Itâs not bad but Iâm not doing it. When people are going off about âyou deserve to be killed because of who you are and who youâre attracted to,â itâs no time to make yourself vulnerable and gentle and bare your soul about âthis is so complicated because the heart wants what it wants, but surely that is an oversimplification because no one develops their preferences in a vacuum, but once the preference has developed it feels like a full part of oneself, and perhaps it is, but is that just complacencyâŠâ
Thatâs an interesting conversationâand Iâm honestly not 100% sure where I stand in itâbut it canât be had in the midst of a crossfire. Knowing that if I word one phrase poorly, itâll be screenshotted and bandied about as âLOOK AT THIS RAPIST DEMANDING VICTIMSâ makes me extravagantly disinclined to dive into the nitty-gritty of the intersection of marginalization and sexual desire.
Itâs genuinely unnecessary to engage with trolls. It takes them two seconds to reach into their pants and throw a fresh piece of shit. No sense at all spending time answering sincerely because theyâre just rummaging around in their trousers for something else to toss.
Itâs also genuinely unnecessary to respond to zombie ideas: defined by Paul Krugman as âa view that’s been thoroughly refuted by a mountain of empirical evidence but nonetheless refuses to die, being continually reanimated by our deeply held beliefs.â
Itâs also unnecessary to mud wrestle with a pig. Youâll both get covered in shit and the pig likes it.
This doesnât mean donât give answers to honest questions to people who sincerely want them. Instead the key is âwhile they were asked in bad faith.â Â
Address the issue, not the question. Address the problem, not constant deflection.
As Cliff points out, correctly, a trollâs intention is to get as long and (preferably) annoyed and upset an answer as possible in order to cherry-pick your one typo or badly worded sentence in order to… turn that into another turd to fling at you.
If youâre going to engage at all (not recommended) just put it right back on them and move on.
“Wow, you seem pretty fragile there, snowflake.â
âWow, Iâm sorry you canât distinguish between consensual play and abuse.â
âWow, you really think all feminists are TERFS?â
âThey said âgive me a chanceâ and you heard âyouâre transphobic if you wonât have sex with me, me, me?â Talk to me after you get your ears checked, pal.â
âNot actually far from…â reminds me of an old city-slicker / hillbilly joke!
City Slicker: Hey farmer! You’re not too far from a fool are you?Farmer: Just a barbed-wire fence between us.
On a more serious note, after more than 30 years of interacting in public forums online itâs usually the case that when someone starts barfing up repeated anonymous remarks beating the same topic to death instead of moving on the problem theyâre harping on isnât really the problem.
And for the record, thereâs a Damn big barbed wire fence between D/Lg and pedopilia.
One doesnât often see links to academic linguists ang grammarians in the context of kink blogs. But trolls have been perennial problems since literally the earliest days of networked compiliters. A surprising number of people managed to get banned from my college computer lab where no
More than fifteen users (plus one sysadmin) could be logged in at the same time… where all 16 workstations were in the same room!
So theyâre an issue. The post has a list of proposed characteristics of trolling personalities. Since this is a sex and kink blog and most of my readers are similarly inclined let me propose an additional definition that might help you understand why itâs actively counterproductive to engage them.
13: They get sexual gratification from their victims anguished, reasoned, outraged, or persistent reactions.
Engaging in any way with a troll is the equivalent of sending nudes to demanding assholes. Itâs like giving blowjobs in response to dick pics. Itâs like sexting with spammers.
They jack off to your anguish and annoyance. They share their best text streams with other trolls the way pedophiles, necrophiliacs, stalkers, and âpickup artistsâ do.
The common line since at least the late 1970âs has always been âdonât feed the trolls.â Letâs take it a step further and say âdonât give the trolls handjobs.â
Responding doesnât just make them happy, it literally makes them come.
Just calmly (cock) block them or report them to @staff. Youâll be doing everyone (but trolls) a favor.
This is a first for me and Iâm just mind blown. Reaching out to the tribe on this oneâŠ. no clue what to do, how to respond, or if I even should respond, or just block him/her? @instructor144@kittysparkleslove@mrbear215@cutebutdeadlylittledemon and all the others because I donât know them all yet.
@nicjourney this is what is known as a âfuckboy,â a particularly loathsome denizen of Tumblr. And my reblog of this is known as a âfuckboy alert.â The folks will do what they do with fuckboys; for your part, block that idiot.
Sorry to hear youâre having issues. It must be difficult to be so
desperate that you blindly reach out to strangers for panty suggestions.
First understand that male incontinence is nothing to be embarrassed
about. It happens to a lot of men, even fuckboys. A quick Google search
and I was able to flesh out (no giggling, little friend!) this option
for you. Note that there is a pink option as well – we donât judge here
so use whichever makes you feel your best (dry) self. I believe they all
come in an extra small so they will fit your penis perfectly. Stay dry!
Important note: This post relates to brief texts sent via anonymous DM to anonymous recipients. It does not relate to long, lurid text and definitely doesnât relate to dick pics or crotch shots. With that in mind.
Next important note: If youâre not used to getting shit like this in your inbox it feels upsetting as hell. Youâre under no obligation not to feel upset. Theyâre making presumptions about you that are unwarranted and that you neither requested nor deserved. Iâm sorry that ever happens for so many reasons! Iâm especially sorry it happened to you, the original poster.
—
I get moderately presumptuous one-liner messages like this pretty often but I donât really think of the correspondents as âfuckgirls.â I think the psychology of message is complex enough that you canât automatically label someone as an asshole. Â
This doesnât mean you should assume theyâre not assholes. Just donât automatically declare them assholes. Â
Sometimes theyâre just clueless newbies. Sometimes theyâre trying to open with a âbangâ in hopes of catching your attention. Sometimes theyâre responding to something you posted days or months ago. Possibly something you posted totally unzipped a fantasy for them and they imagine youâll receive their âenthusiasmâ in the same spirit you inspired it in them. Sometimes they foolishlly imagine an âinvitationâ you drunk or horny posted last night doesnât disgust you in the cold light of morning.
And, sure, sometimes theyâre just plain old fucking assholes, dickwads, dilholes, or dog-lipped bung stoppers.
Iâm inviting the OP to adopt this view not out of generosity to their correspondent. I mean, itâs not your responsibility to interpret someone elseâs state of mind. Â
Instead Iâm suggesting it because itâs less stressful to you!
99% of the time Iâve noticed that if you simply donât respond then youâll never hear from them again. Â
I canât prove it for Tumblr but patterns in other platforms suggest that most actual jerks and assholes will pile through a stack of blogs, spamming similar (often copy/pasted) messages to multiple recipients in hopes of getting a reply. So the chance of them stumbling back across you are pretty low.
And even if theyâve singled you out they still almost never return if you donât respond.
In all cases, most of the time I just close their chat on my browser or delete the conversation from my app list and go on with my day.
Itâs not that they donât bother me, itâs that I donât let them bother me, if that makes sense.
If they do make a comeback, or they do bother me, then Iâll block them. If they really bother me then Iâll stalk their blog, make a decision about whether theyâre posting genuinely creepy stuff, and report them if theyâre doing anything reportable. And then Iâll block them.
The point here is that isolated little out-of-the-blue snippets like âWhat kind of panties are you wearingâ or âIâm so wet for you, Daddyâ are hard to assess for meaning or relevance. Since I have exactly zero contact with, experience of, relationship with, or obligation to them I donât feel obliged to respond. And you donât have an obligation to respond either.
Final note about trolls: if you do feel trolled, stalked, or otherwise jeopardized the #1 recommendation from experts with online experience going back to the earliest days of dial-up bulletin boards is: donât respond! If they have to send 10 messages before you respond that just sets their expectation: âok, it takes 10 messages to get this one to respond.â If it takes 100 messages theyâll just set that expectation instead. Because what motivates and gratifies them is getting that response.
Way up top I said donât label every person who contacts you with out of the blue âsolicitationsâ is an asshole. Because itâs more stressful if you do that. But! Itâs ok to assume that everyone to drops something like that on you could be a troll. And rule #1 is âdonât feed the trolls.â
The end result is the same, right? You either ignore them (all you need to do 90% of the time), block them (9.9%), or if necessary report them (.1% of the time.) But taking that approach is just better for your own mental health.
Finally, because some people genuinely are newbies, or shy, or clumsy (especially if their native language isnât the same as yours), giving one small iota of benefit-of-the-doubt keeps the blowback they receive proportionate: they say something ignorable so you ignore them.
Bottom line: when people say ignorable things, ignore them. When they say actionable things take action (block or report.) And in all cases donât respond directly because if theyâre trolls or stalkers youâve just made their day.
