Dear trolls,
you keep leaving comments that are aimed at hurting my feelings. The problem is that you go about it in such a plodding, unimaginative way that you never achieve anything. I’m in a very good mood today, which is why I will share with you why your strategy is not working and how you could change it to be more productive in your labor.
Emotions always have an internal locus of control, which is why the source of every hurt and pain is always inside oneself. I know this is too complicated for you, trolls, so I will translate it for you. You can only hurt a person’s feelings by calling them a certain thing if that person has actively chosen to see that thing as hurtful. I understand that when you are dealing with a complete stranger, you project your own terrors onto him or her. But this is always a mistake because you are bound to meet somebody who is simply indifferent to all of the things that make you suffer.
This is why telling me that I’m:
a) ugly;
b) fat;
c) a Jew;
d) an autistic;
e) a typical academic;
f) old;
g) childless;
h) have bad hair;
i) an immigrant;
j) have no friends
serves no useful purpose for you. I don’t choose to invest these qualifiers with a negative meaning, which is why they cannot hurt my feelings. If you really want to hit me where it hurts, I have a freebie suggestion for you: remind me that I had an article rejected for publication in October. I still haven’t found a way to avoid feeling hurt by such things and I consider it a huge personal failing of mine that I feel this way about a normal part of an academic’s life.
Good luck in your trolling endeavors!
Clarissa's Blog 
Those people who call you that are just lonely people with nothing else to do. Keep up the good work and don’t bother to care about what they say.
Love.
Diana.
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Thank you for the kind words, Diana!
Today is a very feel-good day on the blog. Is it the holidays?
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You’re welcome..
Maybe..:D..Holidays always make people feel better.
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I don’t get a lot of trolling (yet) — the comments that I trash usually read:
“Thank you very much for this amazing post ! I enjoy the content that you describe excellently ! Additional information may enhance the option with regards to [huge link to some porn/viagra/online gaming site]”
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I hate when they do that :)). Everybody has that kind of spam.
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“h) have bad hair;”
What is this crap? Your hair is awesome.
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Thank you, I know. This is why I find this line of attack so hilarious.
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hi Clarissa — I enjoy your blog immensely, though I don’t believe I’ve ever commented. I would like to add here that your trolls’ comments are ridiculous, and not only do I think you’re intelligent and humorous, but your hair is awesome, as Helena said!
I’m curious, how do you take care of your hair? I think here in America we women shampoo too often, and I’ve heard that overseas, women have different hair-care habits with great results. I know this is not your usual blog topic, but if you’re inclined to share your knowledge of other culture’s grooming, I for one am interested. thanks!
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Thank you for commenting, Liz! Per your request, I will gladly write about hair care. 🙂
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What happened to…
k)
l)
m)
n)
o)
p)
q)
r)
s)
t)
u)
v)
w)
x)
y)
and
z)
🙂
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I’m so tired I barely remembered this part of the alphabet. 🙂 Maybe I’ll manage the rest later on. 🙂
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The projection about being concerned about oneself or having no friends seems very common in troll land.
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It IS a total projection, right? 🙂 This is what makes it so hilarious.
Poor little freaks.
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Yeah, it is actually totally projection. I used to wonder if there was something really wrong with my mode of communication — that I was conveying something that had a different meaning in the dominant mode of culture to the one I was brought up in. Sometimes, I still wonder about that. I had some trolls on my tail for a long while, who were drawing all sorts of weird conclusions about me. And then I suddenly had my epiphany that I was using intellectual language that went way over their heads and in their ignorance, they were basically resorting to reading me as a Rorschach blot. In other words, it was pure projection on their part.
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And it’s so delightful to see their silly little brains spin and spin trying to decipher the long 3-syllable words one is using. 🙂 They are so cute.
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Yes. Many of them like to imagine that their brains are necessarily superior to mine, since male. This inevitably leads to all sorts of difficulties in communication as their high school level of education attempts to stoop to “understand” me.
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