Transcript - Jay Smooth's "Why you should feed the trolls"

I don't know anything about actually writing transcripts, so this has no added emphasis or descriptions of actions - it's just the text. Also, I'm all about the British English spelling, so there's lots of extra 'u's :P
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Link to video


So, we've been talking a lot over the last few weeks about trolls, and specifically about how there are different kinds of trolls. Some are more harmful than others, and you probably need to handle some trolls differently than others.

And over the past few weeks, I've been getting a lot of pushback on that idea, mostly from two different camps. The first camp consists of people who say "You shouldn't differentiate like that, because the only policy that ever works is 'don't feed the trolls', and if you ever do anything other than that, you're just giving them attention and giving them what they want and encouraging them." 

And the second group consists of self-identified trolls who feel that my framing of the issue is unfair to the troll community. They're basically like the troll equivalent of purist underground hip hop heads; they're like troll backpackers who feel like I'm promoting a distorted, mainstream misconception of what trolling is, instead of honouring the real underground, true-school traditions of trolling from back in the days.

And that second camp, the 'troll backpackers' - I actually want to try and take their complaints seriously and address them in depth later on. But for today I just want to try and address that first camp.

Now I can understand why a lot of people assume that 'don't feed the trolls' is always best, because as the troll-backpackers will be quick to remind you, the original, old-school trolling from back in the days was more about seeking petty forms of negative attention. Finding ways to start some drama and get a rise out of people by saying a bunch of stuff you don't really mean.

Its origins lie in a petty desire to provoke, and when you're dealing with that old, true-school, five elements form of trolling, a lot of the time the best thing to do is just walk away instead of endlessly going back & forth in a particular messageboard thread. But the problem is that over time, those tools and tactics associated with trolling have come to be used for more than just petty provocation. As people have seen how effective those tactics are in creating negative energy, they've learned that whenever you feel hatred towards somebody else for their perspective, or their voice, or their existence, you can use those trolling tactics to chase that person down in every space they inhabit online, and fill every part of their day-to-day life on the 
internet with the worst kinds of hate and threats and abuse.

And when you're dealing with that kind of harrassment, the only way you can implement the 'don't feed the trolls' rule is to relinquish your right to be on the internet at all. 

And the thing about that kind of sustained, hyperagressive, amplified kind of trolling is that it seems to happen a lot more often to some people than it does to others. It seems to happen a lot more often if you are LGBT, a woman, a person of colour - it happens a lot more often to people in marginalised groups.

And I think that means, that when someone else tells you that they're dealing with some trolls, especially if they're a member of one of those groups that you're not a member of, you should probably take
a minute to find out what they're dealing with before you just toss that old 'don't feed the trolls' chestnut at them. Because they may not be dealing with that old-school, back-in-the-days, 'we used to do it out in the park' trolling that's just in the pursuit of sound and fury - they might be dealing with that sustained, hyperagressive, major-label, big budget hatefulness that comes in pursuit of shame and silence.

And I'm not saying those smaller forms of trolling can't also be harmful and hard to deal with; I'm not saying I know the right answers for either one - I'm one of those who's been privileged not to deal with it a whole lot. But I think, usually, a good first step, especially if you've had the privilege of avooiding it, is to start by listening and asking exactly what's going on and how you can support. 

Because if they're getting harrassed in pursuit of their silence, and you tell them all they can do is just 'don't feed the trolls', in that scenario, it might be you who's helping the trolls win.

25 minutes, 3.4km

Yep, we've completed Week 6 with a 25 minute jog around South Hagley Park. Now we need to start thinking of some extra loops to add distance!

Had my first day back climbing on Saturday too - the running seems to have improved certain aspects of my fitness, so I'm not as pooped & more inclined to get back on the wall & try again when my fingers/arms/shoulders fail me. However, the lack of gym/weights work is showing, because my muscles seem to give out on me faster. Oh well, just more conditioning required. I've got some floor exercises & free weights things I can do in the meantime until I sort my gym membership out.

Oh, you trickster, you

Yeah, so it turns out Week 5 is one of those weeks that doesn't just repeat the same thing 3 times. Yesterday morning we alternated 5 minutes running with 3 minutes walking, then today we're running, and running, and running. Then a bit of walking, then the running, running, running. Both of us thinking our time perception is completely off, and suddenly there's the finishing chimes & the cool down walk. What?!? I checked - 8 minutes running, 3 walking, 8 running. Done.

Yeah, still can't get our heads around the fact that we've run a solid 8 minutes. Twice. Bring it on, we're capable.

Progress

Well, we've completed Week 4 of C25K. Biking's fallen by the wayside again (T got sick & I got lazy without her). O vowed last night that if she had to reschedule anymore of our runs, she'd owe me wine. Then she called this morning to reschedule our run. Sauvignon blanc, please!

Did I moan about the gym membership changes at work yet? Can't remember. We used to be able to pay for a 12 month membership via Payroll (they paid & then deducted it out of our next 3 pays). Not only is this not happening anymore, HR hasn't updated the website to tell us, so my gym membership's expired & I have to find $600 to pay for the next one. Which I want to do, because I like swimming & gymming with Mum, especially in winter. Ah well, another couple of weeks & I'll have the money.

Too much?

I suspect the 25km bike ride plus the run was a wee bit too much. But is there a more productive way to spend a public holiday? Including the 3 loads of laundry & finally clearing up the mess under the bed, I think Monday made up for the laziness of the rest of the weekend.

Feeling it

We've now completed week 2 of C25K, and I'm getting accustomed to the constant ache in my legs (between the cycling & running I'm doing some form of activity every day, even if it's just a 10min commute to work). Worst bit? Struggling to shave my legs in the shower. Because I threw out my black work pants & haven't hemmed my new ones, so I'm wearing skirts all the time & I'm noticing the spiky.

Plan for the long weekend: bike ride with T tomorrow, renew gym membership at some point, run on Monday. Maybe back to the gym with Mum on Sunday (or back by myself - dependent on renewal).

Stupid f(*&% cycle computer

We started week 2 of C25K yesterday - went pretty well, but the swap from 60sec run/90sec walk to 90sec run/60sec walk is surprisingly noticeable.

After the success of the bike ride with T on Sunday, I decided to do a lone ride myself. Halswell's almost exactly 10km from my flat, so that's a nice 20km round trip - about an hour I estimated. As usual, my plan to exercise before work failed because sleep is sooooo good, but I headed out at about 6:30pm. 

The ride was lovely - mostly flat, with a couple of short rises over the spurs which meant some nice coasting down the other side. There were lots of other cyclists out - mostly pairs or threes, one huge training pack & a couple of other loners like me. The rain from this afternoon had cleared and the norwest arch was amazing. I stopped at the top of one of the rises to fix my cycle computer (the few leftover lumps in the road from the quakes had shaken the magnet on the spoke out of place, so it stopped reading a few times, finally giving up about halfway through the return journey) and could see rain falling over parts of the city with a blanket of cloud above & the sky clear under the arch to the west.

All in all, a good ride, and I think it'll become a regular thing. I just need to remember to tighten the bloody magnet so it doesn't jiggle.

And the season starts again

Well, O & I have completed the first week of the Couch to 5K programme - I think it went quite well. I love the Android app on my phone. The previous times I've tried interval training/running, I've always ended up not knowing when to stop & pushing myself too far. Having a machine time the intervals & sound bells for you is so much nicer.

And speaking of training buddies, the evil woman who originally started me on this kick is back on the scene. We went for a short ride this morning, which consisted of gossip, coffee & me freaking out that I was going to pitch over my handlebars (perils of not riding my sport bike for 2 months in favour of my lovely upright Archi cruiser).

The Archi, with champagne. Not suitable for triathlon training.

So, I'm on target for completing the C25K in time for the REAL duathlon in March, and I'll hopefully have some confidence back on the low-slung bike by then too. Updates may happen. Or not. Depends on the endorphin high, if past blogging performance is anything to go by.

Rock climbing may start happening too. That requires coordination of more people though.