Trolls

Trolls.  Not the kind featuring in the likes of The Hobbit who turn to stone when the first rays of sunlight hit them, but the human variety.

The type of people who prey on the weak, who delight in the misery of others and court controversy. 

We have all heard many stories about trolls before, from stalking celebrities to posting comments on RIP sites that would sicken you to read them.  Over the last 48 hours the troll "in thing" appears to be announcing that certain people have died. 

I have seen in the last couple of days death announcements, supposedly from the Twitter feeds of well known newspapers, that Matt Smith died of a heart attack in his flat, Margaret Thatcher has died and finally yesterday, that Prince Philip had died after his arrival in hospital.

I personally don't believe that any "trolling" activity is right.  I know someone who loves nothing more than to write on someone's status on Facebook or Google+ with something rude, purely to get the respondent to "bite".  They don't see that as a wrong thing to do.  I see them as baby trolls.

I have found though that you can get your trolls on their own, and then you can get "trolls united".  A mass of people, who for one reason or another like to ridicule others, who all send messages to the same person or site of a nasty and derogatory nature.

This was the case with a blog I read recently with a 17 year old who has a fascination for Formula One and likes to write about it.  Being an aspiring journalist he has created a website for his work.  I certainly couldn't have done anything like that at 17 and I admire his confidence, his work ethic and his will to succeed. 

He was unfortunately a target for a mass troll attack over the last day or so with people critising his writing, his website, himself as a person.....  This person is someone in college who is making something of himself and planning a career.  He wasn't sat around doing nothing and expecting the world to do things for him.

The majority were just regular people who had seemingly jumped on the band wagon of hate.  These people have normal lives with family, friends and social lives except once in a while, they seem to enjoy making nasty comments.  That doesn't make them normal, that makes them trolls.

In the end, I think what we all need to do is ignore them.  In the case of Twitter we have the ability to ignore, report and block.  In other mediums they can be reported or ignored. 

Whilst the human trolls don't turn into stone, maybe if we don't feed them by "biting back" at their jibes, they may wither away and go back to their own, let's face it, very sad and probably lonely lives.

Bat Shit Crazy

I think “My Way” may be the song that will forever describe my life.  I don’t do anything the way you are supposed to do it.  Things sometimes would be much easier if I did.

 

When I decide I want to do something, my tendency is to go with the snap decision.  There has been so many this year.  From stopping smoking without any aids or assistance, to deciding to start a degree and practically applying on the spot. 

My pet project this year appears to be working on myself.  This wasn’t intentional.  It’s just worked out that way.  I’ve done the quitting smoking, I’m broadening my horizons by starting the degree, now it’s time for the hardest one of all however, confidence.

Confidence is a strange creature.  When you don’t have any at all, you don’t really realise it.  Either that or you are in denial.  But when you gain confidence in certain areas of your life, the areas that don’t have it are suddenly blatantly obvious.

 

I have found my voice over the past couple of years.  I was, for some unknown reason, unable to give my opinion before and was always the quiet one in the conversation.  Whilst I am still shy when you meet me, I’m not afraid to have an opinion now and say what I think, controversial or no.  I have being on Twitter to thank for that and also this blog, as being the vehicle that helped me find my voice.

I have a theory.  I think confidence is catching.  Because the part of me that is now confident in what I think is now looking over at the other part, the part that has no self confidence at all, and it’s laughing at me.

Some of the things I do and have done over the years as a result of my lack of confidence I am now slowly finding absolutely hilarious.  Also a bit sad.  There are a top two of stupid things that my “You’re not good enough” feeling has caused me to do.

 

Idiot thing number one – multiple times offender

Consciously moving away from a date if we are out in a public place and his friends approach us.  Thought process: I don’t want him to be embarrassed.

Idiot thing number two – every bloody day

Seeing a group of people, men, women, teenagers, whatever and moving to the other side of the road.

Thought process: please don’t laugh at me

 

The confident part of me has highlighted these traits to me.  I honestly didn’t realise I was doing them before and I now I do realise, I will admit, I am bat shit crazy.  Reading what I have just written confirms it.
 

Why in the world have I spent 33 years of my life thinking I’m not good enough?  Sure, I’ll never be as beautiful as Keira Knightley and I’ll never be skinny, but I’m not the hunchback of Notre Dame either. 
 

Looks out that looking inward at yourself isn’t a bad thing.  You may discover that you are (in my case) bloody mad, but you may also discover that you are not as bad as you think you are.  So the achievement list this year reads:

 

1.     Stopped smoking.

2.    Started a degree.

3.    Realised I’m not an ogre.

4.    Realised I’m off my rocker ;)

A Good Ending

I watched the majority of the closing ceremony of the Olympics last night and whilst I was disappointed in it, I was also glad about that.

This sounds a funny thing to say I know.  Why on earth would I be glad that the closing ceremony wasn't anywhere near as good as was expected?

The answer to that question is that for me, the bad ending restored the balance of things.  I'm British.  We never expect everything to go well and, in my case at least, I don't trust something when every component goes exactly the way that it should.

I went into this Olympics I suspect much like many others in the British Isles.  Sceptical, wary and praying to hell that we wouldn't show ourselves up.

What happened in fact was that the opening ceremony was more than I could have ever expected it to be.  The games were carried out well and with decorum from the majority.  All of our athletes did us proud and we won more medals than we had ever expected.

Pride has been restored to the country and we experienced that wonderful "joining together" that us Brits are famous for doing, but so rarely do.

If the closing ceremony had in fact been just as good, I have a feeling that in time, we would have all have forgotten just how wonderful these two weeks have been.  Do you know why?  Because we wouldn't have trusted our memories.  Being the cynical creatures that most of us are, I believe that in a few months the memories would have been clouded.

Now though, we have our badly ending ceremony that will let us keep our memories the way we remember them now.  We can keep those glorious two weeks of celebration, hope and joining together.  They will stay in our memories now, because everything wasn't perfect.  Nothing that is really really good ever is.

 

It will probably sound strange to those of foreign climes, it may even sound strange to people from Great Britain, this thinking may just be may own.  But hey, it's my blog with my own thoughts.