Social Media Trolls: To Reply or Not Reply?
When I speak on college campuses and scroll through my messages on social media, one of the most frequent questions I get is: “What the heck do we do about the hecklers on social media?!”
My first step to anyone who asks: NEVER let it get you down.
Once you reach this level of unbothered, here are three options you should consider as your next step:
- Be A Happy Warrior: I believe we should always be happy warriors. I LOVE the book Righteous Indignation by Andrew Breitbart (yes, that was a passive way of me saying GO READ IT). Breitbart was a firm believer in walking into the fire, never retreat! Fight their negativity and evil ways with light, positivity and passion. I take that lesson into so many aspects of my own work. And because of that, sometimes I do enjoy fighting back to the weirdos and murderous leftists who say they want my head chopped off!
- Expose Hypocrisy: If you can, turn attacks into content. Sometimes I like to make videos reading out the weirdest and most vile death threats I receive from the oh-so-tolerant leftists. Here’s an example of one I did with the Daily Caller.
- And last, ignore. Sometimes the right call is to just move on and ignore internet trolls. If you achieve literally nothing from the time spent replying, even if it’s just a funny or joking reply, then don’t bother. Honestly, most of the time, I feel bad for the people who spent hours per day trying to cause harm to strangers on the internet.
Here’s an example of a really sad attack sent to me last week from a Twitter leftist that, after taking a quick glance at, I ignored.
Every once in a while I get notifications of her attacks on me, and as the months go by and I still see random occurrences, I just feel even more sad for this poor woman:
***NOTE: The main parts of the thread are too inappropriate for me to share here directly. But if you click on the tweets I share below, you’ll be able to see the original tweets she shared that were focused on sex and my physical appearance.
Trust me, the tweets get worse, but you’ll have to go check those out yourself.
I definitely agree with Breitbart that we should always walk into the fire as happy warriors. That being said, when I see trash like this in my notifications, I just put my phone down and get back to enjoying my time with my family, friends, co-workers, and all of the blessings my life comes with. And that’s my advice for you when the worst of the worst on social media comes your way.
If everyone was fulfilled in their personal lives, we would have much less political hate and vitriol in our country, especially on social media.
Hope this helps! xx
