How to Stay Sane on the Internet

Just because I care, a couple of simple but oft-broken (by me and others) guidelines for staying sane on the internet.

1. Never argue with a troll.

(image via)

I was on twitter venting all my highs and lows during the US vs. Brazil Women's World Cup match, and one of the things I said was that I enjoyed Julie Foudy's commentary.  I stand by this--she offers really good insights about strategy that aren't usually obvious to me with my limited soccer knowledge.  I got this in return from someone I don't know or follow: "Are you retarded? Her comments are stupid."  I guess this was meant to get me into a twitter fight.  Which I honestly might have done if the subject were anything I cared deeply about.  But, really--there's no point in fighting with someone like that. If they provoke you into a response, they've won. Just ignore it.

 

2. Everyone's a troll. 

It's not just juggalos, objectivists, libertarians, Howard Stern fans, or members of other weird cults who act as trolls on the internets. I just did it myself with that list! For whatever reason, the internet is a repository for a lot of people's excess anger.  Obviously some people (me) have more than others, but still-- I think a lot of people vent excess anger they might otherwise direct at people they actually know by firing off some sort of nasty message into the electronic ether. And some of these things are profoundly offensive.  And you shouldn't respond anyway.  Here's why:

2a. You won't change their mind.  I've tried to argue with people before on the internet. You can't make a dent in their preconceptions by arguing with them. I've also tried to start discussions with people, but people who are yelling aren't interested in a discussion. They'll just block you and retreat to their own blog and call you names. (Or retreat to their own blog and passive-aggressively refer to you obliquely in hopes that you'll recognize yourself and get mad and post something else nasty.)

but more importantly

2b. Your disagreement amplifies their message.  There is way too much content on the internet for people to keep up with.  When you tweet, blog, or facebook your disapproval with a link to the offender, you've amplified their message and made sure that it gets a hearing.  I think a lot of us who were young adults in the 90's are trying to apply the lessons of that era to this one, and it doesn't work.  It was disastrous to progressive causes in the 90's that people like Rush Limbaugh got away with saying ridiculous crap on the airwaves without anybody challenging them.  But now, when everyone is a content provider, there's more ridiculous crap out there than you could ever possibly respond to or, more importantly, pay attention to.  Now answering ridiculous crap only serves to legitimize it by giving it a wider audience.

Here's an example.  Back when I attempted, in sarcastic, troll-like fashion, to mansplain that women can be both powerful and fallible (apparently untrue--something to do with the patriarchy or something), I got exponentially more hits on my blog than I had ever gotten before because people linked to me in order to say I was a dick.  I had said more or less the same thing before in even more dickish, provocative terms, but since nobody cared enough to disagree with me, very few people even saw those posts. 

Another example:  The Wall Street Journal lady who wrote about how terrible YA literature is because it's dark and depraved.  People jumped all over her with the #YASaves hashtag on twitter, and then instead of someone saying something irrelevant in a publication that few people outside of business read because it's hidden behind a paywall, she became a spokesperson for this idea.  She then wrote an unrepentant follow-up post (because, see, if you respond to a troll, you prove that they've "touched a nerve," which legitimizes their post in their mind) and got all kinds of media bookings because she was at the center of a controversy.  None of this would have happened if she'd just been ignored.  But because we responded (yeah, me too), she's been able to say the same thing to a much larger audience than she ever would have gotten if we'd just thrown up our hands and said, "whatever, troll."