trolls | Rage Blogging is Therapy

Hi! I got my first round of fat trolling on YouTube this week! As a person, it’s a little creepy and depressing. But as an online aggression researcher, it’s kind of awesome! I wasn’t trolling for trolls, I was just drooling over my latest favorite drag queen’s music video. Ginger Minj very nearly became America’s first fat Drag Superstar. She didn’t win the crown, but she’s super popular and released a video wearing a tee with her self-hashtag, #glamourtoad. So awesome. Anyway, I watched the video and posted in the comments that I really wanted one of those shirts. Enter troll. He/She spread the love far and wide, but here was my little bit of the action:

The troll was posting under the name “discount demi” at the time he/she posted, but later changed his/her name to “horse renoir”. Weird; just keep in mind it’s the same person.

Other gems:

There were lots of other comments that were disparaging of Ms. Minj and her fans.

This is pretty normal fare in my area of research. I’m not looking at the hardcore, violent stuff, just run of the mill nastiness and passive aggression. This particular troll did a hit and run, leaving several nasty comments, and didn’t follow up on any of the responses.

What was interesting for me was trying to walk my own talk. I wanted to hit back, hard. I could say something really intellectual and superior or something nasty and witty…but here’s the thing. The troll had some need which he or she fulfilled by attacking fans of Ms. Minj, particularly due to his/her distaste for Ms. Minj’s body type. Reading the troll’s comments made me seriously annoyed; the troll made him/herself a prime target for my aggression and frustration with fat discrimination and those who rationalize and defend it. But, projection (which is what I’d be doing if I hit back with an equally nasty comment–I would be projecting my accumulated frustration on one lonely troll) just keeps on bouncing back and forth like a ping-pong ball. So, knowing what I do about defense mechanisms and online discourse, I decided to take a deep breath, and think about how to respond. What could I say that would help me not feel victimized (the popular stance, “Don’t feed the trolls” doesn’t cut it for me) but not fall into an aggressive or passive-aggressive trap? So I did this:

I felt better. I didn’t hit back, but I also didn’t roll over. It felt like the right response. It was hard! I have a heavy streak of passive-aggressive, which, coupled with some expert rationalization, can make it mighty hard to think of some way not to be bitchy when I’m attacked. My requirement for myself in responding was to stay at the adaptive level of defense mechanism.

It was really interesting was seeing how others responded. I’m on the “top comments” list, (number of likes is now up to 25), and one person counter attacked the troll, possibly on my behalf, while the other seemed to be coaching me on how to deal with the trolling. So what is going on in this community? As an avid of RuPaul’s Drag Race, I often get my post-season fix by watching videos posted by the performers, many of whom are quite prolific. This is a pretty typical comment thread on YouTube, particularly if the poster is fat. While I’m not actively seeking interaction with trolls, I’ve decided to be less inhibited in posting on YouTube pages a form of appreciation.

As in the previous post where I interacted with a troll, my response seemed to have a constructive effect on the other viewers, at least to the point that several were motivated to “like” my comment, interact with me, or defend me. To get all psychodynamic about it (again), I was operating at the adaptive defensive level by using sublimation – consciously redirecting my ire and hurt into inquiry. The troll was operating at the immature level by acting out through making unsolicited disparaging and critical comments. The commenter who told me to ignore the troll was perhaps operating at the neurotic level by using reaction formation–partially expressing anger towards the troll by indirect name calling (“pathetic hater”) while coming to my defense.

I’m taking a phenomenology class right now, which is a bit hard to explain, but it’s about doing research from inside the thing you’re studying, instead of observing it from the outside. So I’ve spent a lot of time over the past few weeks trying to describe my experience of aggression from multiple angles. One of the things that has been most interesting is how incredibly physical it is. Even just hearing someone speak cruel words, or reading them online has a physical effect. Have you ever felt like someone knocked the breath out of you, verbally? Or punched you in the stomach–verbally? Or dumped ice water down your back–verbally? None of those feelings are exactly like the descriptions, but they’re something like them. Reading the troll’s comment felt a bit like that. It made me really angry, and I wanted to punch him/her in the face–verbally.

I’m good with words. I’m also good with denial. A year ago, I might have written a really scholarly, academic sounding response that was the verbal equivalent of skewering the troll on a BBQ fork while convincing myself I was being perfectly civil. But after this year of studying online conversations and testing my assumptions about them, I know how that would likely go. Others would join in on the flaming, or the troll might fire back in some extra creepy ways, or I might just not say anything (thinking I was taking the high road) but doing that would leave me with some free-floating hurt and anxiety that would end up directed somewhere less appropriate. I might react disproportionately to my daughter’s behavior, or snap at my husband. Not that those things don’t happen–I just don’t want them happening because I wimped out on confronting a troll on YouTube. Right? The funny thing was that after I responded, my body relaxed. I didn’t feel creeped out anymore, and I didn’t feel any dread about how the troll (or others) might respond. I felt calm and curious. The quality of my aggression went from jagged and painful, to quiet and watchful. I was still mad, but not unsettled. My curiosity about how my comment would be taken was much stronger than my anger.

I suspect that I’m not the only person who can have a physical-emotional response to something I read on a screen. A number of my friends have disconnected from social media because they find it so unsettling. The norms of online society don’t seem to leave much room for talking about hurt feelings or uncomfortable sensations. I consciously chose to omit that my feelings were hurt, because I didn’t think the environment would be safe or welcoming. YouTube commentators do not equal group therapy. Nonetheless, there is some really interesting stuff going on, and not all of it is immediately accessible through reading comments. I wonder how, as a researcher, I can get at this stuff? Pondering.

I’m starting to get my act together around my dissertation, which is on how people express aggression online, and how the online environment facilitates reinforcement or change of social norms. While I have a very specific sample in mind, I recently stumbled on another idea through getting caught up in a YouTube flame-war.

A few days ago I watched this video on YouTube of Mary Lambert, a gay and body acceptance activist and pop artist/spoken word poet. It’s a really raw, powerful statement about the dual forces of self-love and internalized hate. I was moved, but then I read this comment:

I saw red, and in retaliation openly engaged in the kind of aggression that I usually avoid or observe at a distance:

Mr. TheThird trolled me back (aggressively). Note his use of the words gluttony, shameful and violent imagery:

I was not the first person to get riled up by Mr. TheThird’s comment, apparently this thread had been going on for a while:

And then Mr. TheThird posted a long missive, not long after my comment:

Wow. I found his use of words like foul, vile, insidious, morally corrupt, medically aberrant more than a little off-putting and creepy. Disturbed and a bit scared, I took a step back to think about how we seem to keep our aggression in this endless loop on the internet.

Perhaps Mr. TheThird is projecting his unconscious fears of losing control on the woman who is singing about self-esteem-while-fat. When I react, I am in turn projecting my own anger at the forces that have led me to empathize with Ms. Lambert back onto him; rinse, repeat. We are locked in this dance of aggression where there is no understanding or compassion, just lots of anger, disdain, rationalization, and condescension. What might it take to change this pattern?

So, as an experiment, I came back, apologized for my ire, and instead explained my feelings and asked him some genuine questions.

He never responded, which is not surprising given the research I’ve read on cyberbullying.

However, the experience made me think about my upcoming dissertation in a different way. Perhaps I was choosing to observe instead of participate in the online communities I am studying as a way to distance from my own discomfort. The inadvertent effect of engaging in this interaction was gaining insight into 1) what motivated me to react online, 2) The effects and repercussions of my engagement, and 3) various ways in which I can try to change the dynamic.

As a way to investigate these ideas further, I’m going to observe online conversations around body image and fat-acceptance, and also engage in them when moved to do so. I will document my experiment on this blog, analyzing the different expressions of aggression using George Vaillant’s interpretation of the Differential Identification of Defenses from The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. Here’s a quick run-down from Vaillant’s book, The Wisdom of the Ego (1993 pp. 36-37)):

Psychotic Defenses: Delusional projection, Denial, Distortion
Immature Defenses: Projection, Fantasy, Hypochondriasis, Passive aggression, Acting out, Dissociation
Neurotic (intermediate) Defenses: Displacement, Isolation/Intellectualization, Repression, Reaction formation
Mature Defenses: Altruism, Sublimation, Suppression, Anticipation, Humor

So, trying this out, let me take a look at the interaction between Mr. TheThird, me, and some of the other participants.

Mary Lambert, the artist on which whose YouTube page this conversation resides, could be said to be utilizing sublimation, a mature defense, to deal with her negative feelings about her body, or trauma she has survived that was directed at her body (Ms. Lambert has been open about being the victim of childhood sexual abuse). Sublimation is the ability to direct the residual trauma towards a constructive activity such as songwriting and poetry. Further, her public role-modeling of self-love and survival might be considered altruism, the ability to identify with and alleviate the pain of others, which also may aid in her own healing.

Mr. TheThird’s comments seems to fit into aspects of projection, such as splitting (splitting negative from positive impulses) and demonstrating a superiority complex (obscuring feelings of inferiority), all of which are characterized as immature defenses. While I can only speculate about his psyche based on the language he uses, the voracity of his wording suggests that he is projecting an aspect of his personality that he as “split” off from his core personality, such as desire, craving, or low self-control. His later, lengthy post displays some of the same traits, but also utilizes intellectualization as a way to justify his verbal attacks. Reaction formation could also be demonstrated by his desire to appear rational and scientific in a discussion where he also uses terminology that clearly demonstrates strong negative emotions.

My initial posting could qualify as displacement (neurotic) or perhaps acting out (immature) as I was well aware of my angry feelings, but chose to inflict them impulsively and without forethought. My personal history with my body image is painful, and while I’ve become very accepting of myself and others, my ego is still vulnerable when it comes to aggressive criticism. I personalized Mr. TheThird’s comment and responded as if it was directed specifically at me (and perhaps also as a projection of my own vulnerability onto other participants, who I felt the impulse to defend). When he responded with more violent language, I became frightened and considered withdrawal, a neurotic defense I’ve used frequently to avoid painful memories, impulses, and feelings. I think this default defense is also the reason behind my initial choice to observe online aggression rather than engage with the participants more directly.

When I took ownership of my feelings and asked genuine questions about Mr. TheThird’s motivation, I was perhaps engaging in courage and self-regulation (mature defenses); I opened myself up to dialogue with an aggressive person, and made some rules for myself around how much time I would spend online in order to project my psyche.

While Mr. TheThird has not yet chosen to respond, so perhaps he has chosen withdrawal, a neurotic defense more mature than his initial behavior.

It has also been interesting to look at the comments of others, which range from mollifying both groups, to enraged all caps cursing, to a lot of arguing of various facts. Intellectualization seems to be the default stance in these arguments, which frequently devolves into passive aggression, acting out, and distortion. I consciously choose not to debate the facts around obesity and health as I think it really amounts to arguing about the validity of a stereotype, which is by its nature persecutory. There is a ton of medical information that both validates and refutes the dangers and perimeters of obesity, but this has nothing to do with our individual lives, choices, and feelings. It seems like trying to justify or rationalize our positive and negative feelings about ourselves and others using cherry-picked science only gets us so far. What I’m really interested in is the larger patterns that emerge in these mini-explosions of aggression. What is their anatomy? Is there a common pattern? Are there different kinds? Do they evolve, or just die down and re-emerge elsewhere? I’ll be looking at these questions as I observe and participate in other discussions around body acceptance. Stay tuned!