My First Twitter Trolling

I have survived my first Twitter trolling. Six days after I made a tweet about who I personally feel should not be running for the democratic presidential nomination, I noticed my app blowing up with notifications. When I went to the notifications tab, nothing was there. I got onto my computer and went to my notifications where I noticed that Twitter had applied some kind of filter to block a majority of updates. Had I not un-applied it, I wouldn't have known that a couple of incels had found my tweet, retweeted it, and screenshot it to put it on Facebook. All kinds of disrespectful comments were pouring in, threaded to my tweet and whenever it was retweeted. Most of them were attacking my identity as a fat, queer, trans person and had no relevance to the content I posted, content that had no relevance to them in the first place.

I blocked every single comment and retweet and reported the nastier ones but they just kept coming. Then they started trolling my other tweets as well leaving hateful and irrelevant comments. My sister started reporting the responses too to help increase the likelihood that their content would be removed. Just when I would think it was slowing up, another RT would happen bringing a fresh onslaught. After two hours I was exhausted. I couldn't keep blocking and reporting indefinitely. Every time I did I was forced to see what they had written. I also refused to delete my tweet because there was nothing wrong with it - I'm entitled to my opinions especially when they don't affect anyone else. I absolutely will not cow to people like this.

I ended up making my account private, which I'll keep for at least a week, and deleting the app off my phone to give myself some sense of sanity. A lot of writers I follow on Twitter write regularly about getting trolled, about their experiences with trolls and the unanticipated consequences but none of this prepared me for the reality. I wouldn't say I was hurt because their insults were steeped in ignorance. I also wouldn't say I was scared because I knew what I was up against - getting trolled on social media is inevitable if you are any sort of minority. It was like I was being slapped repeatedly. I knew it was going to be a slap, I knew there would be an infinite number of slaps, and didn't know when or if it would stop. The exhaustion is mostly from the lack of logic - this wasn't arguing or debating, just waves of crude personal insults for no reason other than that I exist.

The lack of logic is what's most difficult to explain to people who have never been trolled, especially people who aren't aware of or well versed in incel, MAGA, and TERF "ideology" (for lack of a better word). These people are incapable of logic and respecting others on a basic human level. They don't think for themselves and mindlessly consume whatever is put in front of them. I’ve seen countless clickbait articles about how empathy is on the decline but that seems to be just a matter of perception. People who think like internet trolls have always existed, the time is just ripe for them now because there is no way to check them. Had I entertained a single one of them, I would have been forced to explain my identity to someone who does not believe I am human, that I do not deserve dignity and respect, and that I do not deserve to live. There is no arguing with anyone who denies your humanity. 

There are no words I can write to describe what it feels like to be virtually face to face with someone who thinks you should die. This is something so many of us have felt, as queer people, as trans people, as fat people. It’s not exactly fear because I know that there is no immediate bodily threat. I guess it’s closer to desperation or hopelessness. We all know in theory these people exist but when they interact with you it removes any shadow of doubt that humans are capable of such virulent and irrational hate. While I would unequivocally punch a nazi in the face, the internet troll is more amorphous. They’re in front of you but also non-existent. So many of these people, from their accounts and photos look like regular white dudes who do regular white dude things - work in offices, have families, go to sports ball games - but they also spread hate from the secrecy of their phones.  

I don’t owe anyone any explanations about what I tweet or about who I am. If you have gotten to the end of this post, I will reward you with one mostly because I was sketching a future post about this topic before any of this happened. One troll “meant no disrespect” and wanted to know why I am wearing a “Nasty Woman” shirt in my avatar but identify as non-binary. That’s called a feminist reclamation. I wear that shirt because I’m reclaiming two words (along with several others like fat, slut, and witch) because it’s an easy way to display that I am a feminist and believe in equal rights. There is power in language, power that can can be wielded many ways. When we reclaim language, we show our oppressors that we are not afraid of their words and that the words they intend to keep us down, motivate us to persist.