Trolls be trollin'

There's a subplot in season 1 of The Newsroom where one of the younger producers pitches a story to uncover an online troll. It's fresh in my mind because we were rewatching it last weekend. Then today a troll shows up on one of the sites, and lasts all of an hour or two. The pattern is as old as the Internet:

• Show up and try to be the life of the party, or immediately try to cause trouble.
• Attack the moderators or owners, declaring that they need to get a life and that they're terrible people.
• Assert that they don't need that community anyway.

Younger me used to get more annoyed by this sort of thing, but now it's "meh." The worst of the trolls, like much of the Internet, seems to have moved to the major platforms, which is fine. There's a guy who drops into my blog about once a year, and never comes back to realize that I publish his email address (he was a previous troll on one of the sites). I don't know what compels someone to obsessively engage with people they don't know, but honestly, the Internet has made a lot of people more lonely. Sometimes it's hard to reconcile that with the truth that it has also brought together communities and friends.

I'm surprised at how much my online engagement has tapered off compared to a year ago, but I feel like my mental health is much better. Or at least, it's not the source of negative mental health issues. I've posted around a dozen photos on Instagram in the last few months, and some of those were just to reflect on something else (9/11, past cruises, bringing the ragdolls home).

I like that there seems to be a growing backlash against life online, despite the kids who think that "influencer" is a career. All of the performative nonsense is so tired. I much rather be around people in real life, which is saying something for someone who is easily exhausted by people. Real life doesn't quite have an equivalent to trolls. That's pretty great.