#selfindulgent

troll¹

trəʊl,trɒl/

noun

1. (in folklore) an ugly cave-dwelling creature depicted as either a giant or a dwarf.

This is the response Google provides when you aske it to define troll. How fitting that internet trolls are named accordingly. 

Today I am having a quick gripe about trolls. I do not like trolls. I like discourse and exchange of ideas, concepts and fact. I do not like pointless abuse for the sake of abuse.

This morning I logged onto this blog to start writing up my next post when I was met with 4 notifications. One by one I read them, all left by the same person, all of little value and all clearly nothing more than a pervasive pattern to undermine another person's sense of self-worth. I've filed this under health, as I believe that trolls really can impact on mental health given a particular set of circumstances.

What is a troll? 

In my experience trolls are invariably nameless and faceless. They use words to humiliate, abuse, bully or degrade another person who is quite often a stranger. Sometimes the abuse is explicit, other times it is not. 

Why?

Good question. 

I've been using the internet for my music since at least 2002. In my time I have been quite lucky not to have caught much attention from trolls. I had over 15000 views of my first video clip on YouTube and I can not recall any nasty or negative comments being left. 

After a lengthy break from music, I kicked off a return to music by starting a new YouTube channel. I added my video for Alone, a festival performance and some originals that I filmed live in my lounge room. Soon after I had some nasty comments posted onto my videos. The same person posted a comment onto each and every one of my videos. My videos were of music, hardly something controversial. The trolling was unprovoked. 

Although I could have deleted the comments, I left them. Everyone is entitled to their opinion. I wasn't sure that censoring the video comments was the best reaction. Maybe that would just justify them in their cause, what ever that might be.

Then it happened again. Another person did the same thing. And another.

I disabled comments from my videos.

This meant I would not know if people liked my songs either. For me, it was a small price to pay. The negative comments kept swimming around in my head. I found that I would think about my 'wailing voice that clearly needs vocal lessons' and the variety of similar thoughts that had been expressed by these people. I was perplexed by the need to insult my dog. I mean really? You're insulting a dog now?

I turned off all my videos, except one. And I have not uploaded another video to YouTube since. I've posted directly to Instagram and Facebook instead.

Without knowing the abusee, it is impossible to know how your deliberately negative comments are going to be perceived and what impact they will have on another human. If you think your thoughtless and worthless comments are harmless, you're wrong. 

I think that when I was younger, back in the days of ICQ and MySpace, trolling wasn't as popular as it is now. Lucky me. I'm not sure of how I would have coped with being repeatedly bullied by people who do not even know me, when I was 19. Even at 29, having removed most of my YouTube account, these strangers do have an effect.

Ten people may have messaged me on facebook that day to tell me they loved my blog, or regram-ed a screen grab of a part they liked most, or even shared it to their wall. To know that people get what you are saying and that reciprocally, they connect because you get how they feel, is a wonderful thing. 

Still, it will be the person who writes #selfindulgent or 'yawn' that I have to actively try to stop thinking about as I struggle to clear the thoughts from my mind during yoga before bed. Thanks for giving me the title of this post random person who dislikes everything I write.

As someone who was bullied consistently throughout school, I have a huge problem with trolls. Every time I have gone to the profile of someone who has left a useless comment on something of mine, it is empty. No photo. No name. No email address. It must be so easy to be so awful when there is no fear of reproach.

I write my blog for two reasons.

Firstly, I love writing. It was something I pretty much gave up when I started uni. I was working full time and studying full time, had a not so wonderful personal life and forgot to do things that made me happy. Starting this blog was something I had thought about for a long time. I was further encouraged to do it after I attended a workshop on successfully completing a research degree. The presenter explained how creative writing encourages academic writing. 

Secondly, I want my time on this earth to be spent helping people and actively contributing to making people's lives better. This means writing about something important to me and my readership. So if writing about my experiences only resonates with a handful of people, this is fine. If you do not like my blog, I have one very simple suggestion for you to follow: stop reading it.

It really is that easy. 

Don't visit the blog. Don't read the words. Just don't.

Clearly I am not writing for you. And that really isn't so bad.

Get away from the keyboard. Go live life. And let other people live theirs.

Update: Writing this was cathartic, but it was also in case someone who is less resilient needs to feel a little solidarity against the bullies. Like Taylor says, Shake it Off.