Please, don't feed the troll
Everyone should have a pet. I have a pet troll. I call it …
Troll.
What's a troll?
1.
In fairy tales, it’s an unpleasant creature who lurks
under a bridge and claims it owns it.
2.
Online, it’s an unpleasant, self-important creature
who lurks under a hidden identity to criticize and
insult another. A troll presents opinion as fact,
knowledge as wisdom, and argument as discussion. It
is a parasite with no sense of humor.
Troll loves attention. Like a fool I gave it some. I
respectfully disagreed with it, but it just wanted to argue
with me. So, I tried thanking it for it’s opinion, but it
wasn’t done opinionating. I even tried agreeing with it. It
just told me how wrong I was to agree with it. Then I
started teasing it. Made it look like a fool. Now it won't go
away. It’s my own personal nemesis.
Whenever I write a column, Troll leaps on it with
malicious glee. Incapable of seeing the big picture, it
nitpicks irrelevant details. Sometimes right, often wrong,
always contemptuous. Troll’s vendetta against me even
extends to stalking my comments on other columns.
Poisoning the well wherever I go.
Having found a happy feeding ground, Troll now lies in
wait for anybody who dares agree with me. It spews its
bile on an unsuspecting guest with tiresome
predictability. Frequently, Via Foura, the Great AI in the
Cloud, decides Troll's cheap shots aren't worthy, even for
a troll.
But when Via Foura deactivates Troll's content, Troll
always comes back with a surly rejoinder, a slightly less
offensive version of what it just said. Sometimes, the
omnipotent Power That Is banishes Troll for a time, but
the Power always lets it back in. I don't know why.
Having its content deactivated, even being banished for a
while, has only taught Troll to be more devious. Being a
troll, of course, it isn't capable of changing its ill-
tempered nature.
ADOLESCENT AND SOPHOMORIC
Troll reminds me of myself when I was on my high school
debate team. I was good. I could and would argue with
anybody about anything whether they wanted to argue or
not. I was quite obnoxious. It got to be where even I
didn't like me. So, I quit.
I don't think Troll is a happy creature, even if it thinks it
is. In a way, I feel sorry for it.
Nonetheless, Troll is a parasite sucking the life out of civil
discourse on my column. Therefore, I have decided to
stop replying to its puerile attempts to suck me into a
black hole of pointless argument for argument’s sake. I
also urge my readers not to respond to Troll's shrill cries
for attention.
It will say mean things designed to provoke you. It will
say things so appallingly stupid that it will take great
willpower not to point out how appallingly stupid what it
said is. In desperation, it will make veiled threats against
your home or your livelihood or imply you are a sexual
deviant or even worse, a Democrat. Troll is a verbal
streetfighter.
Of course, Troll won’t go away. I’ve got it on a stretched-
out reinforcement schedule (Psych 101). It’s used to
being ignored for weeks and weeks only to be rewarded
with a firefight or words with me now and then.
I guess I’ll just have to keep dragging it around with me
like a whiny, nagging child. After all, Troll is my most
loyal reader.
Troll will probably even argue with my obituary because it
always insists on having the last word.
Tom Durkin
multimedia writer-editor-photographer
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1998-2022
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