want to really perfect this song the best that I can to help so many others who for years were lost like I was. But I’m getting to a point of being terrified to actually post it up. There are hundreds of tutorials on the internet of the song, and I don’t want to be wrong. PERIOD. I take a hell of a lot of pride in this song to where today alone, I spent three hours watching him live and listening to really make sure I got a new part right that I discovered I was leaving out. I want to do the song, and the band, and Syn, justice because I love it so much.
Maybe I just needed to get it off my chest.
What would you guys do? Thank you all SO much in advance.

 

[Calvin Phillips]

Those people are sooooo jealous lol. They dont understand that its your attitude and heart that makes you better then them. And you can hear it in your playing. They dont have that in their playing. Even if they think they are better then you. I’d not let them get to you. I used to get a ton of youtube hate back in the day. Infact, have pretty much had it my entire life. Cant let them get you down. There will ALWAYS be haters in todays world.

 

[Mervin Moras]

My advice would be that whatever you were doing before and after the shout out, you should still do it. If you change your ways to satisfy your bullies’ so-called standards, you’re making THEM the winner. Act like you don’t care and they’ll see you’re not affected by it and eventually give up harassing you. And also I myself can play the Hail to the King solo at 100% speed (I’ll post a video soon), but I don’t expect a shout out cuz I’ve never helped enough people on this school compared to you. So you got what you earned. Keep it up. Don’t let em bring you down. PERIOD

 

[Ed Seith]

There are people who tell Syn that HE sucks. That is, sadly, the modern internet. Fuckwits and babbies have a forum beyond the schoolyard playground to vent their insecurities now.
You’re never going to impress everyone.
You’re never going to be loved by everyone.
You’re never going to be an inspiration to everyone.
You impressed a shit ton of people.
A lot of (really fucking awesome) people dig you.
A lot of those same people are inspired by you.
Never let the bastards get you down. You EARNED the shout out you got. Hell, I’d love to get that kind of accolade, but you know what? I didn’t put in the work for it. You did.
Fuck ’em. Fuck all of em.
We got your back.

 

[supraja vadlamani]

I’m so sorry this happened to you, it’s fucking terrible but with a lot of those hate messages came true appreciation for what it is you do as well. The hate messages unfortunately won’t stop overnight because there will always be people jealous of what you can do. Syn didn’t just appreciate you for your guitar playing skills (you’re INCREDIBLE) but he also appreciated what you did to help people by sharing your technique to get better and what helped you. You took the time to explain those exercises and how they benefited you and THAT is the difference between you and those other people who’ve sent you such awful messages. Don’t forget that. They may be good guitar players, but in addition to being a good guitar player – you’re also a good person.

 

[Dominik Róg]

Hi Jak
Like Ed said – we got your back, no matter what. You’re part of our community and you’ve already done lots of good stuff for us. For example, the warm-up exercises you posted helped me a lot – I could see the improvement almost from day one.
And about all that jealous people. It’s normal thing nowadays, that people talk shit about others online or even message them this way. But you know what? Haters gonna hate – bakers gonna bake. You should just don’t give a flying about them and do what you do. You’ve worked for Syn’s shout out by helping our community – I bet most of the haters don’t even Play guitar or anything else.
Keep rocking Jak

 

[Richard O'connor]

Just pay no attention. It only comes from jealousy. Even one of the quotes above said it. “He never cared about me”. If it was me if laugh it off because of this reason.
You have done a lot on here to help people and long may that continue, there isn’t a lot of people who are willing to put face to camera to teach, myself included. So keep it up!

 

[Sayonil Mitra]

This is very unfortunate. The only reason I can find behind this is jealousy. Jak, do not take this to your heart. I can understand that Syn’s shout out brought a sudden burst of attention to you. But whenever this happens, it is a mixed package. You will get people like in this forum, always nice and supportive. You will also get people who behave in a very negative way. Because many people are out there who think that they deserve more and get jealous of anyone who gets attention. Trust me, there are many (I have seen many of them in real life, and they are disgusting). You have to decide what do you want to take with you, of course the well wishes and advice and any positive criticism. I hope you get way more famous than you are right now. When that happens, you will meet more people like this commenting on your posts, messaging you and judging you for what you are doing. Just don’t take these personally, ignore them. Just keep doing what you love to do.

 

[Dominik Gräber]

I see this means a lot to you. So if it does, I’d probably make a post or a video to clarify the way it is and you feel ONCE and for all. I guess next would be to just delete, ban, block rude people and their messages. Zero tolerance as with haters in the school. That’s how I would probably approach this.
The way I see it is that Syn did not give a shoutout to you because you are so talented and perfect (but of course you ARE talented) but because of all your hard work, time, dedication and kindness you put into your videos, posts and all the work related to the guitar and this community. That’s what you should keep in mind.
And like mentioned before, the internet is a place full of “anonymous” people that can and apparently want to hate as much as they can. So just do what feels right and help the people who deserve to be helped, but don’t let yourself get pulled down by anyone else, especially not on the internet.

 

[Annelene Frabe]

Hi Jak,
I don’t even know where to start with this. It’s beyond devastating to hear and read things like this, and I can say I have experienced similar. I can only tell you again and again that you’re awesome at what you do, how much time you invest in it and that you want to do tutorials on it for us to learn. Always read the positive comments and ignore the rest. Delete them. Don’t let them beat you down. I know it’s hard, but I learned it myself eventually. Just think of what you wrote “The people who matter the most think highly of you. These other people don’t matter”, because it’s true. They don’t matter at all. I don’t know why it’s called social media when so many people clearly aren’t social, but you don’t want to let them win by feeling hurt. They’ll make you stronger eventually, because these idiots are just fucking jealous of what you can do what they can’t.
Know that I’m always here for you if someone tries to offend you. From now on, when you find comments like those, delete them. And if you did so, don’t worry about it anymore. Laugh about their stupidity, because you’re much, much better than them!
Many greetings from Germany

 

[idssdi]

If you know the notes well. Just do it! People instantly expecting that you actually are Syn are ridiculous. Nobody is Syn but Syn so you can probably kind of ingnore most of those people. I’m all up for criticism(you may have noticed that on my comment on Syn’s jam over time) but there’s a limit to the kind of criticism you can give. If it’s only ‘you suck’ then it’s worthless with no value at all. If it’s ‘great job but maybe work on this’ you can actually do something with it.
As far as I’m concerned you can just ignore all those people sending you those messages and post the lesson. You have great camera presence (which I’m kinda lacking) and you taught the intro to Hail to the king wellike. If you don’t want everyone to see it on youtube or instagram put the video on youtube as hidden (in that way only people with the link can actually see the video)
Hope this makes you feel a bit better!

 

[Mariler]

Jak, NEVER LET ANYBODY TREAT YOU BAD!
Just ignore the bullies and keep doing what you love the way you know. They are just jealous people who don’t know how to deal with their frustrations…fuck them!
Your help is very valuable for many people. Stay positive. You are just AWESOME, girl. You know I love your energy, never lose it for any reason.
Inside job by pearl jam says “the way I choose to feel is how I am”…just choose to feel great and keep rocking!!

 

[Ben Thorpe]

Anyone who feels the nedd to insult somebody elses guitar playing isn’t good enough themselves to play better than the person they’re insulting.
If they were genuinely better than the person they’re insulting, they wouldn’t feel the need to tell them how much they suck as they know what it’s like to not be good at guitar, and they have nothing to prove themselves if they were genuinely confortable with their own playing ability. Don’t let these hate messages get to you. Just remember this whenever somebody feels the need to tell you how much you suck, they’re probably far worse than you are for these two reasons.

 

[Billie M]

Hi Jak,
You don’t have to prove anything to anyone. You’re a great guitarist but just like any great guitarists you can’t do every single thing there is to do with a guitar. And that’s the cool thing about it, there’s more to learn! You know not so long ago Syn wasn’t able to play gyspy jazz like he does now.
Now, those poopy heads don’t deserve your time and energy. If you want to upload something, remember you’re not here help anyone who’s been disrespectful to you.
Life’s too short to waste it with stuff like that.
So rock on and be a boss!

 

[Lauren Morales]

Hey Jak,
You are a very talented guitar player. Don’t let the haters get in your head. They are just jealous that Syn gave a shout out to you. You should keep doing what you were doing before and don’t let them bring you down. Remember that we are all here to help one another to be better at what we all love to do. Don’t get discouraged by people’s rude messages and comments.
Keep up the hard work and jam on

 

[Syn Gates]

I agree wholeheartedly with everyone here and appreciate all of you sooooo much! That’s why this community exists. This is our safe haven.
All I would add is that people of larger influence will inherently have an equal amount of growth within negative communities as they do within positive ones. Take this only as a sign of success and learn from them. Feed off of their negative energy and convert it to greatness, this is a gift they hope to never empower you with. They epitomize all that is jealousy and insecurity and when you spend time thinking about it, it really is sad for them. Maybe they were raised by a pack of wolves. Maybe they suffer from depression. Maybe they’re just assholes. Either way, it’s way worse for them than you if you stay strong and focus on the reason they’re doing this to you and others in the first place. It sucks at first but it will only make you stronger, wiser and hopefully(and more importantly), give you greater ability to relate to and subsequently help others.
You’re already pretty damn perfect Jak. Your ability to learn, teach, and positively affect others, is transcendent. This is only going to help you in All facets of life, it just stings a bit at first. Trust me, I live this every day!
Much love to you sister!

 

[Jak Angelescu]

Oh my gosh… I woke up this morning to all of this and I am seriously moved beyond words. Every single one of you not only gave me wonderful and reassuring words, but you gave me AMAZING advice as well. I seriously wish I could find the words to express my gratitude, appreciation, and respect I have for every single one of you; but I don’t think such words exist. After reading everything, I definitely have some firepower under my feet today. I had begun to feel like I wasn’t good enough to help people out anymore or “certified” enough to help people out. But after reading this, you all helped me to remember why I do what I do, and why I love doing it. In the process of helping others, I’ve understood that whole proverb “to teach is to learn” a whole lot more. I just can’t say how much I am beyond words from the support from every one of you. This was just the thing I needed to put me right back on track after feeling I was derailing more and more each day.
I’ll just say this… I freaking love you guys… all of you. And if I can’t say it enough I’ll say it again – thank you.
I hope you all have an AMAZING start to your week. Whether it be working, school, guitar, vacation, or touring (*cough* Syn *cough*), I hope it’s a wonderful, stress-free and productive week for all of you.
Much love

 

[Jake Arnold]

Do you and be yourself! Post whatever you want even if it’s not up to speed or clean. There are always going to be haters even if you are the best. I mean people still hate on Syn and say he sucks even though he is an absolutely amazing player.
You are learning, as we all are, and you are doing a great job. I love watching your videos and seeing the progress you are making so quickly.
I’m jealous of you because I want to make videos like you do showing people some techniques I know that aren’t covered here but I’m nervous I will come off like a dipshit or people will be like “duh, who doesn’t know that”.
Don’t let any of those douches discourage you from posting. Do what makes you happy and if you have to, don’t read what people are saying because in reality they don’t have any effect on you. More than anything most of them are just jealous that Syn gave you a shout out and not them so they are gonna try to bring you down.
Fuck ’em.
Keep posting! I like your videos. You are encouraging me to post a toutorial.
Don’t ever let the losers bring you down, laugh them off and prove them wrong down the road when you can whoop their asses on everything you play.
You are awesome. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise Jak!

 

[Daniel Bernard]

Ignore this, accidently posted.

 

[Daniel Bernard]

Always be yourself no matter what.
Yes Gates mentioned you on social media and people instantly made a picture of you in their mind, their picture of you, not yours. By being yourself and working hard you got this recognition. Just keep doing it and the good people will stick with you and reward you. Act as if it the shout out never happened.
Just be yourself, you’re great.
PS : When I started playing guitar I wanted to learn Bat Country right away. It took me 2 years. That’s what happens when you learn a song that requires higher skill than what you’re currently able to do, you master these skill as you learn the song, you don’t just learn the song so it’s much longer.
PS no 2 : I actually still didn’t learn Bat Country fully, never learned the acoustic part xD Still struggle with the fast run on the high E string too.