The Trolls
Y’all know what trolls are – that means people who go around posting ugly things in online forums or in people’s blog comments.
What bothers me about the trolls is not what they actually say. Because they always say the same things, and it’s nothing that hurts my feelings. Fat, slutty, whiny, stupid, dykey. And fat. Nothing really insightful or cutting.
What bothers me is that, one, I end up having to make the comments registered-user-only, so that people who actually want to say something interesting are inconvenienced.
Two, their seemingly intense dislike of me is creepy. The only person I can see actually hating me is my ex-husband. And, even then, it’s lame for him to post flames in my blog comments. As for anyone else – how weird. I read their comments and think, “Is this person actually that angry that I broke up with him?” Or that I snubbed her? Or that I said something that he/she disagreed with? Angry enough to sit at home waiting for me to lift the anonymous poster ban – checking it after each entry – in order to post that I’m fat? That’s just bizarre.
Don’t get me wrong – there are plenty of online people that I dislike. It’s usually because I feel they’ve been rude to me in some way, or because I find their writing and opinions stupid or offensive. But even if there was someone annoying and offensive who had been rude to me multiple times and who had a blog on which people could post anonymous comments, I wouldn’t go so far as to comment on his blog and call him names. Yes, I admit that I might sometimes read that person’s entries and then email my friends with my witty commentary about how stupid he is. And, yes, I might openly get into a flame war with that person on a forum. But the anonymous hate-post thing is just plain creepy. I don’t have the sick, spiteful fascination necessary to do that with anyone.
The third annoying thing about the trolls is their anonymity, of course. If it’s someone I know, I want to know who it is. If it’s someone I don’t know, I want to know where they live so I can assess the possibility of their creepy online behavior escalating into something else. Mostly, though, I just want to know who it is so I can walk up to that person and say, “What’s your problem? Just say it right now, to my face.”
I don’t like confrontation, but I prefer it to passive-aggression. I prefer to cut through the crap and know where everyone stands.
I know this post is probably fun for the trolls to read, but that’s okay. It’s not about living my life in order to avoid their notice. It’s about saying what I want to say, no matter how many punk-ass losers hate me for it.
