Being a writer and podcaster is good and bad. I have talked at length about both of these things. And I am not here to talk about my personal experience with people who comment either nice or not so nice about my brother and I on the internet. We already did an entire podcast on that. Today I want to talk about people who troll on websites like Facebook and Bleacher Report and Instagram.

This has become a real problem. There are things said online, behind a screen name with no picture, that is so putrid, I do not even want to repeat it. There are some people that are so filled with hate and vitriol and anger and they just spew it on the internet for everyone to see. This obviously happens in politics all the time. I am a very liberal democrat, and I follow people like the Obama's and Joe Biden and Kamala Harris and some local Democrats in Saint Louis, and some of the comments on their pages are heinous. These pages are supposed to be for people who actually like them, but you always end up with these trolls saying horrific things to them on their pages. It is so vile, and I always find myself thinking, why are you doing this? What good comes from this? You know they do not read these comments? It is so baffling to me. I used to comment on stuff, until I realized that it was fraught and pointless. It helps no one except the person making the comment, and they are usually so full of anger that one comment, or one thread, is not enough. They go on endlessly. If you don't agree with Biden and Harris, that is fine. But to make vile and insipid comments, that is childish and dangerous. And to do it online for the world to see, that is downright stupid.

Sadly I see the same thing going on with fan pages of sports teams I like. I am a humongous Michigan Wolverines fan, and I swear the people who comment most are fans of other teams. I ask again, what is the point? Why waste your time going on a Michigan page just to trash them? The university of Ohio State fans that do this. I have said many times that they are better at football than Michigan. That is a simple fact. But to go on a fan page, where almost everyone is a die hard, and write stupid things like "it has been x amount of days since Michigan beat us in football", why are you doing that? We all know it has been a long time. Hell, my wife knows it has been a long time, and she could care less. And to go on the page and constantly trash Jim Harbaugh, why? People at ESPN and Sports Illustrated and even Michigan's own websites do this enough as it is. I don't need to hear from some jackass in Columbus telling me the coach of my favorite football team hasn't lived up to the hype. I watch it every season. I'm aware, as are most normal Michigan fans. But we don't go on the university of Ohio State's web page and trash their basketball team, or their former coaches for illegally recruiting. It is a waste of our time.

I also see this trolling on movie pages. Why do people have to go and trash movies? What good does that do? I know not everyone is going to like the movies I like, but why say such hateful things to me for liking a movie like "Judas and the Black Messiah"? Someone who I have never met, who I have no interest in ever meeting, came at me online for liking that particular movie. They said some very nasty and tasteless and hurtful stuff. It was wild. I do not respond to these people, but that stuff does sting. And I do want to ask this person, why are you doing this? What good is going to come from this? How does it feel to trash a person you have never met, and never will meet? But I know this is a fruitless line of questioning. This person, and these other trolls, they will always think they are right because they are louder than me, or they can type in all caps.

This sucks. I lost a very good friend a few years back because I tried to communicate through social media, but they went too far. I know this all goes nowhere. I just wanted to point out how ridiculous and pointless this trolling is. It solves nothing. It makes people angry over nothing and it is cowardly and childish. Think before you type. Treat people the way you'd like to be treated if you met in real life. And stop trolling online. This internet madness has got to stop.

Ty

Ty is the Pop Culture editor for SeedSing and the other host of the X Millennial Man Podcast.

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