Got trolled?
It happens to the best of us. It’s important to know that if someone is attacking you online, most likely they’re a miserable person just trying to get by. I mean, who else dedicates the time to seek out people online just so that they can make them feel bad?
The best thing that you can do in the event that you are trolled is to simply ignore it. If you must engage, use memes asking “who hurt you?” or post clever GIFs with trolls in them. Personally, if they are military affiliated, I may even recommend that they reach out to Military One Source for counseling and mental health services, but unless you have extremely thick skin, you should never attempt to troll a troll.
Another way that you can handle a troll is to report them for using a fake name if the site you’re using does not allow them, such as Facebook. Doing so will trigger Facebook to review their account and possibly lock them out of their own profile temporarily – to get back access, they will often have to upload a photo of their ID with their name on it, which those using fake names to create a personal account will not have.
Even more importantly, never take anything that they say to you to heart. Remember that they’re living in a world with a void so large that it is causing them to be so insecure that they feel it’s necessary to go online and say hurtful things to people they don’t even know.
How do I know? I used to be there.
