A Day in the Life of a Troll — From a Girl Who Used to be One

I told people I was a prophet. Yeah.

Picture this: a 10 year old girl raised in a right wing, fundamentalist community that bordered on cult. She has never gone to school and she has no internet. She has no TV, no radio and only has shaky 90s VHS recordings of once-popular-now-defunct television shows.

I wasn’t born in rural Pennsylvania. I was born to a community of New Englanders who were essentially hippies(some of them actually were once). My siblings spent their childhood there. I did not. I would occasionally return. This caused great confusion. From one place I was spoon-fed radical conservatism, from the other, liberalism.

And then, I was told, I was going to school.

2004. The mule offended me greatly.

To say I was unprepared for secular society was an understatement. I’m still unprepared for secular society. Now, at least, I can “function”. But certainly not then.

I wouldn’t say I was confident when I started school in 2006, I just didn’t know how social roles were supposed to work. A bully once came up and threatened me about lunch money. I said “No, that’s okay”. Slightly stunned, she then turned to pick on the girl next to me. She said she’d fight me if I told the teacher. I told the teacher that instant and she was speechless. I wasn’t brave, I just literally had no idea what bullies were and how I was supposed to react to them.

My new playmates always talked about pop culture. I had no idea what American Idol or the DaVinci Code was and I still to this day cannot name a single artist or song from that year.

I had my video games, though, and I dreamed of day when I’d be able to play them online, too.

Oh, to be young and naïve…I’d get my wish all right.

It came with a price.

2007. Enter middle school, puberty and the internet.

My family got wi-fi in the fall of 2007 and the beginning of my sixth grade. All of a sudden I was faced with cliques the art of More Subtle Bullying™. I did not brush my hair and my face became pocked with acne. I was never beat up in the halls, but I was shunned. My friends, desperate to save themselves, would pick at my clothes and talk about me, often within earshot(and eyeshot).

With rolled up noses from the popular kids and downturned eyes from my friends, I began to think that something was wrong with me.

2007. I still have that shirt btw.

So, I turned to the internet. I barely knew how to use it and spent most of the time playing Runescape. And I mean most of the time. After my intro to preteen angst, I quit homework to play it full time. There, I was introduced to a whole new host of vocab, like:

• n00b
• poser
• ur mom
• lol, lmao, wtf, omg
• Miley Cyrus is lame (“Who is Miley Cyrus?” I asked. “R U serious? Do u live under a rock?”)
• hawt/fugly

At the time, I was still trying to fit in. Buying exclusively from Aéropostale and Claire’s (RIP). Winter break came and went and I took the “New Year New Me” a little too far…

2008. Kiki Kannibal, pink skinny jeans and Yahoo Answers

2008. Tough gal.

I was sick and tired of everyone around me. The cool kids and everything pop culture that I couldn’t get my hands on(read: all of it).

One day, pursuing the internet for angsty music to fill my void, I discovered scene queen: Kiki Kannibal. I loved her. Of course, years later, we learned of the horror that went on in her life, but at that time, I wanted to be just like her. So, I got blue hair extensions, jet black kohl liner and the brightest hot pink skinny jeans I could find.

Sweet God, this photo still gives me nightmares.

I then went back to school. Well, that’s a bit of an overstatement. I was flunking nearly all my classes and claimed to be sick so I could stay home and go on the internet all day. Here, in my height of “no one understands me!” and genuine trauma, I met this cute thing called Yahoo! Answers.

2008 pt. 2. Obama’s Election, Yahoo Answers and Trolling T-Swift

Behold! The face behind the troll. 2008.

My trolling began with me telling every single person on Runescape that I was a prophet. Yeah. I told them that God had gifted me with this special sight and that if Obama was elected, it would signal the end times. Part of me wanted to believe that I was a prophet, I wanted something interesting. Everything was boring and stupid and agonizing. (Turns out I was depressed.)

After being called a lunatic several times, it reignited that angst. I went to Yahoo! Answers where I joined the other republicans in trolling every single question in the politics section. Question was about a school project? We’d completely trash it, usually devolving into name calling of question asker and each other. Some of us would start flamewars on posts in arts & crafts, finances, hell, even weather. I was furious, not actually at Obama or democrats, that was just who I was told to direct my anger at. I was angry at my parents, my community and, ultimately, myself.

After several of us got banned and I was given warnings by Yahoo! Admins, I decided my new mission was to create an entity so powerful and widespread, they’d never be able to put out my rage.

Hilariously, I tried to call it “AnonymousPRO” and ended up calling it AnonymousePro. And the logo was essentially this:

I’m reasonably certain that was the exact stock image I used

So, now armed with a new GMAIL address (before my dad had given me permission to have one #Rebel) I went and registered Anonymouse on Y!A and YouTube. I tried to get other people involved, saying they could say anything they wanted to anonymousely. They told me only cowards did that.

First thing I did, was find some music video of Taylor Swift (I spent quite a long time trying to find that video but, I believe now, it was actually a fan supercut of Taylor Swift.)

Armed with my new anonymity, I proceeded to try and tear her apart because I was angry at her(she was beautiful, famous and unattainable). But something interesting happened as comments started coming back, for-shaming me about attacking her. “She doesn’t know what real bullying is. She doesn’t know what real loneliness is.” I spat back.

And then I became very sad. I was hungry, self-harming, failing out of middle school and really, really alone.

Almost immediately afterward, I then pretended to be the “founder” of Anonymouse and not the “commenter” and proceeded to say something along the lines of:

I apologize for what one of our commenters said. We do not monitor our members as we guarantee anonymity. I assure you their view is not my own.

What???

Edited by moi in 2008 (At a fundie church camp in the Poconos. Classic.)

Aftermath: Deprogramming

So what became of this internet troll?

I lingered around Y!A but quit for good a few months after Obama became president. I deleted AnonymousePro. Actually, that email account still exists. And in some twist of fate or bad judgement, it is now the email I use for Facebook.

I didn’t quit the internet, but our church began “strongly encouraging” everyone to get internet safety guards. It veritably shut down my YouTube and Yahoo usage and blocked Google half of the time. By 2009, I was back off the grid.

Sign of the times. 2010.

In 2010, I began attending an arts high school and, suddenly, my community began to change. Instead of fundamentalism, I began to get a taste of that hippie new age sentiment I associated with far away New England…it tasted like freedom.

My story with technology is long and complicated as I’m sure it is for all of us. But in the year or so after my trolling days, things began to lift.

Originally published at notyourcorporategf.wordpress.com on June 22, 2018.