November 28, 2012 • 30 mins
Are more men Internet trolls? Why is there so much misogyny and slut shaming in Internet trolling - and what can we do about it? Join Cristen, Caroline and TechStuff co-host Jonathan as they discuss the gender dynamics of online trolling.
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to stuff Mom Never Told You from how Stuff
Works dot Com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm
Kristen and I'm Caroline and Caroline guess what what? Well,
first of all, we're talking about gender and internet trolling,
(00:23):
very touchy topic. It is a very touchy topic, which
is why we have invited the very first male guest
on stuff Mom Never Told You here in the studio
with us that we are delighted to have our fellow
How Stuff Works employee and podcaster co host of Tech
(00:43):
Stuff Podcasts, Jonathan Strickland. I'm feeling an intense sense of
pressure right now. I am uh, yeah, no pressure. You
are only representing all men. That's that's fair. Yeah, and
all of technology. I feel I feel that I am
fully qualified to do both of those things. Yes, here
the all encompassing mail voice of tech, and the reason
(01:06):
we wanted to to bring on a tech expert, as
Jonathan is is because we wanted to look at the
gendered aspect of trolling. It was a suggestion sent in
by a listener and it's a really relevant topic. But
it doesn't seem like there's been a ton of scholarship
done on this specific aspect. Of Internet trolling. But before
(01:29):
we go any further, let's run down just the basics
of what a troll is. How would you define a troll? Sure? Okay,
so if you if you cast back the the hands
of the clock and really think back to the early
early days of the Internet, before there was even a
worldwide Web. There's and it still exists today, But there
(01:52):
was this thing called usenet, which was essentially kind of
a forum system and had a lot of news groups
in it. Well, usenet is where a lot of our
Internet culture first got its start. So more than a
decade before the Worldwide Web became a thing, well, there
was this uh trend on use neet where people would
(02:12):
try and have conversations around a certain topic, and once
in a while someone with an overdeveloped sense of mischief
would come in and try to divert the conversation and
or subvert it or just have it completely collapsed. And
they use various means to do that, usually doing things
like asking stupid questions to try and get people to
(02:35):
to answer them, and then they would follow that up
with even more stupid questions and the whole point of
it was just to irritate people and and get them
to to kind of lose their tempers or lose their patients,
and it was all considered a big joke. That's technically
what a troll is. It's someone who is set out
to disrupt the the the things that people are doing
(02:58):
online us for the laughs or the lulls as they say,
the l u l z l u l z, which
is of course as a corruption of l O l so,
which we all know laugh out loud. And so it
sounds like trolling started off as just some general mischief making,
but it has now developed into this just like horrible
(03:20):
creeping online behavior, um but that we associate at least
I would associate with things like just making horribly like
racist comments. Yeah, some would argue, and many have argued
that this goes outside the definition of troll. Personally, I
think language is a flexible thing. It changes over time.
Sometimes we will group stuff together under a definition that
(03:44):
did not belong there before. Per As someone who works
in the whole technology field and I covered all the time,
I'm perfectly happy calling all of that trolling because I
think a lot of it does and at least the
major defense mechanism that a lot of these people have
is that oh, I'm just doing it for fun, which
(04:04):
doesn't ring true to me no matter which version of
trolling you're looking at, and it specifically doesn't ring true.
And these more intense personal attacks that tend to focus
on things like race or gender. Right, Yeah, speaking of
intense personal attacks, Uh, there have been a lot of
female bloggers, writers, journalists who have dealt not just with
(04:27):
trolling per se, but also intense internet abuse. Yes, why
why the focus on these women? Why are they calling
out all of these lady writers. Okay, we're gonna we're
gonna really dig down here, because this this has nothing
to do with technology really when you get down to it.
Technology is an enabler, but it is not the reason
(04:48):
why this happens. Uh. And a lot of this is
going to be my opinion and some armchairs psychology slash sociology.
But because again the there's not a whole lot of
literature on this. It it's still fairly young as far
as uh, gender studies go. Although a lot of the
stuff that that um I will talk about goes back
(05:09):
much further than say tech, you know, internet, computer is
that kind of thing. I think that first of all,
you've got this underlying social and cultural perception that has
been reinforced over generations, where a lot of men have
difficulties seeing beyond their privileged perspectives. Now I'm a white male,
(05:32):
I get out of this studio. I'm sorry. I apologize
for that. No, I don't apologize. I don't apologize for it.
But it does mean that I come from a very
particular sense of privilege. I was born into that. And
even though my parents were very loving and compassionate and
(05:52):
taught me very well, in my opinion, I still grew
up in a culture that reinforces certain perspective is repeatedly
through things like entertainment, literature, even news reporting. I mean,
everything that you encounter in the in the culture has
some element of this. And so when that gets reinforced
(06:13):
over and over and over again, uh, it could be
easy to develop a really awful perspective in which women
can be seen by some men as being more like
an object. We talk about the objectification of women. That
really does mean what we literally think of it to mean,
(06:35):
and you don't necessarily think of a woman as a person,
which is a terrible, terrible thing, And that means that
you can project upon that object things that that you
would never say to a person and feel you feel
free to say those things. Uh. The internet makes it
easier because it creates the sense of distance, so you
(06:57):
don't have that immediacy. You also have that sense of
anonymity that you can get from the internet, so you're
somewhat shielded from any sort of response from the person
that you are attacking. UM. And because there's a gender
imbalance with the number of men versus women active on
the internet, although that's you know, leveling out, you have
(07:20):
a built in uh support group really and it's a
terrible thing to call the support group, but it means
that because there are more men there than there are women,
there are potentially more people who feel the same way
you do or just don't care. So you get that
support system feeding that back in and it's really upsetting
and depressing. The nice thing is there are men and
(07:42):
women out there who are pointing this out, and so
I think that is our best hope of turning this around.
Do you think that that this is I mean, I
understand and totally agree that this is UM like the
kind of sexist throwing um and misogynistic comments that will
come up a lot online um are it's merely like
(08:02):
a new forum for a really old thing. But I
also wonder if um the it also is a reflection
of the gendered landscape of um the Internet, where it's
not just a numbers game but a thing of where
like you know, we hear a lot about how women
thriving like social media, whereas men tend to be more
(08:24):
active in like comment spaces, message boards like Reddit, places
like that, and kind of I don't know, does that
make sense? Yeah? I want there are communities out there
that are largely dominated by men. And again, if you
if you're in a community where no one is challenging
your point of view, then it really is almost the
(08:46):
same as them confirming your point of view, right, I mean? Well,
and that reminds me too of the who was the
huge um troll, the epic trol that was just unmasked
by the Adrian Chan story and Gawker right, right, I
know the story you're talking about violenta krez Um And
I was gonna ask like one of the hashtags that
(09:07):
he was infamous for and read it was hashtag rate bait,
And a lot of response that I read was from
some people saying like no, No, this is just you
don't get it. This is a joke. It was just
a joke. And to me, that reminds you what you're
saying that it's deflecting personal responsibility for the things that
you do. Uh. We see this all the time with
(09:28):
trollish behavior, and it's that's that's one of the main methods.
Another one is a logical fallacy called to cook reasoning.
That means you as well or you also so in
other words, Uh, it's deflecting by means by saying like, hey,
it's okay for me to do it, because look at
what's going on over here, and that's way worse that.
(09:48):
That's another way of deflection. For example. Uh, one of
the things, one of the stories I want to talk
about was the the Anita's Sarkasian story. She was, you know,
started up a kick Starter she was gonna do she
is doing a video series about uh, sexist tropes that
are in video games. Yeah, we cited her feminist frequency videos,
(10:10):
and so she launched this Kickstarter campaign to fund uh
this video series. She had a six thousand dollar campaign goal.
Within twenty four hours, she had made that goal. But
then there came this outpouring of awful, awful comments, particularly
on YouTube, which you know there there are a few
(10:31):
communities on the Internet that have a comment system that
has has filled with more vile comments than YouTube. There
are some like four Chan, but but YouTube, considering that
it's essentially the second largest search engine in the world,
that's pretty that's that's not great, right, So there were
(10:51):
all these comments that were coming out and uh, and
they were vicious and viciously attacking her. She had not
even shot a single video in this series yet, and
she was talking about examining this. There were people who
are feeling threatened by it. I assumed either that maybe
the hobby that they love they felt threatened and they
(11:12):
felt that they needed to strike back. And it completely
flabbergasted me when I when I started to read these comments,
I was looking through and I was getting angry, and
I was thinking, you know, I've I've had a lot
of experience with trolls. I know that they like to
push buttons and stuff, but this went well beyond that.
This was these were outright attacks, essentially, and and you know,
(11:34):
the threat of rape or other violence to me, that
is as serious or nearly as serious as the actual
violence itself. If nothing else, it's going to create this
sense of dread in the person that you are attacking,
and that is just it's so unacceptable as there are
(11:55):
no words for it, right and a lot of uh
women writers talk also about seaving emails with their personal
addresses and phone numbers published like we can find you,
and so a lot of them end up voicing opinions like, well,
you know, I kind of feel like this has a
chilling effect, like if if I'm going to face all
of this abuse simply for writing an article or writing
a blog post, maybe I should stay away from hot
(12:17):
button issues. It's and it's I mean that it's a
silencing tactic. And what's worse is you never know when
you're talking about the numbers game, when so many people
are attacking you, you never know there might be someone
among that throng who really does intend to carry out
on some sort of threat. The publishing of addresses. That's
nothing new. I mean, we've seen trolls or hackers or
(12:40):
whatever whatever term you want to use for people who
have employed these tactics. We've seen that in the past before.
But the combining that with the the no longer implicit
but explicit threats of violence and rape. That's new. That's
not something that I've seen before. And uh, and that
(13:02):
part I think is one of the one of the
elements that the Internet does make possible. Without the Internet,
without that anonymity, uh, and without that distance from the person,
I don't think that would be happening. I really hope
that wouldn't be happening. Yeah, I was gonna ask whether
or not because it seems like this, I mean, obviously
this kind of trolling behavior has been going on for
a long time, um, but it also seems like we're
(13:25):
hearing about it just now, like and it well, it
gets in the past like a year and a half
or so, like, it comes up a lot more frequently.
And it might be because, um, maybe more women are
just getting braver about stepping up and not being so
scared about feeding the trolls. There's also I think a
growing fear among a certain population of men that feel
(13:50):
a threat. And it's not necessarily something that even consciously
are aware of, but they feel threatened when you're talking
about especially when when views are being challenged, where you're
not thinking, oh, this is another person, You're not thinking
this is a person. You're thinking that's a woman, and
you're already started to distance you know, yourself from the
(14:10):
other person. I'm saying yourself, as as for all men,
since I am representing every single one all of them. Uh. Yeah,
So it's it's a combination of those things. Uh. I've
seen a lot of discussions about what do we do
about this and what are the best ways of of
treating this problem? Um, the to go back to that
(14:32):
whole uh, you know, the they you should just be
able to take a joke. Thing. One of the things
I've seen trolls say over and over again is once
everyone gets over these triggers, like, once these triggers don't
work on you, then our work is done. As if
it's their responsibility to somehow better the human race by
taking away our our our emotion, our sensitivity, our emotional
(14:57):
reactions are empathy. Uh. To me, that's like saying if
you don't uh, and if you aren't constantly vigilant and
also a martial arts expert, it's your own fault if
I walk down the street and punch you in the face.
That makes no sense to me. Yeah, women just become
desensitized certain direct rate threat and and so what I
(15:17):
would say is that the real solution to this problem
has nothing to do with technology. I mean, with technology,
you can do things like you can ban people, you
can you know, in certain forms, you can ignore certain
users so that way you just don't see what they
have to say. That doesn't solve the problem. The problem,
to me is a social and cultural problem that needs
to be addressed at the base level, where people, specifically men,
(15:42):
need to realize women are people. Women have valuable things
to say. They are intelligent, many of them are more
intelligent than you are. Probably accept that, and once you do,
maybe the world will actually be a better place. I
do get the feeling from reading some comments sometimes that
(16:05):
there are a lot of mail trolls or just male
comments out there who were like, this is my space,
what are you doing in my personal internet world? Yeah? Yeah,
like I said, it's it's it's a feeling, you know,
It's like they feel like they're being threatened. I have
met women who are incredibly accomplished in every every kind
(16:26):
of field I can imagine, including things like that that
are traditionally seen as very male centric activities like video games.
I mean, that's a good example because I covered video
games and I've met women who are legitimately badasses at
video games. They will wipe the floor with with professional gamers.
They are playing at a professional level. And yet time
(16:49):
and again a male gamer who might not even be
able to figure out how to open up a door
in a video game will claim they are not quote
unquote a real gamer. And as long as that kind
of attitude exists, that just tells me that this sort
of problem is going to be there. It may not
necessarily be as a visible as it currently is right now,
(17:09):
because we've had some very high profile examples in the
last year this SPEK two thousand twelve, but it's always
going to be there until as an entire culture in
society we come to terms with this and teach men
that women are people. And in a way, this could
(17:30):
be a good forum for it to happen, because it
seems like our tolerance for this kind of trolling is
um diminishing, and because of social media there is a
huge backlash. I mean the fact that I think that
the the Reddit troll violintacrez Um. I don't know. I
feel like if I say his name three times, like
(17:51):
something's gonna happen. Uh, Like, I think he ended up
like losing his job I r L in real life.
And but also really quick I wanted to ask before
we wrap things up, is that Yeah, we've been We've
been kind of focusing the conversation on like male troll
versus female Internet user. And I mean, I've seen plenty
(18:13):
of cyber bullying and cyber snarking from women online, and well,
we are not we are not blameless. Uh So do
you think though, um, And this might be hard to project,
but it seems like trolls are almost always portrayed or
assumed to be guys, Like, does it seem like this
behavior is definitely more No, Well, I think if you're
(18:37):
going by strictly numbers, it ends up being more guys.
I think, Uh, I think there are There are many
examples of women engaging in trollish behavior. The Megan Meyer
cases of as an example of that. It's a terrible,
tragic example of that, but it's one of those uh
stories that the illustrates that again, and it's it's more
(19:01):
of this human reaction of taking taking action against another person.
The Internet enables that, I mean, it gives us a
huge amount of power over other people, right, because not
only do we have the opportunity, and we have that anonymity, uh,
we can strike out in multiple ways against a target,
(19:21):
whether it's on social networks or publishing information that's private publicly,
or creating false reports about that person. Um. The Internet
gives us a lot of those chances. And it's not
just men who do it. I just think that there
are more men in that arena overall, and so we
see a lot more of it there. Also Again, uh,
(19:45):
we see certain types of trolling more from men than
from women. There's also plenty of examples of men attacking men,
women attacking women. I mean, it's it's it's not a
happy fun place all the time. That's not just say
that every place on the Internet is terrible. I don't
mean to give that it can be. It can be there,
(20:06):
and there are particular communities online where it's it's it's
worse than others. And I've seen this sort of bubble
up in communities that I had never even thought of
as being particularly problematic, For example, science and skeptic forums,
where you would think, all right, the people who belong
(20:28):
to those forums often think of themselves as being very
rational and critical thinkers. And yet when these situations come up,
when a woman says, I did not feel comfortable in
this situation because blah blah blah, you see the same
deflection and defensive behavior that you would from a troll,
which is very telling to me. That's saying that there's
(20:49):
this much deeper underlying problem. And it's not just people
who are actively trying to troll other folks. It's it's
you know, it's it's more of a base problem than that.
It's an offline problem just being manifested. Yes, it's probably
being a man you just don't understand. I mean, it's
sorry about being all up in your man world. Listen,
(21:13):
you know what, I'm just gonna stay off. The internet
makes sometimes and and I wish that I really wish
that more men seen could could have the start sort
of experience I've had where I've First of all, I
pursued a liberal arts education, which meant that I was
often in classes with women who were wicked smart. I mean,
(21:35):
they really knew their stuff and they kept me on
my toes. And then I come and work and how
stuff works. And we have so many brilliant women working
here that again, like I'm not the smartest person in
the room. I know that already. I'm a pretty bright guy,
don't get me wrong. But I know I'm not the
smartest part person in the room. And I know that
(21:56):
there are women here that are as capable, more capable,
smarter than I am. That's all, okay, if only we
could drive though, Oh yeah, it's it's the only problem,
of course, is your obsession with shoes. That's right. Yeah,
it takes up a lot of closet space. You're right, Well, Karline,
do you have any any other questions about trolling in gender,
(22:19):
because I think, I mean, it's a great point, like it.
It really sounds like this. It's a it's a sad
reflection of where we still are. I mean, I think
I think such a big issue is the anonymity and
that it lets people with psychopathic tendencies just sort of
run wild with their complete lack of empathy, et cetera,
um and just take it out on people who they
(22:40):
perceive as not belonging to their club. Well, do you
have for any listeners out there though, who might be
dealing with trolling behavior? Do you have any, um, any
quick tips to close this out on how you silence
a troll. Aside from just silencing yourself, ignoring trolls is
a is a good star because the general rule is
(23:02):
the more you more you try to engage with the troll,
the more that feeds into that trollish behavior, particularly if
we're talking traditional trolls. I mean, that's their whole goal
is to get it. It's it's to get you riled
up an upset, and the more you get riled up
an upset and engage them, the more they win. So
you don't feed the trolls. That's rule number one. But
(23:22):
also just do some searches. Be aware that there are
people out there who are not only aware of the problem,
that are trying to fight the problem. There are advocates
out there who are telling everyone men and women alike,
you know, the key to this is educating ourselves and
getting beyond this mindset. Uh. Jay Smooth has an amazing
(23:43):
video where he addresses the male audience and says, guys,
for those of you out here who agree with me,
who are saying that this is a terrible thing, it's
time for you to tell other men that it's the
wrong thing. We're not defending women. Women can defend themselves.
We're just telling the men, you're a jerk. You know,
you gotta you gotta wake up and realize that this
(24:03):
is not okay and this is not what being a
man is all about. And I thought that that was
a great message because again, he wasn't saying, oh, well,
we gotta sweep in and rescue the women from this.
That wasn't his point. His point was, No, it's just
unacceptable behavior on the part of men. That's what we
need to fix. And I think that's the best message
out there. I think that's I think that's a great
(24:24):
message to end on too. Yeah, And I mean, obviously
we could talk about this for hours, but I guess
we should ask for our listeners now, Yeah, for their
own stories. Have you dealt with trolls? Are you a troll? No,
that's no, we don't want to talk to the trolls.
We're not going to pay you a troll. Troll. Maybe
you're a reformed troll. Maybe you learn from the errors
of your ways. Yeah, right to us. So Mom's stuff
(24:48):
at Discovery dot com and you can always head over
to you our Facebook page as well. But before we
get to our letters, you guessed it it's time forward
from our sponsor, and this episode of stuff Mom Never
Told You was brought to you by Jack Threads. That's right,
this is an ad from Jack Threads. They brought us
(25:09):
today's episode of stuff Mom Never Told You. Head on
ever to Jack Threads dot com splash mom, where everything
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(25:31):
Threads dot com slash Mom. And now here's some letters.
We got a couple of letters here, um about our
episode on having sex during pregnancy. Jonathan is now, uh
looking a little more uncomfortable. No, okay, this is a
(25:51):
good one, all right, Um, I mean they're all all
of our letters are good letters. Um. So this one, Oh,
I asked a question about because we were talking about
how uh pregnant sea fetishes and a lot of the
stuff was talking about how men are attracted to pregnant women,
and I was like, well, what about uh if you
are a lesbian? And guess what we have an answer?
(26:12):
So I was listening to your latest podcast is from
Amanda and Carmen. I was listening to your latest podcast
on sex during pregnancy this morning and realized I finally
had a reason to write you for reals. H She says,
I have a bizarre case of t M I regarding
lesbians attracted to pregnant women. I'm in a same sex
relationship with a lesbian and I've discovered that my girlfriend
(26:33):
has an intense attraction to pregnant women. And this is
in her girlfriend's own words or explanation. I like that
there is literally a glow to pregnant women. I like
that each step they take is so elegant because they're
careful of each step in movement. I really like looking
at people's hands, and pregnant women touch their own bellies
in a way that makes me want to touch them too.
There's so much love exuding from them and boobs. So
(26:57):
there you go, pregnant sea attraction from a lesbian's perspective,
she says, I pointed on being with her forever, and
I don't necessarily think I want children all. It's not lost. However,
one of my major menstrual boken. Wow, that was a
very sweet letter. Yes, all right, so we will look
(27:19):
like full busted, loving ladies with a glow. Yeah, pregnancy.
I'm just I'm amazed I wasn't the one blushing. No, yeah,
I've got a little pink and the chewks. All right. Well,
this one's from Alison. She has her own experience to share.
She says, I have two children, and in the first
trimester of both of my pregnancies, I felt the same
(27:42):
nauseous gassie, gagging in any strong odor, hungry but disgusted
by most foods, and exhausted to a point I never
thought possible. I couldn't even be in the same room
with my husband after we drank a beer from the
alcohol odor on his breath, so there was no way
I wanted to kis him or even be close to him.
My labita did improve later in my pregnancy, and with
my second pregnancy, I could hardly get enough sex, much
(28:02):
to my husband's delight. That said, having sex while there's
a growing baby inside your body wiggling around can be
a bit strange and off putting. There were even times
when sex was downright uncomfortable, such as when I experienced
round ligament pain, and by the very end of both pregnancies,
I could barely roll over in bed, making any type
of sexual activity logistically challenging and tiring. She says that
(28:25):
I was interested to hear in your podcast that men
tend to be more attracted to pregnant women. I remember
near the end of my pregnancies, I got a lot
more attention from men. At the time, I couldn't fathom
that they could be attracted to me, since I felt
like a bloated whale. But it turns out my presence
may have triggered some primal male instinct. Maybe it isn't
it ironic then that women get super hot when uh
(28:47):
they're probably not single? Yeah, maybe they are. I don't know.
I have a friend who said that if he sees
a pregnant woman out, he was so attractive to pregnant women.
If you were to see one out without a wedding ring,
he would totally hit on her. So they're pregnant. Pregnant listeners,
listen up. Uh, So that's all we've got for you, Um, Jonathan,
(29:07):
thank you so much for being our our guest today
and being our man. Thank you, thank you. I I
am this is not a joke. I'm truly honored to
have been the first male guest on this show. Guests, Yeah,
I didn't realize until after I invited Jonathan on and
I was like, oh my gosh, our first guy. We've
been talking about this. It's fair. A lot of a
(29:28):
lot of people look at me and they don't first
think man, the first thing bald, Yes you have a
beard though, that's true. I do have one of those.
All right. Well, thanks to everybody for listening. Again. You
can find us on Facebook, follow us on Twitter at
Mom Stuff Podcast. You can also follow us on Tumbler
(29:48):
at stuff mom Never Told You dot tumbler dot com.
And if you want to learn more about trolls, I
highly recommend reading Jonathan's article how Trolls Work at how
stuff works dot com. For more on this and thousands
of other topics, visit how stuff works dot com. H
Welcome to stuff Mom Never Told You from how Stuff
Works dot Com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm
Kristen and I'm Caroline and Caroline guess what what? Well,
first of all, we're talking about gender and internet trolling,
(00:23):
very touchy topic. It is a very touchy topic, which
is why we have invited the very first male guest
on stuff Mom Never Told You here in the studio
with us that we are delighted to have our fellow
How Stuff Works employee and podcaster co host of Tech
(00:43):
Stuff Podcasts, Jonathan Strickland. I'm feeling an intense sense of
pressure right now. I am uh, yeah, no pressure. You
are only representing all men. That's that's fair. Yeah, and
all of technology. I feel I feel that I am
fully qualified to do both of those things. Yes, here
the all encompassing mail voice of tech, and the reason
(01:06):
we wanted to to bring on a tech expert, as
Jonathan is is because we wanted to look at the
gendered aspect of trolling. It was a suggestion sent in
by a listener and it's a really relevant topic. But
it doesn't seem like there's been a ton of scholarship
done on this specific aspect. Of Internet trolling. But before
(01:29):
we go any further, let's run down just the basics
of what a troll is. How would you define a troll? Sure? Okay,
so if you if you cast back the the hands
of the clock and really think back to the early
early days of the Internet, before there was even a
worldwide Web. There's and it still exists today, But there
(01:52):
was this thing called usenet, which was essentially kind of
a forum system and had a lot of news groups
in it. Well, usenet is where a lot of our
Internet culture first got its start. So more than a
decade before the Worldwide Web became a thing, well, there
was this uh trend on use neet where people would
(02:12):
try and have conversations around a certain topic, and once
in a while someone with an overdeveloped sense of mischief
would come in and try to divert the conversation and
or subvert it or just have it completely collapsed. And
they use various means to do that, usually doing things
like asking stupid questions to try and get people to
(02:35):
to answer them, and then they would follow that up
with even more stupid questions and the whole point of
it was just to irritate people and and get them
to to kind of lose their tempers or lose their patients,
and it was all considered a big joke. That's technically
what a troll is. It's someone who is set out
to disrupt the the the things that people are doing
(02:58):
online us for the laughs or the lulls as they say,
the l u l z l u l z, which
is of course as a corruption of l O l so,
which we all know laugh out loud. And so it
sounds like trolling started off as just some general mischief making,
but it has now developed into this just like horrible
(03:20):
creeping online behavior, um but that we associate at least
I would associate with things like just making horribly like
racist comments. Yeah, some would argue, and many have argued
that this goes outside the definition of troll. Personally, I
think language is a flexible thing. It changes over time.
Sometimes we will group stuff together under a definition that
(03:44):
did not belong there before. Per As someone who works
in the whole technology field and I covered all the time,
I'm perfectly happy calling all of that trolling because I
think a lot of it does and at least the
major defense mechanism that a lot of these people have
is that oh, I'm just doing it for fun, which
(04:04):
doesn't ring true to me no matter which version of
trolling you're looking at, and it specifically doesn't ring true.
And these more intense personal attacks that tend to focus
on things like race or gender. Right, Yeah, speaking of
intense personal attacks, Uh, there have been a lot of
female bloggers, writers, journalists who have dealt not just with
(04:27):
trolling per se, but also intense internet abuse. Yes, why
why the focus on these women? Why are they calling
out all of these lady writers. Okay, we're gonna we're
gonna really dig down here, because this this has nothing
to do with technology really when you get down to it.
Technology is an enabler, but it is not the reason
(04:48):
why this happens. Uh. And a lot of this is
going to be my opinion and some armchairs psychology slash sociology.
But because again the there's not a whole lot of
literature on this. It it's still fairly young as far
as uh, gender studies go. Although a lot of the
stuff that that um I will talk about goes back
(05:09):
much further than say tech, you know, internet, computer is
that kind of thing. I think that first of all,
you've got this underlying social and cultural perception that has
been reinforced over generations, where a lot of men have
difficulties seeing beyond their privileged perspectives. Now I'm a white male,
(05:32):
I get out of this studio. I'm sorry. I apologize
for that. No, I don't apologize. I don't apologize for it.
But it does mean that I come from a very
particular sense of privilege. I was born into that. And
even though my parents were very loving and compassionate and
(05:52):
taught me very well, in my opinion, I still grew
up in a culture that reinforces certain perspective is repeatedly
through things like entertainment, literature, even news reporting. I mean,
everything that you encounter in the in the culture has
some element of this. And so when that gets reinforced
(06:13):
over and over and over again, uh, it could be
easy to develop a really awful perspective in which women
can be seen by some men as being more like
an object. We talk about the objectification of women. That
really does mean what we literally think of it to mean,
(06:35):
and you don't necessarily think of a woman as a person,
which is a terrible, terrible thing, And that means that
you can project upon that object things that that you
would never say to a person and feel you feel
free to say those things. Uh. The internet makes it
easier because it creates the sense of distance, so you
(06:57):
don't have that immediacy. You also have that sense of
anonymity that you can get from the internet, so you're
somewhat shielded from any sort of response from the person
that you are attacking. UM. And because there's a gender
imbalance with the number of men versus women active on
the internet, although that's you know, leveling out, you have
(07:20):
a built in uh support group really and it's a
terrible thing to call the support group, but it means
that because there are more men there than there are women,
there are potentially more people who feel the same way
you do or just don't care. So you get that
support system feeding that back in and it's really upsetting
and depressing. The nice thing is there are men and
(07:42):
women out there who are pointing this out, and so
I think that is our best hope of turning this around.
Do you think that that this is I mean, I
understand and totally agree that this is UM like the
kind of sexist throwing um and misogynistic comments that will
come up a lot online um are it's merely like
(08:02):
a new forum for a really old thing. But I
also wonder if um the it also is a reflection
of the gendered landscape of um the Internet, where it's
not just a numbers game but a thing of where
like you know, we hear a lot about how women
thriving like social media, whereas men tend to be more
(08:24):
active in like comment spaces, message boards like Reddit, places
like that, and kind of I don't know, does that
make sense? Yeah? I want there are communities out there
that are largely dominated by men. And again, if you
if you're in a community where no one is challenging
your point of view, then it really is almost the
(08:46):
same as them confirming your point of view, right, I mean? Well,
and that reminds me too of the who was the
huge um troll, the epic trol that was just unmasked
by the Adrian Chan story and Gawker right, right, I
know the story you're talking about violenta krez Um And
I was gonna ask like one of the hashtags that
(09:07):
he was infamous for and read it was hashtag rate bait,
And a lot of response that I read was from
some people saying like no, No, this is just you
don't get it. This is a joke. It was just
a joke. And to me, that reminds you what you're
saying that it's deflecting personal responsibility for the things that
you do. Uh. We see this all the time with
(09:28):
trollish behavior, and it's that's that's one of the main methods.
Another one is a logical fallacy called to cook reasoning.
That means you as well or you also so in
other words, Uh, it's deflecting by means by saying like, hey,
it's okay for me to do it, because look at
what's going on over here, and that's way worse that.
(09:48):
That's another way of deflection. For example. Uh, one of
the things, one of the stories I want to talk
about was the the Anita's Sarkasian story. She was, you know,
started up a kick Starter she was gonna do she
is doing a video series about uh, sexist tropes that
are in video games. Yeah, we cited her feminist frequency videos,
(10:10):
and so she launched this Kickstarter campaign to fund uh
this video series. She had a six thousand dollar campaign goal.
Within twenty four hours, she had made that goal. But
then there came this outpouring of awful, awful comments, particularly
on YouTube, which you know there there are a few
(10:31):
communities on the Internet that have a comment system that
has has filled with more vile comments than YouTube. There
are some like four Chan, but but YouTube, considering that
it's essentially the second largest search engine in the world,
that's pretty that's that's not great, right, So there were
(10:51):
all these comments that were coming out and uh, and
they were vicious and viciously attacking her. She had not
even shot a single video in this series yet, and
she was talking about examining this. There were people who
are feeling threatened by it. I assumed either that maybe
the hobby that they love they felt threatened and they
(11:12):
felt that they needed to strike back. And it completely
flabbergasted me when I when I started to read these comments,
I was looking through and I was getting angry, and
I was thinking, you know, I've I've had a lot
of experience with trolls. I know that they like to
push buttons and stuff, but this went well beyond that.
This was these were outright attacks, essentially, and and you know,
(11:34):
the threat of rape or other violence to me, that
is as serious or nearly as serious as the actual
violence itself. If nothing else, it's going to create this
sense of dread in the person that you are attacking,
and that is just it's so unacceptable as there are
(11:55):
no words for it, right and a lot of uh
women writers talk also about seaving emails with their personal
addresses and phone numbers published like we can find you,
and so a lot of them end up voicing opinions like, well,
you know, I kind of feel like this has a
chilling effect, like if if I'm going to face all
of this abuse simply for writing an article or writing
a blog post, maybe I should stay away from hot
(12:17):
button issues. It's and it's I mean that it's a
silencing tactic. And what's worse is you never know when
you're talking about the numbers game, when so many people
are attacking you, you never know there might be someone
among that throng who really does intend to carry out
on some sort of threat. The publishing of addresses. That's
nothing new. I mean, we've seen trolls or hackers or
(12:40):
whatever whatever term you want to use for people who
have employed these tactics. We've seen that in the past before.
But the combining that with the the no longer implicit
but explicit threats of violence and rape. That's new. That's
not something that I've seen before. And uh, and that
(13:02):
part I think is one of the one of the
elements that the Internet does make possible. Without the Internet,
without that anonymity, uh, and without that distance from the person,
I don't think that would be happening. I really hope
that wouldn't be happening. Yeah, I was gonna ask whether
or not because it seems like this, I mean, obviously
this kind of trolling behavior has been going on for
a long time, um, but it also seems like we're
(13:25):
hearing about it just now, like and it well, it
gets in the past like a year and a half
or so, like, it comes up a lot more frequently.
And it might be because, um, maybe more women are
just getting braver about stepping up and not being so
scared about feeding the trolls. There's also I think a
growing fear among a certain population of men that feel
(13:50):
a threat. And it's not necessarily something that even consciously
are aware of, but they feel threatened when you're talking
about especially when when views are being challenged, where you're
not thinking, oh, this is another person, You're not thinking
this is a person. You're thinking that's a woman, and
you're already started to distance you know, yourself from the
(14:10):
other person. I'm saying yourself, as as for all men,
since I am representing every single one all of them. Uh. Yeah,
So it's it's a combination of those things. Uh. I've
seen a lot of discussions about what do we do
about this and what are the best ways of of
treating this problem? Um, the to go back to that
(14:32):
whole uh, you know, the they you should just be
able to take a joke. Thing. One of the things
I've seen trolls say over and over again is once
everyone gets over these triggers, like, once these triggers don't
work on you, then our work is done. As if
it's their responsibility to somehow better the human race by
taking away our our our emotion, our sensitivity, our emotional
(14:57):
reactions are empathy. Uh. To me, that's like saying if
you don't uh, and if you aren't constantly vigilant and
also a martial arts expert, it's your own fault if
I walk down the street and punch you in the face.
That makes no sense to me. Yeah, women just become
desensitized certain direct rate threat and and so what I
(15:17):
would say is that the real solution to this problem
has nothing to do with technology. I mean, with technology,
you can do things like you can ban people, you
can you know, in certain forms, you can ignore certain
users so that way you just don't see what they
have to say. That doesn't solve the problem. The problem,
to me is a social and cultural problem that needs
to be addressed at the base level, where people, specifically men,
(15:42):
need to realize women are people. Women have valuable things
to say. They are intelligent, many of them are more
intelligent than you are. Probably accept that, and once you do,
maybe the world will actually be a better place. I
do get the feeling from reading some comments sometimes that
(16:05):
there are a lot of mail trolls or just male
comments out there who were like, this is my space,
what are you doing in my personal internet world? Yeah? Yeah,
like I said, it's it's it's a feeling, you know,
It's like they feel like they're being threatened. I have
met women who are incredibly accomplished in every every kind
(16:26):
of field I can imagine, including things like that that
are traditionally seen as very male centric activities like video games.
I mean, that's a good example because I covered video
games and I've met women who are legitimately badasses at
video games. They will wipe the floor with with professional gamers.
They are playing at a professional level. And yet time
(16:49):
and again a male gamer who might not even be
able to figure out how to open up a door
in a video game will claim they are not quote
unquote a real gamer. And as long as that kind
of attitude exists, that just tells me that this sort
of problem is going to be there. It may not
necessarily be as a visible as it currently is right now,
(17:09):
because we've had some very high profile examples in the
last year this SPEK two thousand twelve, but it's always
going to be there until as an entire culture in
society we come to terms with this and teach men
that women are people. And in a way, this could
(17:30):
be a good forum for it to happen, because it
seems like our tolerance for this kind of trolling is
um diminishing, and because of social media there is a
huge backlash. I mean the fact that I think that
the the Reddit troll violintacrez Um. I don't know. I
feel like if I say his name three times, like
(17:51):
something's gonna happen. Uh, Like, I think he ended up
like losing his job I r L in real life.
And but also really quick I wanted to ask before
we wrap things up, is that Yeah, we've been We've
been kind of focusing the conversation on like male troll
versus female Internet user. And I mean, I've seen plenty
(18:13):
of cyber bullying and cyber snarking from women online, and well,
we are not we are not blameless. Uh So do
you think though, um, And this might be hard to project,
but it seems like trolls are almost always portrayed or
assumed to be guys, Like, does it seem like this
behavior is definitely more No, Well, I think if you're
(18:37):
going by strictly numbers, it ends up being more guys.
I think, Uh, I think there are There are many
examples of women engaging in trollish behavior. The Megan Meyer
cases of as an example of that. It's a terrible,
tragic example of that, but it's one of those uh
stories that the illustrates that again, and it's it's more
(19:01):
of this human reaction of taking taking action against another person.
The Internet enables that, I mean, it gives us a
huge amount of power over other people, right, because not
only do we have the opportunity, and we have that anonymity, uh,
we can strike out in multiple ways against a target,
(19:21):
whether it's on social networks or publishing information that's private publicly,
or creating false reports about that person. Um. The Internet
gives us a lot of those chances. And it's not
just men who do it. I just think that there
are more men in that arena overall, and so we
see a lot more of it there. Also Again, uh,
(19:45):
we see certain types of trolling more from men than
from women. There's also plenty of examples of men attacking men,
women attacking women. I mean, it's it's it's not a
happy fun place all the time. That's not just say
that every place on the Internet is terrible. I don't
mean to give that it can be. It can be there,
(20:06):
and there are particular communities online where it's it's it's
worse than others. And I've seen this sort of bubble
up in communities that I had never even thought of
as being particularly problematic, For example, science and skeptic forums,
where you would think, all right, the people who belong
(20:28):
to those forums often think of themselves as being very
rational and critical thinkers. And yet when these situations come up,
when a woman says, I did not feel comfortable in
this situation because blah blah blah, you see the same
deflection and defensive behavior that you would from a troll,
which is very telling to me. That's saying that there's
(20:49):
this much deeper underlying problem. And it's not just people
who are actively trying to troll other folks. It's it's
you know, it's it's more of a base problem than that.
It's an offline problem just being manifested. Yes, it's probably
being a man you just don't understand. I mean, it's
sorry about being all up in your man world. Listen,
(21:13):
you know what, I'm just gonna stay off. The internet
makes sometimes and and I wish that I really wish
that more men seen could could have the start sort
of experience I've had where I've First of all, I
pursued a liberal arts education, which meant that I was
often in classes with women who were wicked smart. I mean,
(21:35):
they really knew their stuff and they kept me on
my toes. And then I come and work and how
stuff works. And we have so many brilliant women working
here that again, like I'm not the smartest person in
the room. I know that already. I'm a pretty bright guy,
don't get me wrong. But I know I'm not the
smartest part person in the room. And I know that
(21:56):
there are women here that are as capable, more capable,
smarter than I am. That's all, okay, if only we
could drive though, Oh yeah, it's it's the only problem,
of course, is your obsession with shoes. That's right. Yeah,
it takes up a lot of closet space. You're right, Well, Karline,
do you have any any other questions about trolling in gender,
(22:19):
because I think, I mean, it's a great point, like it.
It really sounds like this. It's a it's a sad
reflection of where we still are. I mean, I think
I think such a big issue is the anonymity and
that it lets people with psychopathic tendencies just sort of
run wild with their complete lack of empathy, et cetera,
um and just take it out on people who they
(22:40):
perceive as not belonging to their club. Well, do you
have for any listeners out there though, who might be
dealing with trolling behavior? Do you have any, um, any
quick tips to close this out on how you silence
a troll. Aside from just silencing yourself, ignoring trolls is
a is a good star because the general rule is
(23:02):
the more you more you try to engage with the troll,
the more that feeds into that trollish behavior, particularly if
we're talking traditional trolls. I mean, that's their whole goal
is to get it. It's it's to get you riled
up an upset, and the more you get riled up
an upset and engage them, the more they win. So
you don't feed the trolls. That's rule number one. But
(23:22):
also just do some searches. Be aware that there are
people out there who are not only aware of the problem,
that are trying to fight the problem. There are advocates
out there who are telling everyone men and women alike,
you know, the key to this is educating ourselves and
getting beyond this mindset. Uh. Jay Smooth has an amazing
(23:43):
video where he addresses the male audience and says, guys,
for those of you out here who agree with me,
who are saying that this is a terrible thing, it's
time for you to tell other men that it's the
wrong thing. We're not defending women. Women can defend themselves.
We're just telling the men, you're a jerk. You know,
you gotta you gotta wake up and realize that this
(24:03):
is not okay and this is not what being a
man is all about. And I thought that that was
a great message because again, he wasn't saying, oh, well,
we gotta sweep in and rescue the women from this.
That wasn't his point. His point was, No, it's just
unacceptable behavior on the part of men. That's what we
need to fix. And I think that's the best message
out there. I think that's I think that's a great
(24:24):
message to end on too. Yeah, And I mean, obviously
we could talk about this for hours, but I guess
we should ask for our listeners now, Yeah, for their
own stories. Have you dealt with trolls? Are you a troll? No,
that's no, we don't want to talk to the trolls.
We're not going to pay you a troll. Troll. Maybe
you're a reformed troll. Maybe you learn from the errors
of your ways. Yeah, right to us. So Mom's stuff
(24:48):
at Discovery dot com and you can always head over
to you our Facebook page as well. But before we
get to our letters, you guessed it it's time forward
from our sponsor, and this episode of stuff Mom Never
Told You was brought to you by Jack Threads. That's right,
this is an ad from Jack Threads. They brought us
(25:09):
today's episode of stuff Mom Never Told You. Head on
ever to Jack Threads dot com splash mom, where everything
on the site is up to off. They have brands
like Converse, Penguin, Ben Sherman, Busted Teeth. So outfit the
men in your life with all of this fancy skater
apparel because full price is for suckers. Again, that's Jack
(25:31):
Threads dot com slash Mom. And now here's some letters.
We got a couple of letters here, um about our
episode on having sex during pregnancy. Jonathan is now, uh
looking a little more uncomfortable. No, okay, this is a
(25:51):
good one, all right, Um, I mean they're all all
of our letters are good letters. Um. So this one, Oh,
I asked a question about because we were talking about
how uh pregnant sea fetishes and a lot of the
stuff was talking about how men are attracted to pregnant women,
and I was like, well, what about uh if you
are a lesbian? And guess what we have an answer?
(26:12):
So I was listening to your latest podcast is from
Amanda and Carmen. I was listening to your latest podcast
on sex during pregnancy this morning and realized I finally
had a reason to write you for reals. H She says,
I have a bizarre case of t M I regarding
lesbians attracted to pregnant women. I'm in a same sex
relationship with a lesbian and I've discovered that my girlfriend
(26:33):
has an intense attraction to pregnant women. And this is
in her girlfriend's own words or explanation. I like that
there is literally a glow to pregnant women. I like
that each step they take is so elegant because they're
careful of each step in movement. I really like looking
at people's hands, and pregnant women touch their own bellies
in a way that makes me want to touch them too.
There's so much love exuding from them and boobs. So
(26:57):
there you go, pregnant sea attraction from a lesbian's perspective,
she says, I pointed on being with her forever, and
I don't necessarily think I want children all. It's not lost. However,
one of my major menstrual boken. Wow, that was a
very sweet letter. Yes, all right, so we will look
(27:19):
like full busted, loving ladies with a glow. Yeah, pregnancy.
I'm just I'm amazed I wasn't the one blushing. No, yeah,
I've got a little pink and the chewks. All right. Well,
this one's from Alison. She has her own experience to share.
She says, I have two children, and in the first
trimester of both of my pregnancies, I felt the same
(27:42):
nauseous gassie, gagging in any strong odor, hungry but disgusted
by most foods, and exhausted to a point I never
thought possible. I couldn't even be in the same room
with my husband after we drank a beer from the
alcohol odor on his breath, so there was no way
I wanted to kis him or even be close to him.
My labita did improve later in my pregnancy, and with
my second pregnancy, I could hardly get enough sex, much
(28:02):
to my husband's delight. That said, having sex while there's
a growing baby inside your body wiggling around can be
a bit strange and off putting. There were even times
when sex was downright uncomfortable, such as when I experienced
round ligament pain, and by the very end of both pregnancies,
I could barely roll over in bed, making any type
of sexual activity logistically challenging and tiring. She says that
(28:25):
I was interested to hear in your podcast that men
tend to be more attracted to pregnant women. I remember
near the end of my pregnancies, I got a lot
more attention from men. At the time, I couldn't fathom
that they could be attracted to me, since I felt
like a bloated whale. But it turns out my presence
may have triggered some primal male instinct. Maybe it isn't
it ironic then that women get super hot when uh
(28:47):
they're probably not single? Yeah, maybe they are. I don't know.
I have a friend who said that if he sees
a pregnant woman out, he was so attractive to pregnant women.
If you were to see one out without a wedding ring,
he would totally hit on her. So they're pregnant. Pregnant listeners,
listen up. Uh, So that's all we've got for you, Um, Jonathan,
(29:07):
thank you so much for being our our guest today
and being our man. Thank you, thank you. I I
am this is not a joke. I'm truly honored to
have been the first male guest on this show. Guests, Yeah,
I didn't realize until after I invited Jonathan on and
I was like, oh my gosh, our first guy. We've
been talking about this. It's fair. A lot of a
(29:28):
lot of people look at me and they don't first
think man, the first thing bald, Yes you have a
beard though, that's true. I do have one of those.
All right. Well, thanks to everybody for listening. Again. You
can find us on Facebook, follow us on Twitter at
Mom Stuff Podcast. You can also follow us on Tumbler
(29:48):
at stuff mom Never Told You dot tumbler dot com.
And if you want to learn more about trolls, I
highly recommend reading Jonathan's article how Trolls Work at how
stuff works dot com. For more on this and thousands
of other topics, visit how stuff works dot com. H
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