AITA for making a video on a program my friend introduced me to?
apologies in advance because im sure this isnt as jaw dropping as some of the posts on here, I'll also try to keep anonymity as much as possible.
For context, I(20sF) am a relatively large content creator in what I would consider to be a niche online community. My friend(20sM) was a follower of mine for a very long time before I eventually followed him back and we ended up becoming very close friends. He is also a content creator for the same community, but he doesn't post as often/posts on different platforms than I do so his following is significantly smaller than mine, think 500 followers vs. 500k(this becomes important later). About 6 months ago, he introduced me to a program he uses for something relating to this community. It isn't a very popular program, but it's big enough that there are a few tutorial videos on youtube for it.
Over the last few months, I've found these videos pretty uninformative and not very helpful, as the creators dont go into enough detail imo and the program itself has a very bare minimum "tutorial". A few weeks ago I started talking about making a tutorial video myself, to explain the program in more detail for people who had a hard time following along like I do. I spent the time leading up to the video digging really far into the program to educate myself on everything I would need to cover, and asked my friend for help a few times, and he answered all my questions with no issue.
Well a few days ago I sent him a WIP for the video and when he asked what I was doing I told him(I had mentioned it a few times prior as well, I assume he either wasn't paying attention or forgot). After this he became pretty cold and kind of mean? I asked what was wrong and he proceeded to send me a pretty snippy message basically saying it's funny that I "suddenly want to make a video on this program after he said he was going to", saying I stole his idea and the program isn't even relevent to my content(which is not true). He kept bringing up my follower count, saying it isnt fair for me to post the video "knowing it'll get more views than his." I responded by pointing out that he's been talking about making a tutorial for roughly a year and he still has yet to even start, Honestly I kind of forgot he had said that. I also brought up that theres a similar program a friend of his is creating that he's also very excited to make a video on since that program is growing fast and he'd be one of the first to cover it. I've deliberately avoided using that program specifically because I know how excited he is.
He pretty quickly apologized and agreed he was out of line, and as a compromise, a few days later when I posted it I mentioned him in the video I made, thanking him for introducing me to the program and linking his social media in the description.
Things were fine for a few days, but after I posted the video he's been very dry toward me, and he's even gone out of his way to deliberately ignore questions I ask him by responding with shrugging emojis when I ask him something I KNOW he knows the answer to.
This post is specifically about the instance, but he has a bad habit of bringing up my following pretty often, most times in this almost bitter kind of way, he enjoys referring to me as a "celebrity" despite me telling him I don't consider my following that big compared to other creators. He also loves telling people we mutually interact with, when I strictly try to avoid it because a lot of people tend to treat me differently when they find out. It's difficult to make friends without having to worry about them only befriending me over my numbers.
I feel like I might be the asshole because he DID say he was going to make a tutorial first and I feel like my audience might bring him a sense of insecurity, so maybe I should've just trashed the idea and allowed him to make the video in his own time.
Any advice would be really appreciated on how to move forward.
Posted Aug 5, 2025, 10:15 PM UTC