Delusion’s mistress

Having been in the public eye over the years as a journalist, I’m long accustomed to the occasional disparaging remark thrown my way. It comes with the territory. The bane of our existence today is the online “troll.” You know them. The unhinged ones, the ones who write ungrammatically in ALL CAPS in the service of spewing bilge. The Urban Dictionary aptly defines the troll as someone who likes “being a prick on the internet because you can.”

The nice thing about Twitter is that one can easily ignore trolls. If someone opts to slime me, it only shows up in my “mentions” list (which only I can see). And it just sits there, between the other mentions or spam. It disturbs neither me nor my fledgling band of followers. If I choose to block a troll, I can do so in two mouse clicks. And, poof, they're outta of my life forever. Sweet. That’s one small step for Twitter, one giant leap for humankind online.

Glancing at my mentions list this afternoon, I spied my first real troll. Apparently, this guy objected to a brief post I made about Glenn Beck, the conservative firebrand. My post read: “The Beck Effect: Psychiatrists rightly worry about negative effects of Beck's conspiracy theories.” I then pointed readers to the Media Matters article that discussed it. My opinion was expressed in the word “rightly.” That’s it.

The troll, whom I won’t name, responded with venom:

“You mean facts. NOTHING [Beck] has said has EVER be proved to not b true. Your sandcastle is crumbling from under your feet.”

As former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld would say, “Oh my goodness gracious.” Wow. Nobody has proven Beck wrong? (He's gotta be kidding, right?) My “sandcastle” is crumbling …? Talk about dancing with delusions. I was all like, just wow.

One could label me an Obama Democrat. I lean left. But I’m essentially a moderate, a pragmatist, if you will. On Twitter, I tend to attract like-minded folks or flat-out liberals – and a smattering of moderate conservatives. So I’m thinking, okay, who is this guy and why is he following moi?

My curiosity piqued, I checked out his Twitter profile. He lives in “Milan, Italy & Manalapan Fl,” he says. Italian-American, maybe? His bio reads: “Chef/owner Cafe Grassano, LaRosa dei Venti. I curse ALOT. Especially to liberals. Dont like? Pls stay away.” Okaaay. His profile picture features a group shot of cast members from The Sopranos. Ah, I get it: a capo wannabe – who tweets. South Florida meets Jersey Shore's "The Situation," perhaps?

Ha! There is so much wrong with this picture on so many levels that … well, let’s just say Dr. Sigmund Freud would have a proverbial field day with this guy. He’s a veritable feast of delusional ticks. And what he oh so desperately wanted, nay needed, was a response from me – the angrier, the better. He didn’t get one. And won’t. I blocked him instead. Though telling him to fuck off (or get into rehab) might feel good, I learned long ago that it’s always a bad idea to exchange words with trolls. It’s an exercise in futility. For trolls it is: I affront, just because I can – therefore I am.

There seems to be thousands if not millions of trolls out there, pathetic souls our society may have wrought. Because the Internet is such a willing mistress, their numbers may climb. With imagination and luck, maybe the Internet wizards can innovate ways to re-channel their psychosis’s into something positive, for their sakes and society’s. In the interim, trolls, it’s like the capo wannabe says: “Don’t like? Pls stay away.” :D