So children - today's 'put-down' comes to you through the Margaret Beckett window....

A few words about Trolls

First, I want to tell you a true story.

Some years ago I did a bit of evening bar-work in a friendly little Liverpool pub with a good mix of students, locals and a number of regulars. One quiet Tuesday evening, I was on my own behind the bar when a very smartly dressed little old man walked in. He ordered half a bitter and a whisky chaser and asked me, in clipped South African tones

“What sort of pub is this?”

Not entirely sure what he meant, I replied that it was just an ordinary northern pub. He laughed to himself and shook his head. Minutes later, one of our regulars, a young man of West Indian heritage came in and I noticed the old guy eyeing him suspiciously.

“YOU boy! Where are you from?” he demanded.

“I’m from Liverpool” came the reply

“No! I mean where do you COME from? Where were you born?”

“I was born at Walton Hospital in Liverpool!”

The old man was again laughing to himself. I exchanged ‘a look’ with the regular as he went and sat down. Next, another regular appears and gets the same eye-balling from the man. It wasn’t long before:

“OI YOU! Short-arse! You need a ladder to reach the bar!”

            “Er….not really” came the polite reply.

"YOU!” he said turning to me “You’re not a proper barmaid!” I asked him what he meant

“You should be standing here talking to me!” I explained I was working and had glasses to collect, people to serve.

“You’re no barmaid!” he said, laughing to himself.

Sensing that nobody was of a mind to take him on, the old fella decided to step things up a gear:

“You English……you can’t run! You can’t play cricket!….” <chortles>

He threw a challenging look over his left shoulder at the people seated behind him and announced:

“You lot over there…..You’re all Baaaarstards”.

Before he got the chance to tell the other half of the bar what he thought of them, I frog-marched him out the door with the help of aforementioned regulars with clear instructions never to return. I don’t know whether he went on to repeat this behaviour in a neighbouring pub, or even whether he made it out of the city alive, but I was heartened by the measured response of everyone around me in the face of such bizarre provocation.

The end

The moral of the story is that there are some people out there who get their kicks from baiting, offending and upsetting people and the best way to deal with them is to deny them an audience and ignore them.

What brought this story to mind recently is the amount of ‘trolling’ going on in social media, particularly on Twitter, which I have only really started using properly in the last few weeks. Now most people I speak to are great, funny, witty, friendly and it’s a joy to converse with like-minded folk I wouldn’t otherwise have met. The down-side is that there are also many ‘trolls’ waiting to trip us up, so I thought I would try to come up with a semi-serious quick troll-spotter’s guide to the different varieties, their natural habitats and what to do with them when you find them.

How to recognise the 4 main types of Troll

1. The Haters: Professional trolls, often ‘celebrities’ known only because of their ability to piss off as many cross-sections of humanity as possible. Driven by sociopathic or psychopathic tendencies, narcissm, self-aggrandisement and general arrogance, these trolls’ worst nightmare is being ignored. Their modus operandi is to post outrageously offensive comments that are lapped up by their often large following of eager, bile seekers who then broadly share them across the internet. These tweets are widespread and can be difficult to avoid and many innocent souls are drawn in through sheer horror of what has been said and find themselves at sea in amongst some of the most unpleasant scare-mongers and wind-up merchants on the web.
   Examples of this type include: Katie Hopkins, John McTernan, Louise Mensch. What to do:  just don’t go there! Ignore, block, anything other than responding to them. Pre-emptive blocking works best, you know who they are, save yourself the bother of being regularly left aghast at their latest outpouring of venom.
2. The Fakers: Semi-professional trolls, often ‘employed’ by interest groups,  particularly political parties and factions but also sporting clubs etc. These people tend to have unconvincing looking profiles, accounts that were often set up in the last few weeks and have very few followers. Twibbons sometimes proclaim their allegiance to a particular group, but upon engaging with them it becomes clear that their agenda is only to cause trouble. Fakers target people who are genuine supporters of their ‘opposition’ – Corbyn vs Smith supporters / Tories vs Labour / UKIP vs everybody. The aim is to try to draw you into a pointless argument or series of contradictions, progressively increasing the level of personal insult and condescension until you flip your lid and say something you shouldn’t. They then Sub-tweet you claiming to the world that you are abusing them and take cleverly edited screenshots of your tweets to use out of context to defame or belittle you.
   Examples – when someone bursts in to a perfectly pleasant tweet conversation with an inflammatory opposing view or posts a malicious reply to one of your tweets/re-tweets. Fakers frequently operate in small groups, often two of them will attempt to trap you in a pincer movement, designed to get your back up quickly as possible.
   What to do – As soon as you have identified a Faker troll, ignore and block. Do not whatever you do attempt to engage with them! If they are seriously abusive towards you or someone else, report them.
   (However, bear in mind that some people may not actually be Fakers, but ordinary twitter folk with a particular axe to grind. (See categories 3 and 4 below).
   
   
3. The Moaners: I class these as genuine Twitter account users who from time to time get a bit ‘angsty’ over some issue (eg Brexit, Labour Leadership contest, UKIP, the Tories). Whilst ordinarily they would be found tweeting pictures of their cat and proclaiming their love of Harry Potter / Harry Styles, suddenly they find themselves reacting when they see any tweet that challenges their current world view. Often found in #Hashtag conversations, rather than simply ignoring the views they don’t agree with of people they don’t know or follow, they feel the need to post an angry retort, often implying that the tweeter must be an idiot, liar, ‘trot’, tory etc. It is easy to confuse these with the Fakers, however a quick check of their profile will show they have well-established accounts and tweet about a broad range of subjects. You just got them on a ‘bad day’.
   What to do - Some of these people I have found turned out to be absolutely fine in the end and discussions have ended perfectly amicably with both sides agreeing to disagree. We don’t all have to agree on everything and debate/challenge is a useful exercise to prevent ourselves getting complacent in our own ‘Echo chambers’. If however it looks as though they are progressing into Faker territory, again, ignore and block.
   
   
4. The Loners and Stoners: These can be seen as ‘casual’ or ‘occasional’ trolls.This is a bit of a ‘catch all’ for those who don’t quite fit in to any of the above. I include those who flood onto Twitter after the pubs shut on a Friday night, buoyed by excessive alcohol intake and being with their mates. They are easily recognised by their inability to understand and respond appropriately to what is being said or to type anything approaching a coherent sentence. Also, some people who from time to time seek ‘a bit of devilment’. Oddly also, some people that you follow and who follow you that mysteriously turn on you! Yes, it really happens!
   What to do: Default position is as always – ignore and block. Or if you can tolerate them for a while, they might just prove entertaining. Just make you take screen-shots of their stupidest tweets to embarrass them with later.

Summary

With any troll, my recommendation is never to just Mute them. Muting means that they can lurk unseen like stalkers in your Twitter conversations, causing aggravation for others and talking about you behind your back! These people are never going to learn from your good sense so deny them access to your sparkling personalities and witty repartee. It’s their loss.

 

Be safe out there people!