Don’t Be A Troll, Don’t Feed The Trolls

Meet Chintu, he is a regular guy with an unpredictable emotional state of mind, usually quick to anger, likes to belittle, self-absorbed, or just not open to seeing things differently. He is grappling with misplaced pride because of which his attitude is bordering on arrogance. He has complete disregard for others' points of view and would virtually attack you with nothing nice to say. Though with total bankruptcy of positive ideas in his head, he would like to maintain himself as a brand of self-assuredness. Chintu is a sanctimonious punk, who thinks he is above everyone. For some reason, Chintu’s belief in humanity is at low ebb and to cope with the hollowness of his circumstances and distorted worldview, on any given day, he would do what he does best. Trolling. He is an expert in passing nasty comments on any of your posts, reels, tweets, stories or feeds.

Who are trollers? 

Trollers are naysayers who waggle their disapproving finger on anything and everything. Brutally trolling celebrities on applying make-up, going under the knife, how they stand, walk, and pout. Any opinion, assumption, value, interest, prediction and judgement that doesn’t go down well with them will be met by a tidal wave of abuse and harassment. Their typical Pavlovian response would be to unabashedly and constantly rip people apart with a barrage of insults and trying best to pull them down. Basically, they are self-acclaimed Heroes among Zeros on any social media platform.

Cyberbullying is poised to turn into the biggest concern nowadays. Internet trolls, who are hiding behind the screens, feed on attention. If I look at the psychological explanation of why people become trolls, it is because the internet can facilitate disinhibition, anonymity, and invisibility and people dealing with dissatisfaction in life, need a place to vent out and what could be better to have a faceless nameless identity to attack people. The dark tetrad of personality gets a safe haven behind an online profile. 

Generally, most of us have had an awesome amicable experience online but we have experienced in different capacities the impact of habitual trollers. We know that trollers don’t hate people as much as they love the game of hating people. Indubitably you will be trolled on subjects like politics, religion and current affairs. The barbaric trollers have the audacity to go to any extent. They will not spare a 9-month-old Vamika Kohli or a 12-year-old Aaradhya Bachchan.

In the hyper-polarized atmosphere if there are different political ideological viewpoints then trollers will make sure that you get slapped, walloped and thrashed online. The culture of hate has significantly tried to touch the raw nerve. There are situations where trollers intentionally or otherwise try to manipulate, threaten, obfuscate, bully, or derail in an attempt to get their way.

A culture of hate and also the cancel culture is spreading like a plague. Having an opinion is good but having an opinion so harsh that you shame others' religion, parents, community and character assassinating them can never be a sign of a progressive society and mindset.   

Trolling is the realm of the coward. These are people who are all sound and fury and how do we deal with them? A counter-trolling strategy can be employed on social media:

1. Kill the trolls with kindness. Abhishek Bachchan gave a befitting reply to one of the trolls who said, how does it feel to live with his parents. Instead of going filthy he gave a good comeback, “It’s the proudest moment for me to be able to be there for them, as they have for me. Try it sometime, you might feel better about yourself.”

 2. If you can’t educate them, ignore them. You don’t have to push back, defend their turf, or clarify simply learn to ignore them. 

3. Stand your ground. If you give up and hand people what they want simply to avoid the hassle, you end up teaching that behaving badly pays off. 

4. Don’t take trolling to heart. There are no facts in their claims, they are only assumptions.

5. Time-Out: Allow a period of calming down. Wait longer to post after a bout of trolling. This way you are less susceptible to future trolling.

6. Anger begets more anger: Remember that your comment under provocation can affect your reputation far beyond this one interaction. 

7. Block and Report 

The whole idea of the social platforms was to share a piece of yourself with the world. When social platforms are overrun by trolls, they drown out the voices of the masses. Culture of hate is unforgiving and cruel. It spreads like wildfire and it will burn your house, and your people too.

Don’t be a troll. Don’t feed the trolls. Be kind. 

Authored by Radhika Dhingra 

Views expressed are the author's own.