A few days ago, I read a post from Stephanie Land, an author, about how writing had exposed her to some of the worst people in the world. This exposure, in turn, had left her with PTSD. You see, as a woman writing about her life experiences as a poor, single mother1, a whole lot of people felt the need to heap massive amounts of abuse on her and that left deep scars.
This got me thinking (as good writing should), about my own experience as a (much less well-known) writer. About the abuse I faced, how differently I responded to it, and why.
The never-ending flow of hate
Back in 2010, when I started writing political articles for fun, it did not occur to me that anyone would read them. Or that I would attract an audience. I was just some schmuck from (at the time) Queens with opinions. Why would anyone care what I had to say?
Just a few months later, by the beginning of 2011, I had a modest audience, a very popular article2, and a lot of haters. I had only been on Facebook for a couple of years and this is when I learned how hostile an environment social media could be.
Trolls started showing up on my page and posting all kinds of nastiness. I had made the mistake of linking my FB profile to my articles. Remember, I didn’t think anyone would really read them and I certainly didn’t think they would draw a crowd. That turned out to be wildly wrong on both counts.
I didn’t think too much of the trolls until they started making comments about my kids, who were still babies back in 2011. This, I found disturbing so I made a second profile for all of my personal and family stuff. That one I kept private and, for several years, I kept most of the personal stuff away from the public page.3
The trolls, of course, kept coming. Insults, rage, constant promises of violence, and several death threats. Let me tell, ya, Debbie was always thrilled about those. I found them to be hilarious.
And this is where Stephanie and I experience the internet in vastly different ways
As a man, and a large one at that, I have never had to live with the kind of fear Stephanie has (and still does). Even the most hostile online threats were adorable to me. Most men, especially ones my size, do not live in a world where they worry about being attacked.
On book tour, I lived in fear that one of the people who’d threatened me would show up to an event. Anytime a woman brought her husband with them I shook so horribly I could barely speak—especially if he wore a trucker hat. - Stephanie Land
A good deal of Stephanie’s insecurity stems from her time living with deep economic insecurity. While Deb and I were living paycheck to paycheck under a small mountain of debt for a good long time, we never had that level of financial stress. But looming even larger than her receding money worries and the resulting trauma that never really goes away is the fact that Stephanie is a woman and I am a man.
No one is going to follow me in an empty garage to try to rape me. No one is going to beat me up because I wouldn’t give them my phone number. I don’t need to carry mace on me because someone didn’t like what I wrote online. This is not how men live and that extends to the online world.
When the threats rolled in, and they did, they rolled right off and kept going. Even if someone managed to figure out where I live and showed up to follow through on their threat to “kick my commie liberal ass,” unless they were carrying a gun, there’s a good chance that confrontation would go very poorly for them.
No, I am not a lethal weapon with years of YouTube combat training. I am, however, large enough to be a deterrent for most people. Do I know how to fight? Maybe. Maybe not. But you won’t know that until you throw the first punch and then you’re in a fight with someone 4-5 inches taller and probably at least 100 pounds heavier, not all of it fat. Generally speaking, only drunk people are stupid enough to take that chance.
Let me tell you a story of how that plays out in the real world.
A long time ago, well before the kids were born, I was driving on the Long Island Expressway and a car was riding my ass. I was in the left lane and not at all obeying the speed limit so it wasn’t like I was “in the way.” And there wasn’t a ton of traffic so this dick could have easily gone around me to speed away. But no, he decided to ride my ass.
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To this day, I take a rather dim view of that kind of thing and, as I am wont to do, I slowed down. If I had tapped my brakes, he was so close he would have hit me. So, yeah, fuck that guy. Anyway, instead of backing off or changing lanes, he decided to flash his lights and honk his horn while still riding my ass.
I slowed down even more.
Eventually, I just stopped the car because he kept following me, flashing his lights and honking his horn. Mr. Road Rage got out of his car and started coming towards mine, cursing and screaming. Had I been a woman, he would have surely pounded on my window and threatened me. Instead, I got out of my car while he was still a good distance away (waiting for him to get closer risked a physical confrontation on the LIE. No thanks), and screamed at him to get the fuck back in his car. Upon seeing that not only was I a man, but a significantly larger man, he turned around, got back in his car, and drove away.
Stephanie would not have been able to do this. Of course, she wouldn’t have antagonized the asshole in the first place. But ask any woman and they will tell you that it doesn’t matter how far they twist themselves into knots to placate the rage of others, especially men. They will always antagonize people simply by existing.
Stephaine antagonized an endless stream of trolls just by daring to speak about her life. It didn’t matter what she said or what she did. Just by being a woman in the public eye, she became a target for vicious abuse.
I’ve known a lot of women writers over the years and they’ve always attracted far more abuse than I have. This despite my writing being far more…critical of the right. Stephanie is a liberal but it wouldn’t have mattered if she had been scrupulously apolitical. She still would have been treated like a punching bag because that is just what we do to women online.
I wish I could tell her to just ignore it, but as a woman, especially one that goes on book tours, she doesn’t really have that luxury. I do and I am always aware of how precious a luxury it is, although if the volume of abuse directed at me was the same as what Stephaine deals with, it might be a lot harder to tune out. But I would have to be ten times as famous to get even half as much.
So, while I’ve written some intensely personal and exceedingly raw articles over the years, I’ve never felt as exposed as Stephanie does on what must be a daily basis. For me, death threats from dumbasses are amusing and a curiosity, even a badge of honor. For women like Stephanie, they can be traumatizing. That’s a sad statement about the world we currently live in.
Let’s be honest, I could have stopped at “A woman writing.” It literally doesn't matter what the topic is.
The infamous “Republican Jesus” on the now-defunct (thank god) AddictingInfo.org. As far as I can tell, the article no longer exists online except for part of it on this blog. I have a copy of it on my computer but, ouch. At one point, my “Republican Jesus” was the #2 Google search under that term and had over 4 million views. It has not escaped my notice that I am writing about this while rebuilding an audience for the…4th?…time. Alas…
I eventually settled into being a writer and started to write about my life as well as politics. After that, I stopped trying to keep a firewall around my family. I don’t get nearly as many comments these days and when I do, they regret it immediately. The last person who talked smack about my kids withstood three days of extreme abuse until they freaked out and quit the group we were in.
Don’t talk about my kids. Here endeth the lesson.
“The last person who talked smack about my kids withstood three days of extreme abuse until they freaked out and quit the group we were in.”
From you, or others who came to your defense? I hope the latter. As a long-time reader of yours I appreciate your sharing your family stories and would have knives out for any who would respond by insulting your (or anyone’s) kids.