Shrill: Notes from a Loud Woman(58)

“Yeah, I wrote that.” My voice started to crack; the rapport I’d felt started to harden. “I wrote his obituary.”

He hesitated at the edge in my voice. “I created a fake Gmail account using your father’s name, created a fake Twitter account using his name. The biography was something to the effect of, my name is—I’m sorry, I forget the name—the first name.”

“His name was Paul West.”

“I wrote, ‘My name is Paul West. I’ve got three kids. Two of them are great, and one of them is—’” He hesitated again. “‘An idiot.’”

“Yeah, you said ‘embarrassed father of an idiot.’”

“Okay.”

“‘Other two kids are fine, though.’”

He exhaled. “Ohhh, that’s much more worse.”

“And you got a picture of him,” I said.

“I did get a picture of him.”

“Do you remember anything about him?” I was crying at this point. “Did you get a sense of him as a human being?”

“I read the obit. And I knew he was a dad that loved his kids.”

“How did that make you feel?” I wasn’t going to be cruel, but I wasn’t going to let him off easy either.

“Not good,” he said. “I mean, I felt horrible almost immediately afterwards. You tweeted something along the lines of, ‘Good job today, society,’ or something along those lines. It just wouldn’t—for the first time, it wouldn’t leave my mind. Usually, I would put out all of this Internet hate, and oftentimes I would just forget about it. This one would not leave me. It would not leave me. I started thinking about you because I know you had read it. And I’m thinking how would she feel. And the next day I wrote you.”

“Yeah,” I whispered, “I mean, have you lost anyone? Can you imagine? Can you imagine?”

“I can. I can. I don’t know what else to say except that I’m sorry.”

He sounded defeated. I believed him. I didn’t mean to forgive him, but I did.

“Well, you know,” I said, “I get abuse all day every day. It’s part of my job. And this was the meanest thing anyone’s ever done to me. I mean, it was really fresh. He had just died. But you’re also the only troll who’s ever apologized. Not just to me, I’ve never heard of this happening before. I mean, I don’t know anyone who’s ever gotten an apology. And I just—I mean, thank you.”

“I’m glad that you have some solace.” He seemed surprised, and relieved, that I hadn’t been more cruel. But I was just tired. I didn’t have much anger left. We exchanged a few pleasantries, I thanked him, he thanked me, and we hung up.

It felt really easy, comfortable even, to talk to my troll. I liked him, and I didn’t know what to do with that.

It’s frightening to discover that he’s so normal. He has female coworkers who enjoy his company. He has a real, human girlfriend who loves him. They have no idea that he used to go online and traumatize women for fun. How can both of those people share the same brain?

Trolls live among us. I’ve gotten anonymous comments from people saying they met me at a movie theater and I was a bitch. Or they served me at a restaurant and my boobs aren’t as big as they look in pictures. Or they sat next to me at a bar five years ago and here is a list of every single bite of food I consumed. People say it doesn’t matter what happens on the Internet, that it’s not real life. But thanks to Internet trolls, I’m perpetually reminded that the boundary between the civilized world and our worst selves is just an illusion.

Trolls still waste my time and tax my mental health on a daily basis, but honestly, I don’t wish them any pain. Their pain is what got us here in the first place.

If what he said is true, that he just needed to find some meaning in his life, then what a heartbreaking diagnosis for all of the people who are still at it. I can’t give purpose and fulfillment to millions of anonymous strangers, but I can remember not to lose sight of their humanity the way that they lost sight of mine.

Humans can be reached. I have proof.

This story isn’t prescriptive. It doesn’t mean that anyone is obliged to forgive people who abuse them, or even that I plan on being cordial and compassionate to every teenage boy who pipes up to call me a blue whale.* But, for me, it’s changed the timbre of my online interactions—with, for instance, the guy who responded to my radio story by calling my dad a “faggot.” That guy does not have a good life. Since this conversation with my troll aired on This American Life, I’ve had to report six more Twitter accounts using my father’s name and face, one that scolded me for writing about my abortion. “Why did you kill my grandchild?” it asked. It got easier every time.

It’s hard to feel hurt or frightened when you’re flooded with pity. It’s hard to be cold or cruel when you remember it’s hard to be a person.





Abortion Is Normal, It’s Okay to Be Fat, and Women Don’t Have to Be Nice to You


Just two weeks after my This American Life segment aired, copies of a leaked memo by Twitter’s then-CEO Dick Costolo began flooding into my inbox from breathless friends. An employee had posted my piece on an internal forum, where it got the attention of Twitter higher-ups, Costolo himself ultimately responding with this blistering communiqué: “I’m frankly ashamed of how poorly we’ve dealt with this issue during my tenure as CEO,” he wrote. “It’s absurd. There’s no excuse for it. I take full responsibility for not being more aggressive on this front.”