How to Defeat the Trolls

When I was about 10 years old, I was obsessed with Barbie. I would lay in bed at night, thinking about what I would play tomorrow, after school.

I always played alone.  I hated playing Barbies with anyone else, because my Barbies were on epic adventures on the high seas, in medieval Europe, or on the American frontier.   My Barbies didn’t care about silly parties or have any interest in going shopping. It annoyed me to no end when someone gave Barbie a silly high voice or tried to play something I deemed “floofy.”

After school, I would race home, usually watch a movie with my mom before she had to go to work, then I would go to my room, and plop down in the pile of Barbie dolls, accessories, gowns and other things that were part of my adventure repertoire, and commence playing out my fantasies with my dolls.

This was when the bane of my existence, my little brothers, would amuse themselves by standing outside my bedroom door forcing themselves to belch.  If it wasn’t belching, it was calling me “Jenta.”

What actually caught my attention was that the first comment was “White Lives Matter.”  I wondered why someone who thought enough of this artist to follow him on Facebook would write such a thing.  Then I looked at the other comments.  There were over a hundred comments on his post, but really only about four or five thoughts (if you can call them that) were being expressed:   “Black Lives Matter.”  “All Lives Matter.”  The standard, “You wouldn’t say “‘All rain forests/cancers matter to someone who wants to ‘save the rain forest’/’promote cancer research'” as an attempt to make people see how inappropriate their comments were.

I realized that these people were not here to say that they really believe that all lives matter.  They were essentially burping outside the bedroom door.  They were there to get their giggles from provoking reactions from people who are genuinely hurting.  Imagine how quickly the foolishness would have stopped if everyone had just clicked “block” on those trolls.  I mean none of them are going to change their minds through any kind of hostile response.  That’s what they’re seeking, so, in terms I learned in my child psychology courses in college, those who react with such hostility are positively rewarding bad behavior.  If what they want is attention, don’t give them attention.   If they don’t get what they want, they’ll go somewhere else to find it.  If we all start blocking our trolls, maybe they’ll shrivel up and cease to exist.

One can hope.