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No more stupid, snotty, enraging arguments with trolls on Facebook and Twitter. Nope. No more. I’m done.
Deplorable Uncle Bob, the guy with the profile picture of the Confederate flag and twenty nine followers on Twitter, who’s telling the world that Putin is a super great man and that Killary is a loser cry baby? Yeah, him? I’m not biting any more. It was fun while it lasted, but I get the feeling the so called alt-right isn’t really listening, you know?
And what’s the value in tweeting off a zinger when Anne Coulter declares to her 29 million followers that group “______” should be rounded up and put in camps? Yeah. Guess what. She’s not listening either. And thirty retweets isn’t going to change that.
So, no more angry throw downs against goading, race-baiting Facebook comments, lovingly seeded from Russian fake news mills or propaganda bots. No more fighting US trolls, paid or otherwise, baiting me with nasty gutter memes about @FLOTUS. I mean, really; where is that conversation going to go anyway?
Fake news and trolls most definitely helped tip the election. They came like a digital tsunami on Facebook and Twitter, drowning out rational discourses, likely diverting us from more effective forms of political dialogue and engagement. They certainly kept us pissed off. And that may be where they did the most damage.
With Putin’s propaganda fire hose still aimed squarely at them, Facebook and Twitter may well be politically toxic at this point. I fought online for a year against these digital bogeymen. Bits. One and zeros designed to keep me flailing away at hateful ghosts. To what useful end? I’m not sure.
I will continue to write and share articles. But these ugly gut-wrenching battles in the comments sections? The angry back and forth on Twitter with “people” I can neither identify or substantiate? That’s where I’m drawing the line.
Battling these people creates the illusion of fighting for a cause, but ultimately does very little for us beyond creating a sense of nausea and disgust with our fellow Americans, which, by the way, is how the Kremlin and Fox News wants us to feel. All of us. When Americans are angry and ranting at each other, those guys win.
Those who fund the armies of trolls that descended on our election and continue to this day to descend on us, want us to keep raging at each other. They want to sow more and deeper divisions between Americans, from here on out, in every way they can.
So look. If someone (or some bot) posts a comment that is too irrationally hateful to event warrant a response, trust your instincts. Maybe, just maybe, it actually doesn’t warrant a response. And not because you’re “better than that”. No, because forever wrangling in this stinking Breitbart stained mud pit is exactly what they want us to keep doing. Its a digital, toxicity spewing hamster wheel with no beginning and no end. Intentionally designed to exhaust and demoralize us. To undermine our faith in our nation and our fellow Americans.
Breitbart’s and Putin’s trolls are stealing from you. Every keystroke spent against a trolling hateful voice is effort that could have gone somewhere else. To a cause. To your children. To yourself.
For foreign governments, extremist media outlets (both crazy right and crazy left) and yes, apparently, the FBI, trolling Americans is an effective way to divide us. For them, its a business plan. For all of us, these carefully seeded hate-filled binary debates are a recipe for disaster.
And it worked. We didn’t talk about jobs. We didn’t…talk…about….jobs.
I’m not going to give abusive propagandist trolls any more free rent in my feed or in my head. Be they neighbors up the street or bots on a server in Moscow, it doesn’t matter to me. I’m done being dragged down into the rhetorical mud. I’m going to ignore those guys and talk about what people really care about. We all want the opportunity to earn a living and raise our families. We want to have a decent life. This is what we all want. I don’t care what side of the divide you’re on.
Here’s my bottom line. If people are nasty and disrespectful, then walk away, regardless of which candidate they support. Otherwise, our political process ceases to be about offering solutions and instead becomes about punishing others.
Sure, work for political outcomes you believe in. Do the work that needs to be done. But don’t get sucked into the pit of raging hateful digital mudslinging. Its a nightmarish illusion, created by evil men and women who excel at growing rage and hate. Literally, you may simply be flailing away at a computer program designed to tie up your time and drag you into a misery of distrust and despair. If we all go there instead of believing in each other, we can kiss the diverse, beautiful America we know goodbye.
We must remember: Americans, conservative and progressives alike, have far more in common than the internet’s army of paid trolls would have us believe. Its time to ignore the trolls and instead, choose to see the diverse, complex and ultimately decent human beings all around us.
♦◊♦
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Read more by Mark Greene on The Good Men Project:
The Ugly and Violent Death of Gender Conformity
When “Check Your Male Privilege” Becomes a Bludgeon
Why Are Death Rates Rising for Middle Aged White Americans?
When Men Keep Demanding Sex From Their Partners Over and Over
How the Man Box Can Kill Our Sons Now or Decades from Now
Why Traditional Manhood is Killing Us
Why Do We Murder the Beautiful Friendships of Boys?
How America’s Culture of Shame is a Killer for Boys
The Culture of Shame: Men, Love, and Emotional Self-Amputation
The Man Box: Why Men Police and Punish Others
The Man Box: The Link Between Emotional Suppression and Male Violence
The Lack of Gentle Platonic Touch in Men’s Lives is a Killer
Touch Isolation: How Homophobia Has Robbed All Men of Touch
Boys and Self-Loathing: The Conversations That Never Took Place
The Dark Side of Women’s Requests of Progressive Men
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Funny how the writer only mentions conservatives in his complaint. One might say this article is a great example of paid trolling. ….. This guy hasn’t learned a thing and what’s more, is he’s selling this as it were apple pie. #sickofyellowjournalism
I don’t worry too much about internet trolls, the garden variety that are usually found in comment sections (I got personally trolled on this very board recently by a drive-by stupid reply to a comment that I took time to hash out and post). I am more concerned with professional trolls that possess loud and important microphones, commanding attention and directing/following worn down narratives. These professional trolls rarely possess any insight and are better termed professional “outragists”. They are writers first, and deep thinkers very, very last. Today’s example is Claire Landsbaum opinion in NYMag – regarding a Steve Martin… Read more »
I’m a lefty. And I say that one of the things that is SO wrong about this site is that it equates being a “good man” with being a lefty. To the extent that the GMP editorial staff makes that particular decision, it becomes part of the problem, rather than part of the solution. I’m going to say it again, to Mark Greene, Lisa Hickey and the rest of the GMP crew: You CAN do better than that…and you SHOULD do better than that. Be more self-critical, so that you don’t get lost in your criticism of those with whom… Read more »
Well said Sir. I believe one can never reach the little people on a high horse.
“And it worked. We didn’t talk about jobs. We didn’t…talk…about….jobs.” And whose fault is that? I asked, repeatedly, for the Hillary shills on this site to tell me why I should vote for her instead of just “against Trump” and what did I get? Another dozen redundant articles about “Trump bad.” But ironically I’m taking your advice Greene, for the most part. I’ve come to realize that the articles on this site don’t apply and for all the lip service to “bipartisanship” and “having a conversation” nobody here seems particularly interested in examining whether they might be wrong. If I… Read more »
Its our fault, 8 ball. Its ours. We didn’t talk about jobs. Actually, our candidate did but the press didn’t focus on that. They focused on Breitbart and Emails and well, you know what they focused on.
That said, the Good Men Project has a clear position on many social issues. Take racism for instance. As such, Alt-Right commentary isn’t going to find a “bipartisan conversation” here. Going forward, articles will continue to arise about the administration and its actions as they relate to male issues including race, gender and justice. But the election is over.
One thing that I hoped people would take away from this was recognizing that mud slinging was counter productive. We didn’t talk about jobs. Actually, our candidate did but the press didn’t focus on that. They focused on Breitbart and Emails and well, you know what they focused on. While that is true I think its worth also bringing up that a lot of Clinton supporters responded not by talking about jobs or other issues in other spaces since they deemed the press wasn’t doing it but by going after Trump every chance they got. I asked plenty of Clinton… Read more »
“We must remember: Americans, conservative and progressives alike, have far more in common than the internet’s army of paid trolls would have us believe. Its time to ignore the trolls and instead, choose to see the diverse, complex and ultimately decent human beings all around us.” The problem I have is that there is a clear refusal from the left to recognise the so called “conservatives” in the same light, I’ve noticed that here at GMP, there has been a decline in responses from some of the regular conservative commenters and there is reason for their dropping off. Some, including… Read more »
I can understand why Mark is taking this position. “Trolling,” other then related to fishing is counter productive and gets no one anywhere fast. BUT we have to look at what’s seen as trolling.
Sadly Mark, the only “fake news” you addressed in your article was that which cast a bad light on Hillary. There was plenty cast by the left but you left that “fake news” out of the equation. Accordingly, it’s caused a concern toward the media and it’s credibility.
Hi Tom, Happy New Year to you. Look, I’m not denying I take sides in politics, but my commitment to stop fighting the gutter level fights on social media is about defending the idea that we can disagree in civil ways. If people are nasty and disrespectful, then walk away, regardless of which candidate they support. Otherwise, our political process ceases to be about offering solutions and instead becomes about punishing others.
Mark, you and I both know that the media threw fake stories out there on both sides. In so far as the pizza place claim, I hadn’t seen or heard of it until I read something here at GMP about it. ” Two of the biggest false hits were a story claiming Clinton sold weapons to ISIS and a hoax claiming the pope endorsed Trump, which the site removed after publication of this article. The only viral false stories during the final three months that were arguably against Trump’s interests were a false quote from Mike Pence about Michelle Obama,… Read more »
Obviously I agree.
ANd BTW, Happy New Year to you and your family as well
I’m sorry but political preference should never take precedence over common sense, decency and logic. Instead of a strong message on idled time you wrote something that looked more like a rant on Facebook; All the while mirroring the very behavior you claim to criticize.
Great article!
You precious little Snowflake , I guess you need a crib to hid in your safe place to protect you from reality , when your obviously progressives ideas are not shared by half the nation’s voters who do not buy the fake news from the six major shills for the oligarchy . You lost the election pull up your diapers and get over it .
Tom, thanks for coming and posting a textbook example of what I am publicly declaring I will not engage any longer. That said, I think a cheerful THANK YOU is okay within the constraints of my New Years resolution, so, THANK YOU!
It sounds like you’re getting smarter.
It’s a long, slow journey for all of us.
The Buddha said that the root cause of all our problems is our ego-self consciousness – and that ignorance is what allows our ego-self consciousness to keep us stuck in both suffering, and causing suffering as well.
The silver lining in this election for many lefties (I am a lefty myself) is that it has opened up a space for serious introspection. That’s ALWAYS a good thing.