“TROLLLLLLLLLL! In the dungeon! TROLLLLLLL IN THE DUNGEON!”
– Professor Quirrell, in Rowling’s Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone
This slimy, stupid, gargantuan creature was always a figment of someone’s imagination as far as I was concerned. That is, until I got trolled…
It was an interesting day. I tweeted an admittedly cocky response to someone whose views I don’t necessarily agree with. I got my first celebrity like (yay!) on that tweet. I spent a few minutes grinning from ear to ear. A mere mortal like me getting noticed by folks of a more famous ilk, you must agree, is quite something!
Then, out of nowhere, it all just exploded! *ping ping ping* Suddenly, there were innumerable unread notifications, from unfamiliar sources, waiting right in front of my eyes, just waiting there as the quintessential clickbait. And I clicked!
Big big mistake.
I was greeted by a barrage of tweets, each containing more vicious content than the previous one. As I scrolled down, I felt like slowly, but surely, every molecule of life affirming air was painfully sucked out of my lungs, and the hollow pit in my stomach was getting larger by the tweet. My rather naive mind was, I’m afraid, unable to keep pace, as I saw myself at the brink of descending into that dark and deep abyss. With GREAT effort, I refrained myself from individually responding to the one hundred something comments on my intelligence, intentions and integrity.
Lessons I learnt:
- (Wo)man is principally nasty, brutish and short, especially when faced with non-conformity on part of a fellow human.
- Being a free speech supporter is MUCH harder when you’re fielding verbal attacks aimed at your own self. It’s not impossible, it’s just tougher. Much much tougher.
- Your regular garden variety trolls are a dime a dozen, and it is actually very easy to lose your shit and fight them. It’s only natural, for trolls operate on an “offence is the best defence” strategy. Maintaining your dignity/ sanity, however, within maelstrom of garbage aggression takes unparalleled levels of self-restraint.
- One ought to have a thick skin when dealing with trolls on social media. They are angry and use the rudest, meanest, harshest language, and it is only natural that it’ll affect you in a horrible way. That’s okay. Take a deep breath, believe in yourself, and trudge on.
- Trolls, however, will not afford you the same luxury – they have the thinnest epidermal layer ever, and are more volatile than chlorine trifluoride! (Yes, I googled that.) Or ether! (No, already knew this one.)
Let me be straight – there were a few folks who merely disagreed with me. I thank them for their view, and do not, for one second, consider them trolls. Trolls are inept beings who are unable to distinguish between the issue in contention and the person contending. They not only disagree with your thoughts, but jump further to the (obvious, duh!) conclusion that this clashing of ideas gives them the right to get personal, call you names, be outright rude and offensive to YOU, and not just your thought/ point/ issue. Should I have been corrected? Maybe, maybe not – I’m biased in my own favour, so it’s really not fair for me to answer this. Did I deserve to be insulted? I strongly doubt it.
Then why did I bow out? Is my notion of (my) dignity so skewed that I would meekly raise a white flag in the face of adversity? I’m not that person… at least that’s what I thought. So then I did something one of the trolls had recommended I do – I introspected. And much to my delight, this was my triumphant, elegant realisation – HATERS GONNA HATE! (#wannabeswag) So I could either join in the mudslinging, or I could “keep calm and carry on”. More importantly, I must respect them and their freedom of expression, regardless of whether they choose to extend the same respect to me.
Thank you, my dear trolls, for a valuable #TIL day. You threw me off for some time there, and I’m woman enough to accept this. But know this – you haven’t seen the last of me. I choose my battles, and this wasn’t the one I chose.
I live to fight another day.
(Picture credit: https://goo.gl/images/4AwVLa)
Aachaar-Vichaar 