Dissecting the Trollverse

(The Shame Nation, Sue Scheff, October 2017)

Shame Nation is a self-help book. The first half is a collection of miserable and dispiriting stories of people hunted, haunted and sometimes destroyed by online trolls. The second half is how to deal with it, primarily by preventing it in the first place, but also alternative paths, services and resources to help victims. It is fast moving and very granular.

In our isolationist society, it is easy to understand trolls. Trolling might be the only pleasure they have. “It’s easy and thrilling to hate a stranger online” says one of their interviewees. The anonymity allows them free reign to wreak havoc on both innocent and not so innocent lives. That they are judge, jury and executioner without due process never enters their minds. They are having their say and their fun.

Trolls come in many variations: body-shamers, sex-shamers, extortionists, know-it-all critics and above all, superficial commenters making assumptions with no evidence. They are empowered by their ability to spout their wisdom/criticism without fear of contradiction, and more importantly, without fear of reprisal. That Americans hate this much and this intensely is not really under the microscope.

The book will hook you with all its tales of (legitimate) woe, in endless variation and outcomes from reverse-shaming the trolls to suicide by the victims. It’s a new world on the internet, where we seem to want to repeat our old world of life being nasty, brutal and short.

One thing left unsaid in all the advice to be careful before pressing Send, is that the number one role model, the president of the United States, weekly shames judges, senators, congressmen, reporters, interviewers and anyone else he thinks is criticizing him, in the most vile language he can, from personal attacks to anything that flashes in his mind at the moment – usually 5AM. How do the authors think hundreds of millions of Americans will restrain themselves when the president is free to shame - is not raised here.

David Wineberg