Ring in the holiday season with this thoughtful rumination on Trolls by Such a Crock‘s Katherine & Michael Flores. Trolls are a crock!
These are the Trolls of Our Lives
The Christmas Eve Crockcast kicks off with an informative bang as Michael explains Troll definitions. He also touches on the topic of patent trolls. Turns out trolls come in all sizes, shapes, and costs! Katherine then shares a bit about Instagram trolling and they ruminate on the many types of trolls we all encounter in daily life.
Reasons Trolls be Trollin’
Michael draws from the Tony Robbins playbook to examine why people choose to spend their precious time trolling. There are so many other fun and thrilling ways to roll through life! Why waste a moment on spewing negative nastiness? Well, people are complex and have lots of needs. Troll activities satisfy some of these emotional necessities for those of us without enough resources.
He breaks this down for us using Mr. Robbins’ Ted Talk monologue as a model of explaining. It’s not really so hard to understand. Nor is it as simple as Katherine’s dismissive suggestion, “They just want attention” or the popular notion that trolls are just plain ol’ crankpots. Thus, Michael helps us understand the emptiness trolls experience.
Real Life Troll Kills Hollywood Dreams
Katherine accesses her deep reservoir of documentary-watching to unearth this tale of real life trolling in the film industry. Shirkers is a blast to watch. It’s the story of Sandi Tan, teen, dreamer, and brilliant film creator.
Ms. Tan’s documentary tells the story of how a mentor trolled her more than twenty years ago. First he pumped her up, calling her a genius and encouraging her daily – only to then steal her dreams. It’s a riveting tale of Shirkers: a brilliant movie that never was. Katherine recommends you check it out on Netflix if you’re interested in cool ass stories of real life trollin’.
Tips for Dealing with Trolls
Michael then shares ten tips for handling trolls. Some are better than others. Either way will Katherine take these bits of advice about how to manage trolls online? It turned out only a few of the ten tips were actually useful. She’ll use what works for her and leave the rest on the podcast for posterity.
Truth is, some of these tips were downright wretched advice. That’s because sometimes ideas seem just dandy in theory but when put into practice play out in a less-than-helpful manner. An example of a terrible tip from the list is “fight back with facts”. Both Michael and Katherine agree that this is the most horrendous type of advice – the kind that makes things worse rather than better.
Alice Walker: Activist, Writer, and Certified Troll
They say never to meet your heroes and, in fact, they’re 100% correct. That’s because you’ll most certainly end up disappointed… Just like how Katherine felt when she read the NY Times column By the Book on December 13th.
The column blasts her admiration for Alice Walker into smithereens. This writer, activist, and former hero uses the platform to shine a spotlight on an anti-semite conspiracy theorist. The British pariah Walker promotes spouts propaganda including lizard people and other Alex Jones craziness. It’s a mad mad world after all.
New Addition – Good News!
Then Katherine lifts us back up from these conspiracy doldrums with a bit of good news about bees. Checkout this NY Times article on the latest innovation scientists have concocted for saving the bees. It’s a vaccine! They just inject the Queen and she breeds in her special way to vaccinate the entire bee brood. Isn’t good news a refreshing breeze? Indeed, a welcome mist of positivity, even when it’s full of bees
Merci Beaucoup to you and you and you
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