Trolls: Confessions of a Woman on Twitter

When I was a little kid, my dad used to tell me stories about trolls. He told me they lived under bridges, usually when we were at the playground and he was pretending to "get" me. He used to drive with one of those plastic troll dolls sitting on his steering wheel, "talking" to me and my brother and sister on the way to school about lunch and recess and troll stuff.

Now I'm older. And now I know that trolls are all too real.

Last night, on Twitter, I quoted a fairly innocuous tweet from Cosmopolitan, of all places:

You'll notice I didn't hashtag anything. I didn't tag anyone. I was just scrolling through Twitter on a Tuesday night, relaxing before bed, thinking about how I might introduce myself to my new students the next day.

I won't deny sizeism and thin privilege have always been interests of mine. I minored in Gender Studies and took a number of gender and sexuality studies courses during my MA program. I'm especially interested in the ways Western culture sexualizes, constructs, hides, and displays fat bodies, especially women's. I suspect this is partly because my own siblings and I vary wildly in weight, height, and even skin tones despite the fact that we were born of the same parents. I find it incredibly interesting that genetics should work one way while culture dictates different responses based largely on arbitrary categories. Fat studies isn't my major field of interest, but I do find the conversation interesting, nonetheless.

But apparently, being a woman with an opinion is absolutely not allowed.

I woke up the next day, went to work, met some of my fantastic new students, and generally felt happy about the outlook of the semester. And then, around lunchtime, as I was contemplating what to fix, my phone began pinging out of control. My Twitter notifications were going off, and I thought l, "Surely no one is this interested in my tweet about waking up early. I mean, really." And I was right. No one was interested in that tweet. What I did get was a barrage of hateful responses to a tweet I had already forgotten about.

The onslaught began when this Milo Yiannopoulous-wannabe quoted my tweet:

Let's ignore for the moment that this person had to search nearly 15 HOURS worth of tweets to find mine and quote it. Fine. Whatever. He has no life. Let's instead focus on the fact that, instead of engaging me in any kind of meaningful dialogue about an opinion he obviously doesn't agree with, he chose to call me fat and jealous. And let me point out that I mentioned nothing about being fat myself in my own tweet; I referred, instead, to a culture in which fat-bodied people are maligned by the medical and fashion communities for being annoying, troublesome, and unwilling to fit the "norm."

Now, I probably shouldn't have responded. I know how trolls work. I know the pathology. Rile em up and "trigger" em. Make them look crazy. Gaslight them. But my own pain and hurt got the better of me. So I said:

(That typo will haunt me for the rest of my life.)

And I thought that would be the end of things. Apparently, though, by a quick look at my face and hair, this user could tell I was fat, ugly, and too disgusting to warrant basic human decency. And his was followed by a nearly constant, hour long stream of abusive tweets:

And then this one, perhaps the worst of all:

Yes. Hideous. Like a fucking monster.

And I have to wonder why. Because I dared to have an opinion? Because I'm a woman who dared to have an opinion? Because I'm not thin-bodied but I still have things to say?

But wait a second. This is MY Twitter feed. And even though it is public, I expect to post without incurring the wrath of (mostly male) trolls who feel the need to comment on my appearance and intelligence because they don't agree with my opinion. And most importantly, I didn't seek out an argument. These trolls found me. And they assumed, like all bigots do, that I'm a caricature of a human being - a slovenly liberal fatty, sitting around my apartment in my jelly-stained shirt, gorging on donuts and burgers.

Well, here's some things you missed, Twitter trolls:

1. I home cook nearly all of my meals. I consciously plan meals which incorporate all the food groups so as to consume all my daily nutrients. I generally try to follow a high protein, low-fat diet.

2. I listen to true crime podcasts (s/o to My Favorite Murder) and creep myself out.

3. I rescued a dog a year ago that I walk up and down the hills of my mountain town, so we can BOTH get exercise.

4. My favorite snack is pecans. Donuts are pretty dope, but the sugar makes my head hurt after awhile.

5. I like to watch crime dramas and documentaries. (And not always the good ones. Like shitty History channel ones.)

6. I have two more pets for whom I would literally gnaw off my own arm if need be.

7. I take vitamins everyday to ensure that my body is healthy, especially my boss red curls.

8. I love sports, especially football. I religiously watch the Saints play, even when they lose. (Which is often.)

9. I hand-make wreaths because I'm fucking talented.

10. I'm in a PhD program because I'm smart. I'm incredibly close to my family. I have friends that love me who I love in return. I have a favorite song and a favorite book and a favorite movie. You see, Twitter trolls, I'm a person. A real person. And when you say these things - these horrible, insensitive things - you say them to a person with feelings, with memories, with morals, with highs and lows and the capacity to really, truly be wounded by your words.

See, you, Twitter trolls, you are bullies, and this is what bullies do. You needle a person, hone in on one thing, the thing which they are the most insecure about, and you exploit it until that person is a shell of their former glory. And you'll keep doing it. I know - I watched, fairly helpless, as you moved on to harass a black woman who felt confident enough to post a picture of herself in a bathing suit and revel in her own body. And I'm sure you think you won something.

But not this time, babies.

Because I'm glorious. And you may think I'm fat. That's fine. But I'm not any less FUCKING GLORIOUS.

So, suck on them apples, bitches.

All original content copyright Kimberly Turner, 2016-2016.