Ali Abdaal

Also, Ali mentioned that Daily Mail post, where they criticised some [female] physicians wearing bikinis and posting on Instagram. He compared it to somebody's comment here, mentioning him walking around in a towel and talking about his bowel movements.
To that, I'd say, Ali, dear, we have no qualms over you vacationing somewhere in a trunk or bikini. Doctors are people too and so if they post some pic in a swimsuit, let them do it. But the context you are referring to doesn't resonate with yours.

I've never come across an influencer who openly talks about reading on tattle or even making a video out of it? Plus there's only a few pages of gossip on here so was it worth making a video out of it? It's so mild compared to other threads. (Guess it was worth it because he got his £££)

afterthestormagain said:

I've never come across an influencer who openly talks about reading on tattle or even making a video out of it? Plus there's only a few pages of gossip on here so was it worth making a video out of it? It's so mild compared to other threads. (Guess it was worth it because he got his £££)

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I was surprised that he was so upset by people commenting negatively about him being their doctor given his social media presence. By that I mean, sure it’s not nice to be called a bellend, or to hear that people question your ability as a doctor based on your content/personality (which I agree is a tad unfair). But if you put yourself online and then have a job working with the public, then the odds are you will encounter people who know your online presence and don’t particularly care for it or the creator. It’s like he doesn’t expect his online presence to have any (negative) bearing on his work as a doctor. I personally don’t think it has a bearing on his ability, but I would find it uncomfortable to not have distance/anonymity from my doctor because I know from YouTube he does X and Y.

He also seemed oddly defensive that some commenters said he was quiet and awkward in real life.

yo his brother is pretty cute

Yes Ali I did report you to the ASA, I also have commented in his YouTube comments before telling him he was falsely advertising and he replied with lol what..... somethings brought him here, they didn’t really say how he found it
He clearly sees some of it as being true.... and it really took his brother to probe him about how it made him feel, I’m convinced he’d got some under lying things going on, to be devoid of emotion is just one indicator
The question is, would these influencers feel better if all this stuff was in their comments or on a site where they have to seek it out?

ipiraka said:

I think this thread should be closed now, he doesn't like the comments and it's personally affecting hiim

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I empathise - it's no picnic to read negative comments about yourself and your work, and he was understandably hurt. However, people are within their rights to post their thoughts on him and his content here, and no one is making Ali read the thread. I hope he chooses not to read further comments.

It's unfortunate that he has come to this site and perhaps feels personally affected by the comments (I appreciate it can be very jarring to read negative comments about yourself), but he can't be quite so naive as to think he will have over a million subscribers on YouTube and an increasingly public profile, and NOBODY will have a negative opinion of him? Part of the reason people express their criticisms here is because it is away from any of his main platforms and he can avoid seeing any of it. I agree, some of the criticisms here can be personal in nature, but the majority on this thread are about his business practices and how he markets himself. Did he really think not a single person would watch his videos and think, "I don't really want him to be my doctor"? He's far too savvy and well educated to be that guileless. I suspect he may have mentioned the thread on his podcast to bring a bevvy of his followers here to his defence.

Ali, I'm sure for every poster on here who doesn't want you to be their doctor, there are 100 of your YouTube followers who will be champing at the bit to be treated by you if you go back to clinical practice.

I know what you mean but some comments on here attacking his looks and his personal life are a bit too far, he’s not a bad guy

ipiraka said:

I know what you mean but some comments on here attacking his looks and his personal life are a bit too far, he’s not a bad guy

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Compared to most threads here, this is crazy tame (which I think I said in a previous comment). He's chosen to be an influencer and so has to be open to criticism. Same as any brand or company.

I just wanted to say my two bits: that last convo with him and his brother did not seem very kind to me. Baiting for other people to confess to feelings they don't want to confess to (maybe not even to themselves), even correcting for all the exhibitionism that YT and vlogging or podcasting culture, is not kind when you are just going to brush it off.

Ali, from whatever little I got a whiff from the three months of subscribing and watching him (I don't anymore as his content-probably driven to a YT audience-became saturated with product placements and recycled soundbytes), struck me as someone very cagey and inarticulate with anything in the domain of emotions (not least that hover around failure, messiness of adult life and randomness of life in general), despite all his achievements. He has often prided himself as being a cool rationalist and the cold certainty of so much of his YT advice-and-soundbyte dishing persona- which I suspect is a fairly small part of his life- benefits to a huge amount from this.

Anyways, the kind of conversation the matey brothers seemed to be aiming for required a friendlier platform if Ali is really grappling with these issues. You need to be sitting opposite someone who has the vocabulary, the fluency and the objectivity to really explore the kind of things Ali was talking about in that on-video podcast.

This is what counsellors and psychotherapists (and GPs with an interest in mental health) do. With ease. Everyday. Ali's brother, with all due respect, isn't one (not unsurprisingly didn't have anything of note for Ali to take from it) and looking at Ali's all-too-visible discomfort and inarticulacy and all the issues around hitting a roadblock with his book project, the online trolls etc I feel he could benefit from just having regular sessions with a counsellor to process these.

Since I have been redirected to the forum because of the comments he's read, I hope he is not discouraged enough to never come back and hopes to read this.

He needs time away from the spiral of these untrained self-help gurus and find something customised to him and his unmet emotional and psychological needs. May I suggest a personal deep dive with a counselor that is not being posted on YT for money?

I really don't mean to troll, I just got worried for his mental health.

There’s another quite relevant problem.

for example, on the part time YouTube academy course he created is used some strategies that go against the consumers act in the UK. In another words, he’s breaking the law.

Firstly, the cost of his course went up by over 300%. Legal but very greedy.

then a month before the second cohort went on sale, he increased the promotion of the course at the same time he removed the pricing information from the website.

His promos always mentioned that there’s a cap on participants so “be aware of that when we go live with sales and joining the mailing list”.

This means that a lot of people went to the website to get more information knowing that most likely he was going to be oversubscribed but no price information.

Then, at 4pm tickets went on sale for people to realise that the ticket cost a small fortune. Knowing that most likely is going to be oversubscribed people didn’t want to risk not getting a place and bought a ticket. This is an illegal practice and considered sales under pressure.

This are techniques that most likely he learnt in the book “oversubscribed”. What he forgets is that in Europe, consumer law is always on the side of the consumer.

On the example I referred he made many hundred of thousands of pounds of sales under pressure. I might need some of that money to pay for legal fees and compensation.

miguelc said:

There’s another quite relevant problem.

for example, on the part time YouTube academy course he created is used some strategies that go against the consumers act in the UK. In another words, he’s breaking the law.

Firstly, the cost of his course went up by over 300%. Legal but very greedy.

then a month before the second cohort went on sale, he increased the promotion of the course at the same time he removed the pricing information from the website.

His promos always mentioned that there’s a cap on participants so “be aware of that when we go live with sales and joining the mailing list”.

This means that a lot of people went to the website to get more information knowing that most likely he was going to be oversubscribed but no price information.

Then, at 4pm tickets went on sale for people to realise that the ticket cost a small fortune. Knowing that most likely is going to be oversubscribed people didn’t want to risk not getting a place and bought a ticket. This is an illegal practice and considered sales under pressure.

This are techniques that most likely he learnt in the book “oversubscribed”. What he forgets is that in Europe, consumer law is always on the side of the consumer.

On the example I referred he made many hundred of thousands of pounds of sales under pressure. I might need some of that money to pay for legal fees and compensation.

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Wow. If he's like that outside of his medical life then what is he like as a doctor. Not all doctors are saints, but this is super sneaky. As annoying as Dr Alex is and ignoring the fact that he was on love island, at least he uses his social media presence for good. He's constantly talking about healthcare as well as things in his personal life, but at least he's doing things that show he's interested in people's wellbeing. It's not constant ads without declaring it's an ad, or trying to sell these expensive courses to people, or all about money/trying to get rich quick bullshit. I mean let's not lie, Dr Alex obviously enjoys the pay and attention YT gives people, but you can see his content actually shows his passion for medicine.
I'd respect Ali more if he was like... medicine isn't for me. THEN, he can continue as he is and it wouldn't look so bad, because the two careers won't be constantly compared to each other. Medicine takes up a lot of your life, so it's not exactly possible to keep the two seperate.

miguelc said:

There’s another quite relevant problem.

for example, on the part time YouTube academy course he created is used some strategies that go against the consumers act in the UK. In another words, he’s breaking the law.

Firstly, the cost of his course went up by over 300%. Legal but very greedy.

then a month before the second cohort went on sale, he increased the promotion of the course at the same time he removed the pricing information from the website.

His promos always mentioned that there’s a cap on participants so “be aware of that when we go live with sales and joining the mailing list”.

This means that a lot of people went to the website to get more information knowing that most likely he was going to be oversubscribed but no price information.

Then, at 4pm tickets went on sale for people to realise that the ticket cost a small fortune. Knowing that most likely is going to be oversubscribed people didn’t want to risk not getting a place and bought a ticket. This is an illegal practice and considered sales under pressure.

This are techniques that most likely he learnt in the book “oversubscribed”. What he forgets is that in Europe, consumer law is always on the side of the consumer.

On the example I referred he made many hundred of thousands of pounds of sales under pressure. I might need some of that money to pay for legal fees and compensation.

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Report him, the asa is a good place to start!

miguelc said:

There’s another quite relevant problem.

for example, on the part time YouTube academy course he created is used some strategies that go against the consumers act in the UK. In another words, he’s breaking the law.

Firstly, the cost of his course went up by over 300%. Legal but very greedy.

then a month before the second cohort went on sale, he increased the promotion of the course at the same time he removed the pricing information from the website.

His promos always mentioned that there’s a cap on participants so “be aware of that when we go live with sales and joining the mailing list”.

This means that a lot of people went to the website to get more information knowing that most likely he was going to be oversubscribed but no price information.

Then, at 4pm tickets went on sale for people to realise that the ticket cost a small fortune. Knowing that most likely is going to be oversubscribed people didn’t want to risk not getting a place and bought a ticket. This is an illegal practice and considered sales under pressure.

This are techniques that most likely he learnt in the book “oversubscribed”. What he forgets is that in Europe, consumer law is always on the side of the consumer.

On the example I referred he made many hundred of thousands of pounds of sales under pressure. I might need some of that money to pay for legal fees and compensation.

Click to expand...

Wow, this is quite something.

What was the price of his course thing before the 300% (!!) increase?

Business is business but that is an incredibly transactional way to view your subscribers. He's mentioned before how he's a rationalist and I think (correct me if I'm wrong) that he struggled with empathy. I think his focus on efficiency plays into being 'rational' in business.

There was this comment on Reddit about the podcast episode which I'll quote part of here because it's relevant to the discussion:

[What I think Taimur was trying to get Ali to do is say] how the book should be something he should be proud of. A have a meaningful purpose. Something he can look back on, regardless of sales and be glad he did it the way he did. Ali brushed this off by saying something along the lines of "people don't want meaningful. They want catch phrases". He then went on to support his statement by backing it up with data that suggests this. - When he changed a youtube title, his use of thumb nails etc. Anyway, he basically came to the conclusion that this book is being written in a way and with techniques that can capture the highest amount of possible sales. Ugh.. completely soulless and scummy.

Maybe this is why he cant admit that mean comments make him sad? Because hes not proud if his work. Its purely for the purpose of business. Hes emotionally void from it. To be fair to him, I work as a delivery driver and could give two shits when people complain as I'm emotionally void from work too. The difference is, he can control what he creates, he doesn't have to be this money focused surface level bs machine.

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sergeantsantiago said:

Wow, this is quite something.

What was the price of his course thing before the 300% (!!) increase?

Business is business but that is an incredibly transactional way to view your subscribers. He's mentioned before how he's a rationalist and I think (correct me if I'm wrong) that he struggled with empathy. I think his focus on efficiency plays into being 'rational' in business.

There was this comment on Reddit about the podcast episode which I'll quote part of here because it's relevant to the discussion:

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the first cohort course costed $399. The current one costed $1499. It’s greedy but legal.

what is illegal is to reveal the prices as tickets go on sale and make people feel under pressure to buy

He’s becoming a fake productivity guru

Has his medic course gone up in price too? Would expect this also

He has just become greedy and it wont be look before more people realise

xekatinaz said:

He’s becoming a fake productivity guru

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If he's worried about people judging him, maybe he shouldn't have bailed out of working for the NHS during a global pandemic in order to write a book/post videos on YT.

He also could have volunteered to go back/use his skills to work in a vaccination clinic, but that would cut into his valuable time pissing about with sub-par productivity videos for clicks.

I'll save my respect for those who are on the front line, thanks.

oh dear. I got quite a few mentions in that video. It was me who said "oh no the Instagram bellend" when he walked into my hospital room, me who told the hospital I didn't want to be cared for by him and me who said he is incredibly awkward and shy with his bedside manner.

Honestly, what does he expect? I was in a terrible state very unwell on a pregnancy ward with my vagina exposed at pretty much all times terrified my baby was going to die. The last thing I wanted was a Dr I don't feel I can trust - I'm sure he was perfectly good at his job but I wouldn't feel safe that he for sure would never discuss patients online. Every other aspect of his life is talked about online. When we were on the same ward he was constantly updating his Instagram stories and showing off about saving lives etc etc -was there nothing more productive he could have been doing? Additionally, I never felt like his heart was really into being a Dr and he just enjoyed being able to say he is one. Which has ended up being pretty damn true now that all he cares about is YouTube and money. Of course I would never want to upset anyone. But I was the patient and if I don't want you looking after me because you make me feel uncomfortable I damn sure will speak up about it.

Has he ever talked about a patient online?