#internet troll

People need to relearn the phrase "don't feed the troll" right now.

The troll lives off attention. It dies like tinkerbell. You don't engage with the troll, ever. You block the troll and, if it's particularly vicious, report it. But blocking is everything.

Antagonising with the troll is giving it attention. So is trying to engage with it in a calm, rational discussion. IT DOESN'T WORK. It's a troll.

Sometimes the troll is some wierd ass account with fourteen numbers on their handle, sometimes it's a business man worth billions. Same rules apply to both.

Do you, by some reason, agree with what the troll is saying? YOU STILL BLOCK THE TROLL.

When you don't block (and, if appropriate, report it), the troll takes over. It will be all over your feed. It will ruin YOUR experience. Don't let it.

Engaging with the troll is using your precious time and money to be enraged while using your own device.

Introducing the ironically-named @trainangel, the raging ableist!

In fact, Trainangel is so ableist, that she threatened to beat me up.

So, is this like a rite of passage or something, Bog? Does this mean I've hit it big, like you?

[image description: A bespectacled bear sits in a lovely meadow - lovely mountains rise behind her in the distance. She types away at a strange laptop featuring an inverted (hanging?) Chiroptera logo. Next to her, her trusty mouse. She knows how these things work after all. Text reads, “179  ~ 1ma be@r ~ small god of Harmless Trolling”]

The anonymity of the internet brings out the worst in some people.  They pick fights with strangers; they hurl slurs like stones, and pretend innocence when asked to stop.  They hide behind the pretty veil of invisibility, escaping the consequences of their own actions, and people call them “trolls” like they deserve the name.  Trolls are petty nuisances out of fairy tales, defending bridges (sometimes bridges too far) from goats whose hooves might damage the masonry.  Trolls serve a PURPOSE in the fairy tale ecosystem.  These people serve no purpose at all.  They debase the name of “troll.”

But there ARE trolls in the ether, people whose purpose is to keep you from the bridge too far, who bring whimsy and weirdness into a world that is sometimes sorely lacking in either.  And at times, the anonymity of the internet works in their favor, as well.

On the internet, no one knows that you’re a bear.

Ima is among the newest of the small divinities whose lives we chronicle here, spawned out of a love for mischief and a desire to brighten the world in a small, vicious, glorious wait.  She dangles her bait for the unwary to bite, and all too many of them do.

BATMAN’S BUTT IS NOT AS GOOD AS GAMBIT’S.

CYCLOPS HAS HEAT LASERS.

SPACE 1999 IS THE BEST SCIENCE FICTION FRANCHISE EVER CREATED.

She fires her benedictions into the ether, and watches as the unwary and the unwitting and the faithful arrive together, a teeming wave upon her tangled web, and she tells them she is not a bear, and they all know she is a bear, and they all accept her for what she is.

She is light.  She is whimsy.  She is making the world more gloriously strange by her very presence, and she is not going to stop any time soon.  She is a true troll, in the fairy tale sense, and she will one day open the glorious maw she doesn’t have (because of course, she is not a bear) and devour all the pretenders for her kingdom.

On the day that happens, we will bring the snacks.

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My latest video is less about murder and more about a post-apocalyptic NYC neighborhood, if killing ain’t yer thing. (But rest assured, there’s still a little old-timey murder in it.)

YouTube is trying to be TikTok like every other platform, so they have YouTube Shorts. They don’t count toward the watch hours that eventually get you ad revenue, but they do tend to reach a wider audience, so I’ve posted a few. 

But BOY OH BOY, is that where the dregs of society live. This is where people like to pick apart my facial expressions (the horror of seeing a happy person who smiles when she talks), discuss my weight, talk about how #metoo people are the awful ones, and rant about how we can’t ban free speech if it means banning fat-shaming.

I’m thinking I just won’t post any more Shorts, because my subscriber numbers seem to be growing organically on their own, but I HAVE gotten 19 subscribers in 3 Shorts, which isn’t 0. 

I don’t have a problem handling the negative comments, because the kind of person who needs to try to bring down strangers is just sad to me.

But the thing I DON’T like is my husband seeing them. He’s logged into my YouTube account because he does all of my editing, so he gets the notifications when someone has called me a “gnargoyle”. 

I know he loves me endlessly and thinks I’m beautiful and perfect, blahblahblah, but I’m bothered by the idea that he has to see other men (it’s always men) basically saying that his choice was bad and he could have done better.