Don’t Feed the Trolls — Get Inspired Instead

Turn your anger into excellent content

“So I got into a bit of an argument with someone on the internet today,” I said as a conversation starter at the dinner table.

“Mom, don’t feed the trolls,” my college-aged daughter immediately replied.

“Yes, but this person was using the word “it” to refer to people. That isn’t okay.”

“Mom, never feed the trolls.”

“Yes, but I had some good — “

“Never feed the trolls.”

“Okay, but — “

“Never! Feed! The! Trolls!

She was right of course. Feeding the trolls who trawl the internet looking for things to get outraged about is not a good use of time. They gain energy and satisfaction out of getting others riled up and you end up angry exactly as they intended.

There is another option. When you come across a troll use the frustration you feel bubbling up within you to fuel an excellent article making all the points you would have made to the troll if they were a person capable of being reasoned with.

In this specific instance, I can’t say I’m sorry I engaged. I do not belong to the category of people this troll was calling an “it”. He was commenting in support of an excellent article on a totally different topic and threw this in as a joke. It was not entirely clear to me if he was being intentionally offensive.

I responded because I felt it was important to make the point directly to him that using “it” to refer to a person is never okay. In addition, I wanted everyone else who may read his comment to be immediately confronted with the fact that this joke was not acceptable. I’m done with letting abuse slide without comment.

His reply made it clear that the slight was very much intentional. Here is where I maybe should have followed my daughter’s excellent advice and let it go. But again, while I was under no illusions that I was likely to change this particular person’s mind, I realized other people might read this exchange as well and I found the task of responding calmly and respectfully to someone who was not treating me or others with respect an interesting writing challenge.

As I was involved in this exchange, the idea began percolating up in my brain for a story on gender-neutral pronouns aimed at people who unlike my troll aren’t trying to offend people but just want to be good writers following the rules.

I wrapped things up with the troll in one final comment — terminating the conversation from my side at least — and began writing my grammar post. Here it is featured in Better Marketing.

So thank you Mr. Troll for giving me the energy and inspiration to focus on an excellent topic! Thank you also to Cherry Soda, Rebecca Rowan Forté, and Kel Bachus who joined in the conversation and who I’m tagging here so you can see where it led on my part.

So how do you deal with a troll? Do you ignore and look away as my daughter suggests? Do you call them out and argue to the bitter end? Is there a middle road?

I’m not sure there are any hard and fast rules to follow appropriate for all situations.

I do believe that when we hear slurs on any people group in person we need to speak up immediately no matter the personal cost to ourselves unless it compromises our safety. For too long those of us not targeted directly have let things slide in order to keep the peace for ourselves.

Is that also the right call online? I’d probably default to calling it out where doing so has a benefit for someone else to see.

But mostly I want to take the negative energy that trolls are throwing out and use it to energize my writing. I encourage you to do the same.

Let’s stop feeding those trolls and start feeding our own portfolios.

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