The Nature of the Troll

When I see troll comments, I always imagine the author to be a little furry green monster jumping up to bite at feminist ankles, adorned with a permanent scowl which is the result of chowing down daily on a diet of The Daily Mail, Nuts, Zoo, Ann Coulter and MRA ‘literature’. Unfortunately, although I have not to my knowledge seen any of the trolls I have fought with in the flesh, I believe that they are actual human beings out there, in the world. Now that sucks like a vacuum.

They come to a feminist blog, usually identify themselves as ‘Anonymous’ (I prefer the label ‘chickenshit’ myself), and vomit out the MRA talking points: ‘Women are always lying about rape’, ‘it’s natural for men to act like jerks and women to act like slaves’, ‘any woman objecting to the status quo is a prude/ has hang ups’ (translation: ‘doesn’t want to sleep with me’), ‘because I say it is so it is so!’, ‘feminists don’t care about women in other parts of the world because they have the intelligence to make the links between all forms of misogyny’ (as if feminists were not always on the forefront of fights against poverty, imperialism and human rights abuses). I am naturally [sic] aggressive towards these morons, and feel compelled to argue with them. I put up my facts next to their bullshit, and they spew out more and more hatred, until my rage boils over and I rather resemble a pressure cooker.

You see, I hate what happens to women in this world. I hate the torture, rape, violence, contempt, poverty that they experience. And so when a troll comes in as a representative of the We Hate Women brigade, displaying vile support for all that women suffer, I want to respond, and tell them where to stick their bullshit arguments. But then I am reminded of something Feminist First told me once: ‘You don’t have to play by their rules’.

The truth is, whatever you say to a troll, he is not going to believe you, or admit that he does. He is not going to be convinced, because he has come to your blog especially to piss you off, to divert your energies from your struggles and goals. Trolls existed before the internet. They attacked brave feminists everywhere they spoke up; told feminists that women didn’t need feminism, that they were unnatural women, that they were going to hell, they beat them, they ridiculed them and they went to amazing lengths to shut them up. And why? Because they were afraid, and because, inside they knew that what feminists were talking about was real, that should feminism spread, their male privileges and constructed perverted pleasures would be destroyed. Every time a troll comes a-ranting, whether he polishes his argument with pseudo-intellectual gloss or simply calls you a whoredykebitchprude, he is afraid. And so he should be.

We deal with their arguments everytime we post here in that beautiful space known as the feminist blogosphere. We have carved out a place for ourselves, and the price we pay is that dickheads will come in to try and destroy us, break our unity and compromise our respect and love for each other. We will not let them. None of us need feel obliged to answer every dumbass rant of the troll, every slander, every shot of hatred, because trolls are not interested in rational argument, they are interested only in themselves. We mustn’t let them divert our energy into fighting the stupid.

Non-trolls who read our blogs and are open to argument will listen to us, they will ask us genuine questions and approach us respectfully. They will link to us, speak to us and their passion to make the world a better place for women will be obvious from their words and deeds. They will be ready to examine their own thought processes for misogyny, just as we make it our business to do in ours.

I would suggest that when we want to counter a misogynist viewpoint that we bring it to our own blogs, and post about it. That way we can highlight the bullshit we face without having to waste our precious energies in a slanging match with the wilfully ignorant. We can create the arguments and show them to the world, so that other women and men will be able to know misogyny when they see it. Trolls do not have the right to smear their hatred on our blogs. They do not have the right to free speech in our personal spaces; they have it everywhere else, and one would think that would be enough for them.

Trolls are despicable and infuriating, there’s no doubt about that. But we have the truth on our side, which we should make every effort to spread amongst those willing to listen. Trolls will always be trolls, they are the reactionaries in every society, whose self-esteem and privileges depend upon the maintainance of the status quo. They demand our attention because they think they’re owed it. They’re not. Our attention is far too valuable to waste on them.

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