I don’t understand some people’s need to conquer the internet. There are over 8 billion people in the world. I don’t know how many of them have access to the internet, but I’m guessing it’s a lot. And yet there are people who have this need to challenge and “correct” every post, comment or article with which they disagree. 

I used to follow several different websites on a variety of subjects ranging from music to politics to religion. Some posted some very well written and thought provoking articles that friends and I would share, discuss, and debate. And then one day these websites started allowing comments, which soon degenerated into a forum for uninformed opinions and disrespectful arguments that did nothing to help better understanding the original article, and quite often veered into completely irrelevant territory. And as time went on, I realized that these people (who I not so lovingly refer to as “comment trolls”) were essentially posting the same comments and arguments on every article regardless of its topic.

So I stopped visiting these websites. Yes, I could have continued to read the articles and ignore the comments, but they were there and they affected the overall tone and tenor of the site. It’s like visiting friends with an old farting dog. You want to visit your friends, but it’s hard to ignore the smell so you limit your visits to special occasions. 

A friend recently shared an article with me from one of the websites I stopped following, which I am grateful for. I have great respect for the author and the article was very thought provoking and well written. And then I noticed the farting dog in the room and foolishly read the comments. Despite not having visited the site for a few years, I saw that the same comment trolls were posting the same comments and making the same arguments they did when I left. And they really had little to do with the article.

In an impulsive moment I knew I would probably regret, I decided to become a comment troll and post my observations and suggest that people need to live real lives. In response, I was told by two of the more active posters that there are people out there who are still wrong and need to be corrected. Hence their work goes on. 

And so it does.