- Reviews & Essays
- Why Trolls Live Under Bridges
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Click hereFor all the brave souls who hide behind the anonymous.
A response and comment to all the weak minded, limp dicked, cowardly, anonymous comment trolls that haunt the pages of authors.
My first question to all of you trolls is this, how many of you can acutally write more than a short paragraph of hatred, remembering trolls are traditionally of low IQ, limited vocabulary, and are barely able to connect sufficient thoughts to be understandable.
how many of you can actually write a story?
how many of you have actually ever written a story?
how many of you have ever tried to post a story?
I suspect the answer will be very few, if any of you, have ever tried or thought about it. I also suspect that many of you were school yard bullies, or part of the beautiful people group that made life so miserable for most of us growing up.
You got your supposed joy of life by making everyone else look weaker and more pathetic than yourselves in your own eyes. I suspect now, that as is often the case, things have changed and the people you bullied and belittled and abused are now the people that you have to bow and scrape to. It is such a wonderful emotion to see you almost terrified of what we have become, what we can do, because we grew emotionally and spiritually, not because of you but in spite of you.
I was bullied at school, many years later, I had the good fortune of meeting one of my bullies. I recognised him immediately and went and introduced myself, generally being a polite and friendly person, when he realised who I was, he left the room, never to be seen by me again. I am not sure if it was because he was embarrassed, I do not believe it was the boots and black leather, or the scars all over my hands, or the fact I arrived on a large, noisy motorcycle, and told him I had just arrived back from a three day run driving a truck and tralier. Surely he was not frightened of someone smaller than himself. It seems because I was tougher than my bullies in the ways that mattered I achieved many of the things they wanted to do or be. You failed, and live with the knowledge you failed, that you are an under achiever.
It believe that these people, that so bravely make such stupid, thoughtless, and hurtful comments are trapped in their emotional childhood, and exist and continue to do this, because they are unable and unfit to reach any sort of emotional maturity. They use platforms like this because they can hide in the dark and make good people feel bad, just to give themselves some justification to exist.
I will admit that some stories on this site could be better, they need improvement in spelling, grammar, layout and even planning. Do I like every story I read, no and I never will. And yes I have written and posted stories on this site under another name, were they any good, I thought so, so did some other people, some did not like them. I will admit that I do not seem to have a talent to make my stories readable. I have written training notes, grant applications, proposals, product reviews, magazine articles and scientific reports, they all read well. I cannot seem to lose that when writing fiction, making it hard to read. So, I no longer inflict that on the innocent population. If they go looking for any of my other writing, they can suffer the consequences of their own folly.
After that experience I have never negatively commented on a story or given a low rating, the lowest rating I give now is a three, for at least being brave enough to post it. If a story is so bad it needs a lower rating I refuse to humiliate further, someone who has bared their soul to the world, and been kicked in the teeth for it.
My suggestion to all you mean spirited bullies and legends in your own minds is to write a story, try for about 3000 words, that is about one page, try to get it posted, and sit back and wait to see how many people comment and rate it.
And then decide if making disparaging comments for your own self gratification still gives you the same buzz. Or have your fellow trolls used the famous anonymous tag to rip apart what you worked long and hard to complete, and despite your nerves and fears you managed to post it. How does it feel then to have your soul torn apart in a feeding frenzy of hatred and ignorance....... Welcome to the real world people.
My thanks and heartfelt appreciation goes out to all of the people who post stories good bad or average, I have discovered many talented writers on this site. Those of you who don't have English as a first language, I feel you are braver still.
I believe I have had my rant. I just hope that some of the pathetic anonymous take up my challenge, bare their souls and risk the public assassination of their work.
So trolls, have at it and prove my hypothesis.
- COMMENTS
inka22224 months agoAs a disclaimer, I never read any of YOUR stories. Additionally, 100% of my LE comments are posted as non-anonymous account. However, this essay has so many things wrong with it, I just had to respond.
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Question 1. What exactly would the difference be between someone doing this "Anonymously" vs. non-anonymously? This isn't real life. You can't walk up to non-anon commenter and punch them in the face. You can't even walk up to their user page and leave an angry rebuttal. In other words, you are just using the "Anonymous" angle as an ad-hominem argument, by trying to make the negative feedback look worse. **there is literally zero practical benefit for the commenter to be anonymous** (unless the comment somehow violates site rules to the point that flagging it would resullt in user being deleted, which I suspect never happens). And there's zero evidence or logical reason that a comment is less accurate or valuable whether it's anon or not.
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Question 2: Have you considered that being able and willing to write a story, is NOT either necessary or sufficient criteria for having a valid opinion about it? Most of us have opinions of various paintings, even those with zero artistic talent (never mind having to be published painter). Most people have opinions of songs and music, despite majority not having any musical talent (never mind performing music live). This is a logical fallacy. I don't need to be an accomplished filmmaker to post that I dislike glorification of Stalin from a moral angle in some Soviet movie. Just as I don't need to be an accomplished writer to know that when the story glorifies violent rape or emotional abuse, that's a bad thing to do.
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Speaking of, there's a second logical fallacy. You equate publishing an LE story with "writing an publishing what you wrote". Do you have any evidence that your anonymous troll on LE have indeed never written and published stuff elsewhere (or even on LE, but prefers to keep their comments separate from writing).
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Now, I would be perfectly understanding if you propose a universal rule, "you are not allowed to comment on LE stories until you post at least one story yourself". I personally think it would be a bad rule detrimental to the site and to a large extent to the authors, but it would be logically consistent within a privately owned writing community if you can convince community owners/leads of your viewpoint. BUT, you're not arguing that, you are arguing that somehow criticism is invalid just because the source isn't a published author, using logical fallacies.
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Next, most negative comments aren't personal. They say negative things about the story. Maybe about your skill as an author. But you in turn immediately went to personal attacks. Because of course nobody could POSSIBLY criticize your story unless they have low IQ. And they MUST have been bullies in high school.
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Moreover, your use of the term "troll" is telling. In my experience, a vast majority of people online using it actually mean "someone who disagrees with me, or criticizes me" - NOT in its actual accurate meaning, "someone who posts content designed ONLY for the purposes of getting a bad reaction". Or, if you actually are using the word in its correct meaning, you'd have a logical fallacy - you are assuming you know the poster's intent.
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Ironically, I might agree that some comments are indeed shit and should not exist. "This story is crap" without ANY supporting arguments is a useless comment. That's what low star voting is for. Also, I honestly hate comments criticizing story's grammar and spelling unless they link to a edited fixed version. The only point of such a comment is to pretend that the commenter is better than everyone else, uniquely able to spot the errors, and not constructive or useful to anyone. (as an aside, I seriously wish the site owners gave TWO different voting areas, one for technical writing quality, one for "story", the way they have 2 grades in Figure Skating for technical and artistic scores)
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But I suspect most "troll" comments pissing you off are actual criticism, just one you don't agree with. Otherwise you wouldn't have this emotional over-reaction.
Anonymous5 months agoI thoroughly applaud all the people on this site who don’t publish anonymously. I do, however, feel bad for you trudging through life with a name like Oldbushy. What were your parents thinking? Oh, what? That’s not your real name?
Is everyone who makes a negative comment a troll? I’m an avid reader and have published nonfiction, but I don’t really have a creative bone in my body. I have criticized authors here, presuming that they might benefit from feedback if they are hoping to improve their writing skills. The authors aren’t getting any form of payment, so I might choose to give them some of my time in an effort to make them a better writer. What are you giving them?
tomar824035 months agoOne does not need to know how to cook to be able to judge fine food. One does not need to know how to make wine or have ever made wine - to know a fine wine when they taste one. So, knowing or being able to write has no forbearance on how one judges a good story and comments on same.
Trolls will be trolls, no different than thieves will be thieves. The trick is to know when you are reading a troll and then paying it no mind.
The only strength trolls have is when you allow them to get to you. If every author paid no credence to trolls - perhaps many would go away.
It would be nice if Lit deleted trolls - but that most likey would be an endless task.
lc69hunter5 months agoGood try. But it will not make the trolls change their ways. They live for this, and only this. It gets them hard (probably the only thing that does)
