an open letter to the absolutely fantastic troll who visited my blog the other day

Dear troll who visited my blog the other day,

I understand that in writing this post, I am engaging with you, which is the exact opposite of how you’re supposed to deal with trolls.  However, I don’t feel like you’re a “personal” troll.  You seem more the type who peruses tags of subjects you like to troll about, where you commit your troll-y acts as you see fit, and then move on to other troll opportunities.  Thus, I am fairly confident that you will never visit again and won’t ever read these words.  Unless, in a plot twist, you actually found the post through my Facebook, meaning that I have unwittingly been Facebook friends with an anti-feminist troll for an indeterminate amount of time.  If this is the case, please feel free to delete me from your friends list at the earliest opportunity.

On my previous post, Feminist Mythbusting, Part II, I received minor attention from people who found my blog through means other than my incessant Facebook posts.  I very rarely get actual WordPress comments on my blog, so when I do, I get pretty excited.  I’d already received a friendly comment, so when another notification popped up in my WordPress menu, I was hoping for another feminist sister congratulating me on a job well done – or, at the very least, someone with legitimate criticisms for my work.  Instead, I was met with this impressive display of eloquence:

Having frequented a number of video game forums and YouTube comments sections in my day, I know a troll when I see one.  Knowing that the best way to interact with a troll is to not, I promptly clicked “trash”.

Shortly thereafter, you struck again:

Oh my goodness!  Really?!  You think my blog has such a wide scope that, if it weren’t for its existence, there would be unanimous worldwide respect for feminists?  You’re so right; it has absolutely nothing to do with the centuries of ingrained social structures that have painted women as hysterical screeching harpies!  Literally, feminists were universally revered up until I burst on to the Blogosphere a year ago.  I single-handedly broke feminism!

Despite the revolutionary assertions of your comment, I somehow managed to look past them and, again, trashed it.

Mere minutes later, you struck a third time, though with an altered approach:

Aww, playing Mr. Nice Guy, were you?  There’s no way that this was a thinly-veiled attempt to get me to approve the positive comment so you could turn around with a pointed finger and a “HA!”, ready to call me out for my inability to accept such nuanced criticism as yours.  But, since I consider myself to be a reasonably intelligent person, I saw through your deceit and once again trashed the comment.

Not being one to give up, you soon had something new to say:

Ah, Sir Privilege Checker.  You caught me.  I am actually a secluded mole person sequestered away from society since birth, and I have thus never met a woman.  Not even my own mother.  I’m not even sure if I am a woman.  Surely, this is the reason I am so passionate about women’s rights; I have never met a woman to experience what horrible subhuman monsters you likely would claim them to be. Of course, I was completely mentally stumped on how to answer such a thought-provoking inquiry with dignity, as prideful mole people such as myself are wont to be, so I chose to trash it.

Sadly, as there was a bit of a delay between the submission of this final comment and my trashing of it, I presume you became bored in the interim and moved on to new trolling horizons.

And so ended my interactions with you, Privilege Checker, of the email address lol@lol.lol.  My very first troll.  I feel like a virgin, touched for the very first time.  Such excitement!

Now, I have no false impressions of myself or my blog.  I know my readership basically consists of a few curious Facebook friends and my parents.  But, Mr. Troll, I have to tell you: You made me feel special.  You made me feel relevant.  Someone actually took a solid forty-two minutes out of their life to send me insulting comments and keep track of the fact that I was trashing them as they came in.  I am so flattered that you deigned to halt the adorning of your overgrown moustache and neckbeard with Cheeto dust long enough to slap on a fedora and construct such amazingly sick burns.

Obviously, I’m not going to be making a habit out of personally responding to each troll that pays me a visit; but, as you were my first, I just had to make an exception.  Feel special.  Feel as special as you made me feel.

I thank you, Privilege Checker the Troll.

Sincerely,

A Rather Tickled-Pink Sam