How to Survive Your First Internet Troll
3 strategies to deal with the haters
Whelp, it happened.
A mere 56 days after opening my Instagram account, I got my first taste of the dreaded internet troll. I’m talking about a human who took the time to go on multiple posts on my feed and comment with deeply personal, hate-filled comments about myself and my work (my team and I blocked and deleted all of it, so you won’t find the comments any longer on my page in case you’re dying to feed that curiosity). And, like, I knew it was going to happen. It’s a part of the game of putting yourself out there, but it still took my breath away for a minute. Having people hurl unwarranted, personal insults is one of the fears that has kept me off social media for so long. As I sit here on the evening of the occurrence, three things are helping me navigate the hate:
Approach the situation with love.
Once I took the time to take a breath, I asked myself the question, “What does it look like to respond to this with love?” What came up for me was that if a human is spending their time and energy being cruel and cutting other people down on the internet, they’re probably sincerely hurting. My guess is that they are likely struggling in some significant way and that what they need more than anything is love or to feel like they belong or to feel heard or to feel [insert any of our most basic human needs here].
So, with the understanding that this person is likely acting from a deep wound, I sent them love and forgiveness as soon as I could muster it. And as part of that love, I chose not to engage with them at all, deleted their comments, and blocked them, as feeding their cycle of drama only continues to enable and perpetuate the negativity in their life.
2. Be selective about whose opinion counts.
You’ll see a theme in my writing and posts that Brené Brown is a shero of mine. In her Netflix special, she directly confronts what it felt like to have internet trolls hurl incredibly hurtful comments at her following her successful Ted talk.
After wallowing in self-pity, she happened across an infamous quote from Theodore Roosevelt that says, “It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat."
Brené then goes on to say that she is only interested in the opinion of those who are in the arena. I’m choosing to follow suit. As hard as it feels sometimes, I am choosing to only give credence and consideration to the opinions of others who are in that damn arena, truly putting themselves out there, and making the world a better place.
3. Guard your energy.
Every thought we have, every action we take, and every thing that we give our precious energy to affects not only our days but also our entire lives. We build our realities by the prevailing thoughts and energy that we have. When I think about the fact that every time I give my energy away toward a situation like this that it prevents me from using my energy to love, create, build, make someone laugh, nurture, or any of the other wonderful things that my life force could be used for, it fuels me to let go of negativity as quickly as possible. To help let go of things, I often use the rule that “if it’s not going to matter in five years, don’t spend more than five minutes on it.”
Using these three strategies (coupled with some grapefruit Tequila), I successfully made it through my first trolling session. My experience is that we often are scared of something and then it happens and we realize it actually wasn't nearly as bad as we imagined it to be. So, truth be told, I’m grateful it happened so I could just get it over with. If it ever happens to you, I hope you’ll experience the same feeling of it not being as bad as you thought — and if it is, hopefully one or more of these strategies might be helpful. Onward!