Today on Twitter, I came across my first real-deal, salty as fuck troll. Behold the post that started it all:
For those who have been following my blog, Twitter, or the author page I maintain on Facebook...you know this is just me. I am not pretentious. Mayo Jar aside, I'm generally well versed in how to comport myself around others.
My use of the word "fuck" is not an indication of my intelligence or class, merely an aspect of my personality. And on MY pages, I will say whatever the fucking god damn shit I want.
But I digress.
The Tweet in question garnered a bit of attention, nothing extravagant--a few likes, RTs, and comments. It was meant as a joke and generally taken as one.
Then there was this:
Now, at first, I truly thought this was a joke. What follows is my cluelessness at play and a ridiculous spew of nonsequitur vitriol. Innocent parties have been blued out.
As you can see, I attempted to remain polite here. I didn't bother to argue with this person for a few reasons:
1. Trolls be trollin'.
2. 140 character limit.
3. I do not need this person's validation.
Now you notice here when I acknowledged where the vitriol came from, his tone changed. I am going to go out on a limb here and say he was only offended by the language and my refusal to acknowledge (See: ignorance of) it spurred the unrelated and hateful comments.
Right. So I mentioned the Mayo Jar earlier. I stepped out of line and thoroughly embarrassed myself on someone else's Twitter with that shenanigan. Inappropriate humor is inappropriate, mm'kay?
That comes into play here because this person attempted to police not only me but another Twitter user who found my words amusing. It's downright condescending, but he basically pulled a Mayo Jar without the humor and presumed to tell us we are low brow for laughing at a pretty benign bit of word play.
Trolls will troll, but I stepped right into this because I thought it was an asinine dare. Given context, it doesn't make much sense at all, really. I guess he was trying to say a traditional publication company wouldn't touch us because our Internet presence is tainted? Regardless, online conversations are tone deaf in many ways.
Normally I would say don't bother to engage, but I removed that option. And while this did end on a...better note than where it started, it could have been avoided altogether had I not assumed this person was joking.
Keep this in mind, guys: if you engage, divert the water and flood the bridge. Killing them with kindness works better than firing back. But if you can, just find a different bridge absent the dirty shit flinger beneath it.
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