Sometimes when you piss off certain people, you know you’re doing something right. In response to one of my posts on the ACLU blog, one such genius* had this to say:
let me mention also that i find this ruby blogging most odiferous. it smells like a bucket of dung and none can abide by its most fowl smell. it is bad blogging at its best.
What a trip! All the way back to third grade.
* By the way, I know exactly who this loser is. He’s from Chapel Hill!
Gotta love IP addresses.
Have you thought about dropping in on this troll in real life, maybe bringing by a pie? I’m halfway serious, because I get the sense that trolling behavior arises partly from the dehumanizing qualities of online communication. For some people that dehumanization is starker than others, and I wonder whether a gentle reminder that you do exist, are a person, have feelings, and deserve a basic level of respect would be evoked by a chat mano a mano?
Justin, would that be a horse apple pie?
If it’s a warm cherry pie, I’ll happily be a troll for a day. Let me know when you want to stop by, Ruby.
As the future husband of the troll victim I feel like visiting the troll myself. But not with an apple pie… maybe a cream pie. Marx Brothers style. No not Karl but Groucho… Love ya baby!
The problem with all of this is that it makes the troll seem more important then he is.
And I don’t think of myself as a “victim” so much as a lighting rod in the tradition of so many other great activists. The more good work we do, the more certain people will hate us. It only validates to me the importance of what I’m trying to do.