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| comment | | "parent_author":"",<br>"parent_permlink":"life",<br>"author":"srinijaani",<br>"permlink":"when-a-troll-dies",<br>"title":"When a Troll Dies\u2026",<br>"body":"![AAEAAQAAAAAAAApPAAAAJDY2ODQyMDFhLTA3OGUtNDA2Mi1iNjFjLTVlMTI1MjcyMjNlMg.jpg (https:\/\/steemitimages.com\/DQmbHKmbaRdzYENjgqMcf66t24pucj8wKW7NjaypaNJQifJ\/AAEAAQAAAAAAAApPAAAAJDY2ODQyMDFhLTA3OGUtNDA2Mi1iNjFjLTVlMTI1MjcyMjNlMg.jpg)\nRecently,<br> someone known to me digitally,<br> a committed troll dedicated to taking down rivals on Twitter,<br> Facebook and beyond,<br> died. I mean,<br> he died as a troll and,<br> is living happily; with more time for his family,<br> career,<br> reading,<br> fitness,<br> friends and other nice things of life. Only his troll avatar died.\n\nHe now refuses to follow or read comments of people he hates and dislikes,<br> has unfollowed them completely. He has also unfollowed all the fellow trolls of his shared political hue.![AAEAAQAAAAAAAAvfAAAAJDFhYzIyMDMyLWFmNWItNGZkNS1hYTE1LWMzY2E0ZmE3MGQwOQ.jpg (https:\/\/steemitimages.com\/DQmQdna9VP8sx77h1m7rQALsvVzwvR3vqJNEYPQbtmwDH82\/AAEAAQAAAAAAAAvfAAAAJDFhYzIyMDMyLWFmNWItNGZkNS1hYTE1LWMzY2E0ZmE3MGQwOQ.jpg)\nAs a troll,<br> he had a reasonably good life,<br> or career,<br> or whatever they make out of it. He initially took to writing critical comments against articles and reports in early news websites like Rediff.com. He changed,<br> without quite realising the transformation,<br> into abusing the authors of pieces he agreed with,<br> questioning their motives,<br> then their identity,<br> and finally their nationalism,<br> or intelligence.\n\nSuddenly,<br> with the arrival of social media,<br> life took a new meaning. He felt empowered,<br> both anonymous to be accountable,<br> and connected to a large community of fellow haters. He found it easy to make labels for who those disagreed,<br> and felt a brotherhood with those who hurled the same abuses.\n![AAEAAQAAAAAAAAtoAAAAJGIwYmI5YWRjLTAxNDUtNGRiYS05ZDI2LWMxZGVmODE4MjFkZg.jpg (https:\/\/steemitimages.com\/DQmdMGzwQ48LkNrS9haAWAnR9ZR4BwvPDNUpdU58GvitQkJ\/AAEAAQAAAAAAAAtoAAAAJGIwYmI5YWRjLTAxNDUtNGRiYS05ZDI2LWMxZGVmODE4MjFkZg.jpg)\nHe never realised that as he began doing more online time on mobile phones,<br> with the rise in the smartness of his gadget,<br> he was becoming dumber. He completely forgot to respectfully disagree; or debate calmly. Ideas and arguments became irrelevant,<br> facts lost their relevance,<br> and truth its reverence \u2013 life was organised into two camps \u2013 us and them. 'Us',<br> of course,<br> is the good guys,<br> for the moral,<br> the correct,<br> the profound,<br> and 'they' were *&^%@#.\n\nIndeed,<br> life was becoming like that for a large section of people across the world. Smear facts,<br> attack opponents and abuse them,<br> accuse them of motives,<br> and threaten them. He,<br> and his likes have several identities \u2013 bhakts,<br> aaptards,<br> libtards \u2013 but across such divides,<br> they were all trolls. He would weak up,<br> like all of them trolls,<br> to check their phones and get started on the diatribe of habit,<br> hatred becoming larger part of their life\u2019s purpose,<br> overshadowing everything else. The only happiness he would experience was schadenfreude; when he or another of his ilk gave it back real good to them.\n![AAEAAQAAAAAAAAyCAAAAJGEzYmU0NWQ5LWFiZWItNDcwOS04MWRkLTIzZTRmMWUzMWE1YQ.jpg (https:\/\/steemitimages.com\/DQmSQ2jfT2cT9D7ygGJVc7cSdXhiaVeYxrkdxxfUUgaYoYM\/AAEAAQAAAAAAAAyCAAAAJGEzYmU0NWQ5LWFiZWItNDcwOS04MWRkLTIzZTRmMWUzMWE1YQ.jpg)\nLike his birth,<br> his death will be a mystery to me. Suddenly,<br> some moment of epiphany,<br> when he saw our world,<br> and his life,<br> as being beyond politics,<br> or an inevitable ideological clash all the time. He found life. He found possibilities,<br> and even beauty,<br> in disagreement. He began respecting dissent. He began to appreciate,<br> and respect,<br> those who nether were,<br> nor thought,<br> like him. He began to notice,<br> and enjoy,<br> things which were not trending,<br> or ideas which weren\u2019t hashtags.\n\nEvery #troll,<br> it must have dawned on him,<br> was a human being once. And yet,<br> every human being faces the risk of metamorphosing into a troll. And in his death,<br> trolldom lost a peg; while humanity saved one of our own back.\n\nAnd that is what happens when a troll dies. Alone. Undeclared,<br> unnoticed,<br> soft,<br> silent; we gain one back.\n\nTAIL-END: One will continue to ponder if media,<br> the intrusively loud TRP-seeking electronic media or the screaming tabloids set up the social media in their image,<br> or if social media became its own monster,<br> and created such a complex for the conventional media,<br> that is respectfully morphed into resembling the troll-filled social?",<br>"json_metadata":" \"tags\":[\"life\",<br>\"troll\",<br>\"internet\",<br>\"funny\" ,<br>\"image\":[\"https:\/\/steemitimages.com\/DQmbHKmbaRdzYENjgqMcf66t24pucj8wKW7NjaypaNJQifJ\/AAEAAQAAAAAAAApPAAAAJDY2ODQyMDFhLTA3OGUtNDA2Mi1iNjFjLTVlMTI1MjcyMjNlMg.jpg\",<br>\"https:\/\/steemitimages.com\/DQmQdna9VP8sx77h1m7rQALsvVzwvR3vqJNEYPQbtmwDH82\/AAEAAQAAAAAAAAvfAAAAJDFhYzIyMDMyLWFmNWItNGZkNS1hYTE1LWMzY2E0ZmE3MGQwOQ.jpg\",<br>\"https:\/\/steemitimages.com\/DQmdMGzwQ48LkNrS9haAWAnR9ZR4BwvPDNUpdU58GvitQkJ\/AAEAAQAAAAAAAAtoAAAAJGIwYmI5YWRjLTAxNDUtNGRiYS05ZDI2LWMxZGVmODE4MjFkZg.jpg\",<br>\"https:\/\/steemitimages.com\/DQmSQ2jfT2cT9D7ygGJVc7cSdXhiaVeYxrkdxxfUUgaYoYM\/AAEAAQAAAAAAAAyCAAAAJGEzYmU0NWQ5LWFiZWItNDcwOS04MWRkLTIzZTRmMWUzMWE1YQ.jpg\" ,<br>\"app\":\"steemit\/0.1\",<br>\"format\":\"markdown\" " | | vote | "voter":"srinijaani",
"author":"srinijaani",
"permlink":"when-a-troll-dies",
"weight":10000 |
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