How to delicately handle an uncomfortable conversation

[thedixielynn]

Hi, everyone!

So, my gig is a video message from a drag queen. I feel like I’ve been pretty clear in my video preview that I will happily make a video with your words, but I will not be the butt of your joke.

I have had 5 or 6 gig requests where they are basically making me the butt of the joke. “Hi! I want to send a video to my straight male friend. I want the video message to say that you love him and want to have sex with him.” Um…no. So the “joke” here is that a straight guy has a drag queen hitting on him? Nope.

I am going to redo my video intro to be more specific: “I will not pretend to love or want to have sex with your friend,” but in the meantime, how do you handle these conversations?

I have been saying that I don’t feel comfortable pretending to love someone, but that I’ll happily help with a new concept. It gets awkward fast. Thankfully, I haven’t had any cancellations as a result, but I have had a few of these gigs where they don’t mark the order as complete, review me, or respond to any further messages. What do you think?

[catwriter]

Hi, everyone!

So, my gig is a video message from a drag queen. I feel like I’ve been pretty clear in my video preview that I will happily make a video with your words, but I will not be the butt of your joke.

I have had 5 or 6 gig requests where they are basically making me the butt of the joke. “Hi! I want to send a video to my straight male friend. I want the video message to say that you love him and want to have sex with him.” Um…no. So the “joke” here is that a straight guy has a drag queen hitting on him? Nope.

I am going to redo my video intro to be more specific: “I will not pretend to love or want to have sex with your friend,” but in the meantime, how do you handle these conversations?

I have been saying that I don’t feel comfortable pretending to love someone, but that I’ll happily help with a new concept. It gets awkward fast. Thankfully, I haven’t had any cancellations as a result, but I have had a few of these gigs where they don’t mark the order as complete, review me, or respond to any further messages. What do you think?

how do you handle these conversations?

Gig FAQ! 🙂 I state what I won’t do and what I’m not good at. It will get approved faster than a new video (well, as soon as you add it), and you can point people to the FAQ and say something like “I’m sorry, but as stated in the gig FAQ, I don’t create video messages that make people feel uncomfortable”.

[misscrystal]

Hi, I get some very insensitive buyers sometimes too. After a while you become more numb to it hopefully. I think you’ve handled it very well so far. It may be something that will continue to happen but I can’t think of any better way to respond than what you’ve been doing.

[miiila]

Hi Dixie. Hm, difficult. I´ve watched your video and it´s funny - which is great, obviously - but because of that, you´d probably have to make it very very very clear that you mean that in earnest and not as a joke.

From experience, lots of sellers here can tell you that writing something LOUD AND CLEARLY into the gig description itself, probably won´t help much either, the people who read and understand, typically wouldn´t do (whatever) anyway and those who´d do, won´t read anyway. You can try, though, and probably it will help a bit (edit: use the gig´s FAQ, for example, like Cat suggested, or put it directly into the description, or both) but I´d guess you´ll have to live with getting those requests every once in a while.

As long as they don´t just order so you´d have to cancel, you´re lucky, and you can prepare and use a “quick reply” (response? Anyhow, those canned replies you can save and use for things you´ll get asked often) so you won´t have to come up with a reply for the same thing again every time. Your “I don´t feel comfortable…” approach seems good to me, honest, straightforward, clear and doesn´t “blame” the requester.

[thedixielynn]

Thank you, everyone! FAQs seem to be the way to go! 🙂

[catwriter]

Thank you, everyone! FAQs seem to be the way to go! 🙂

Good luck!

I’ve had to modify mine several times (and gig description, too, especially before they let us have the FAQ), so don’t get discouraged if you keep getting an inappropriate request from time to time.