ColumnTrolls are everywhere–and not the nice ones from “Frozen.” Everyone’s had a run-in with a nasty faceless egg avatar or pixelated American flag on Twitter. But trolling has gone way too far over the past year.

By now, we’re sure you’ve heard that Leslie Jones, SNL comedian, has been bombarded with hate tweets, hacking, and personal attacks this past year.

Troll hackers have compared Jones to a gorilla, posted nude photos of her all over her own site and have made her personal information public. Why? Well, no one knows for sure, but we’re pretty sure it’s because these trolls are scared shitless of strong women.

Sorry. Maybe you were looking for a much more profound, deep statement than that. But honestly, that’s the only reason why nameless, faceless trolls attack independent women: they are cowards.

And we aren’t the only ones who are totally over these tired attacks. Other prominent women are all too aware of these common yet terrifying attacks.

“Instead of doing anything to improve yourselves, you waste your lives online spewing hatred, misogyny and racism. How ’bout getting off your asses and doing something to improve the world? You have declared open warfare on women like Jones because she’s black, a woman, accomplished. But you really hate her because you aren’t any of those things,” writes Linda Stasi for The New York Daily News.

“Because you aren’t, you instead insult women by calling them by body parts, and by using ugly sexual references,” Stasi continues.

“You are such dimwits that you think it’s clever to post nonsense like telling women who’ve accomplished much in life to get a life. News flash: If their lives were any bigger, they’d explode. Meantime, you’re the ones writing hate mail to celebrities you’ve never met. Seriously, losers: Time you all got a life.”

But although it feels good to read and write rebuttals to all these trolls, we have to be honest: These heartfelt columns aren’t going to stop anything.

Every day, another woman gets torn down by her significant other or threatened that he/she will make that woman’s nude photos public if she leaves. And let’s not forget the rapists and abusers who film and photograph their attacks. Until all these hate-filled attacks stop—all of them—we as a society need to take a long, hard look at how we address these attacks going forward.

So, let’s not forget this fact: Leslie Jones and every other strong, assertive woman who gets attacked for being “them” is not the problem; the attackers and the society who lets these trolls get away with these attacks is.

So, let’s do something because just saying something doesn’t work.

Related on EcoSalon
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Black Actors and Comedians in Hollywood aren’t Getting the Roles They Deserve
Shade Grown Hollywood: Why Is Violence Against Women In Films So Popular?

Image of Leslie Jones via Shutterstock, DFree

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ColumnWhen trolls invade real life.

Last week, I answered my cell phone while pulling up to a stop sign in my car. I will be the second or third to admit using your cell phone while driving is irresponsible; that’s why I don’t do it. I use a hands-free set. But I hadn’t even had the chance to reach for my set when two cyclists pulled in front of my car and began berating me. It took me a moment to realize this was what was happening, because one was taking a photograph of me with his camera. Flash-blinded, I slowly registered that the other cyclist was actually yelling with a level of smug approaching orgasmic: “What you are doing is ILLEGAL and DISTRACTING! You are BREAKING THE LAW! Do you understand how dangerous this is?” I appreciated the careful enunciation, but it was that last dollop of condescension I found the most delicious. It’s just one more reason to date a cyclist! So I can run him over.

It was true. I’d driven all of one block in a residential neighborhood – mine, and this is important – at the feckless speed of 20 miles per hour whilst on my phone. Even though I hung up the phone (more out of incredulity than guilt), the two cyclists continued behind me for two more blocks, deeply enjoying their special mission. Which is why I can report firsthand that being yelled at for nothing much in particular for two blocks is DISTRACTING. So distracting, I temporarily got disoriented in my own neighborhood and drove blindly for several minutes, pedestrians be damned.

Trolling happens all day online. It’s par for the virtual course. The internet is just full of uptight cyclists with cameras ready to reprimand naughty girls in shiny cars on cell phones. You never know what That Guy from High School will attempt on Facebook, or what angry email may come seething into your inbox ranting about some post of which the sender of said angry clearly missed the entire topic, not to mention point. A lot of times, they don’t even have the right site.

No big deal. But trolling in real life, by which I mean the one that doesn’t give you carpal tunnel? People, it’s time to get on down out of each others’ grills. I am concerned to find that trolling is finding its way even into the social habits of our noble cycling brethren. Perhaps they are an indicator species for the rest of humanity. The weak link, if you will.

I don’t think I’m the only one experiencing this. Our managing editor’s daughter was recently lectured by her school principal – this is elementary school – for having the nonconformist audacity to sport a single feather in her hair. It’s distracting! says the principal. No, it’s personality, and you don’t have to like it, but it’s none of your business.

The world is not out to offend us. Sadly, it is indifferent to us. And it turns out, other people are not just figments of our reality. They move and stuff. Unexpectedly, even!

Continuing in the automotive theme of trolling, because we couldn’t be more American right now: Last week I was at a dinner. I came out to find my car had quite literally been sandwiched bumper to bumper between two cars. Har, har. I marched into the corner cafe and asked around for the owners of both vehicles. No dice, just lattes. Forty minutes later, I was beginning to get annoyed. I called the police, and together we knocked on doors. At last, one hipster came darting out to move the geriatric green sedan backed up against my car’s nose. As he passed me, he preemptively put up his hands in such exaggerated fashion I thought he was crunking and was jealous because I don’t know how to. But no, he was just manning the defense. You’d think I had plans to eat his face. Now, maybe this kid has a habit of blocking other motorists and has developed this defensive mechanism to deflect violence to his person, but I’m going to venture he expected a big can of bitching out.

And then there’s the woman in the minivan who gave me the bird when I actually saved her from a fender-bender today. No good deed goes unflipped.

There have been enough of these incidents lately to give me pause before I go tweet and like some more. I started thinking about all the times I’ve snorted in derision at that one SUV that is the first on the hill to sign up for a crooked parking job. The times I’ve barely held my tongue, wanting to chide a child at the market for acting, unoriginally, childish. The moments where I have raised a fist, imagining what it might feel like to lift just the one finger. Pity it requires lifting a finger.

Maybe that woman on her cell phone needs to be on her cell phone. Maybe the guy who turned like an idiot isn’t such an idiot, just having an idiot moment. Maybe one day you need to be the idiot, and that’s okay. We actually don’t know why people are doing the stupid things they’re doing, and unless they’re putting us in harm’s way, we could care less so we should care less. People are limited, like furniture. Stupidity is as reliable as death and taxes, and more so in some places. Live and let live and live some more before perfection freaks us all out and we need plastic slipcovers.

By the way, the proper retort to all this is not, “But people really are that dumb and selfish. This is why I hate them.” The proper retort is: “I can’t believe you are knocking cycling, Sara. So not green. You obviously hate the planet.”

Let’s keep the trolling online where it belongs. This is practically what the internet was made for. Take that world, I have a blog!

tl;dr Be nice.

This is the latest installment in your editor’s column, The Insider’s Guide to Life.

Image: cinnamon_girl

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ColumnA comment on commenting.

In a burst of condescension so brilliant my lady-brain almost didn’t catch it, a follower on Twitter labeled our recent article about nuclear energy as stupid and ignorant. He then admonished us both there and on Facebook to be “ashamed.” Our readers deserve to know “the truth” of which he is evidently the arbiter.

I publicly acknowledged the one constructive point he grandly offered (I had loaded the piece with a deck referencing Japan’s nuclear “meltdown” which, 10 days out from the disaster, is at best totally accurate and at worst, no different from a similar usage by the New York Times). I did resent him mussing my hair with his virtual pat on the head, though. You see, the author of the article, Stephanie Rogers, has the misfortune of cultivating greenery in her backyard while simultaneously not being a nuclear scientist. In other words, despite her long list of environmental writing credits and the piece in question having 13 straight paragraphs of citation after citation, fact after fact, she is clearly not up to the task of considering the topic of nuclear energy because she gardens. That green thumb belongs nowhere near the red button, much less the Publish button.

Coincidentally, this is a subject that’s been on my mind. Class, it’s time for a little lesson called Stop Being So Shallow, You’re Hindering Actual Dialogue, You Insecure Nit.

If Stephanie Rogers, a professional journalist and blogger whom I happen to know as one of the more thoughtful and prolific green writers working these days (her articles have been syndicated by numerous print media during her tenure at EcoSalon), cannot write about the nuclear energy debate that’s been revived in light of current events in Japan because she has an affinity for growing tulips, that’s fine, but we’ll have to be consistent. Let’s just get this out of the way now: Sorry, President Obama, reading a memo here, talking it up with your science people there, does not entitle you to pontificate to the citizenry on nuclear energy. You’re simply not an expert, babe. Nice speeches, though.

In all seriousness, I think the only person who shouldn’t be talking about, writing about or otherwise bloviating about nuclear energy right now is Kenny from South Park, because we know how that ends up. For everyone else, there’s the readily available internet and the mere fact that The Nuclear Option affects us all – and I’m not just talking about nuclear power. I take our editorial responsibility seriously, so here’s me letting the cat out of the bag: we are professional writers and editors, but it is true that we are not nuclear energy “experts.” Few journalists are. Does this mean we cannot discuss one of the most compelling topics of our time?

Most readers are savvy enough to understand that every piece has its limits, if for no other reason than screen size, and are able to air their disagreement or call out an error without resorting to insults. But the world of new media is a Baker’s dozen: for every 12 mindful, sincere readers you get, there is the inevitable reader with a bleeding chip. Such readers react first – they take the nuclear option – and remember we’re all in this together second. And that’s fine. They do not trust their own positions very much, for they are hotly put out by ours. (Even more so when the writer is a woman. Somehow I doubt that Graham Hill or Mike Lieberman or any other green guy would face tweet-shaming for sharing a few well-sourced points about nuclear energy – at least, not because of a fondness for his homegrown tomatoes.)

But sexism is as old as the internet, and who cares? The truly tiresome thing about the not-an-expert slam is that it is so beside the point. Imagine a world where only experts were allowed to comment on a given topic. It would certainly take care of that little cocktail party problem known as Falling Back on the Weather (unless it’s a Weather Channel company party, obviously). The cable TV punditry would soon go extinct. An undeniable upside.

But there might be a few downsides. We wouldn’t be allowed to talk about our cars stalling, our flights being delayed, our computers freezing up, our cell phones dying, our teenagers refusing to shower, our neighborhood recycling program or the origins of thin-crust pizza. That is, unless we’re mechanics, pilots, programmers, engineers, psychologists, municipal administrators or culinary historians (for which there must be a program at Yale). Oh, we could recount these things happening, but analysis and debate, input from friends, indeed Googling would be off limits…even to professional writers. What great fun. The whole of human existence lived as a fourth-grade book report.

If there’s one thing we learned from Gandhi, it’s that change starts with you, and Gandhi? I am so going to be that change. Here at EcoSalon, no writer will be allowed to write on any topic unless he or she is a proven expert in said topic. Confirmation of expertise will be determined by a jury of your Twits and verdict will be rendered in 140 characters or less.

But wait, there’s more! Just think of how much value you will not contribute to your personal life. I won’t be able to offer insights to married friends because I am single, for example. The silver lining is that all this free time not being allowed to do or say anything because I’m no expert should give me plenty of time to become one. With any luck, perhaps I can even become a know-it-all. Better yet, a know-nothing! Sadly, I can never become a man, at least not without better health insurance.

It’s hard work actually thinking through the merits of what someone says instead of reacting based upon what box you’ve got them in, but every day, intelligent adults in possession of a heart do manage it.

Every day, good journalists can and do credibly contribute ideas and information to topics they may not be career “experts” in. But that’s not what it’s about, is it? It’s about a chick. And so some readers will resort to their lizard brains, reacting to their biology as fast as they possibly can to smother the itch, salving themselves with ad hominem.

How expert should we be when discussing topics that matter to us all? There’s a fairly wide field between being peer-reviewed in the International Journal of Nuclear Energy Science and Technology and being an imbecile. Pretending that isn’t the case is dishonest and counterproductive. And coming back with a know-nothing defense – and it is always this defense – such as “I’m no expert either, which is why I don’t write on this topic!” is no comeback at all.

Abortion, war and technology, fertility, fast food, feminism, divorce, drugs, vegetarianism, porn, Peta, trashion, fur, ecosexism, sex, sex in advertising, death, things we want versus things we need, celebrity, nuclear energy: All topics allowed, all consciousness considered, all hyperlinks included, no green stone unturned.

If you’ve got a leg to stand on, stand on it. But if you’re going to take issue with a writer’s proclivity for raising oregano, we’re going to consider the source, as well. And we’ll take a gardener over a troll any day.

Image: Lara604

This is the latest installment in your editor’s column, The Insider’s Guide to Life, exploring topics such as media, culture, sex, politics, and anything else. Cheers and spellcheck!

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