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The One Thing Famous People Do With Trolls
They didn’t get far listening too closely.
Whether it’s Twitter, Facebook, Google Reviews, or a large-scale cancel culture take-down, opportunities abound to air one’s grievances publicly for all to see. We’ve seen a variety of approaches to conflict in the age of the internet.
Instagram and TikTok are platforms with a built in set up for re-posting someone’s content with a video’d response, where armies of commenters can be mobilized who fight their battles with weapons of likes, unfollows, and re-posts to potential onlookers of millions. What results is a not-so-cold war of destructive drama.
What’s the difference between this and a good old fashioned playground bully? It’s a little harder to tell who has the most power, and who is using their powers for good or evil.
Even in my rural small-town, this invective rhetoric has made it’s way into our subtle Southern discourse. A well-meaning friend and local historian recently posted a picture of a local landmark with an imagined Looney Tunes mural on it for a little light-hearted photoshop humor, only to be met with divisive comments about some very real local art around town.
The trajectory of where this leads us as a society on every level is daunting. In the wake of a civic discourse crisis, who can we look to for…
