The act or blogging, let alone the art, attracts trolls. In one of my very earliest posts I wrote how my online diarising felt indiscreet. Having met my first troll I feel vindicated for those early misgivings, but also triumphant.
Is that it, Clair?
Behind most ‘flame wars’ since the advent of bulletin boards and forums, these ugly losers have lurked under virtual bridges since the early 80’s — now, they’re just older. So why would Clair change? I bet she’s been this way most of her adult life. She was waiting for the internet. Trolling is all she’s ever known.
Most bloggers put up with trolling because they hope to make money. Poor bastards. You can’t monetise without engagement, so shutting down comments isn’t a viable option for them. But I go back to my reasons for this blog: diarising and writing practice. I already make enough money.
So a real option for me is to shut down comments. Or, keep them open and just trash the troll-vomit as it comes. Same-same. Depends how bored I get with Clair. I’m already pretty bored. She just loops the same boring shit.
zzzzzzzz …
Because losers come in all shapes and sizes, I’m not insensitive to the reality of sad peoples’ lives. I’ve met [<—————-THIS MANY—————–>] losers who compensate by having vibrant online personalities, which begs the question: why be ugly online and IRL?
Hmm, Clair? Why?
Because trolls hates normal, attractive people leading normal, attractive lives, is why.
Those skinny bitches, right?
Damaged people (for example, and giving Clair an out) do sometimes become trolls. They carry a sad story around, looking for anyone who’ll listen. Make the error of listening and they latch on like lamprey to bore you with the same monotonous tale of woe, over and over and over.
Fortunately, they’re not hard to shake off.
Moderating posts before they go live is a good start. I could just block Clair forever. Completely ignoring a troll is tried-and-true. But sometimes it’s fun to bait a troll. They’re probably unemployable and on a ‘disability pension’ anyway, so they don’t have much else to do with their time.
Anyhow, it kinda feels like I’ve finally earned my troll wings. If it wasn’t me, it would have been somebody else. But here’s a question: why don’t trolls just talk to other trolls? It’s not like you can’t have real friends.
In the meantime, I guess it’s time to feed the troll again.