How Do We Handle Online Trolls? We Actually Have a Program:

Something happened this afternoon that we thought we'd put into a blog post: our "Troll Mitigation Program." It is (we think) one of the better ideas we've ever come up with.

So, the parents of the 6 year old in the post below contacted us....

We loved the photo, of course.

But when we opened the thread, we couldn't believe how mean some of the comments directed at her 6-year-old daughter were.

One of the trolls was actively mocking the mother as well...

We told her, "Don't try and message these people, we actually have a way of handling this. Let us take care of it." 

And so, this afternoon, we put our Program into effect!  

It all went according to plan, so we figured we'd put it down in a blog post for all to see.

Step 1, oddly, is to offer the trolls $1,000. 

Seriously: 

We don't threaten them. We don't say we're going to fight them. We don't say we're going to get them fired. We don't try to dox them. We don't try to reason with them. 

We straight up tell them they will get $1,000. All they have to do is:

- show up to collect it in person, 
- give us their real name,
- pose for a photo with Mike, 
- and maybe pose with some of their "classic" posts, 

We say "maybe" because we have never taken one of these photos or given away $1,000! We've offered it 31 times over the years, and to no avail. 

After we make the offer in our Twitter post, the primary dickhead, "Howard" (who appears to be a college student in Iowa City) takes the bait:

If he were good at trolling, he would have just called us "gay" and left, but now he's opened the door to coming by. 

So we say we're thrilled: 

"Where's the store located?" Ha! Like he doesn't have the internet. 

Then he starts trying to squelch on us, saying that he'll come if he gets to 15 likes on a message (pretty low bar!):

We get him over 15 likes!

We even offer to send an Uber to pick him up! 

But, now he's being cagey....

Nooooo!!!! We may be losing another opportunity to meet a troll! 

He gets back to trolling for a minute: 

C'mon, Howard, we know we're all fat liberals! Eyes on the prize, buddy get that money! Just come by and say to our face and you get $1,000! 

And, finally: 

We have to admit "defeat" in the end.

Look how sad Mike is:

"Howard" tries to go back to Trolling 101:

For the record, Mike's high school nickname was "Proff," not "Absolute Pussy." 

But the fun for them is gone because we're now just copying and pasting, telling them to come and get $1,000. 

The genius of our program is in its absolute childishness. No matter what they say, we just post the address and tell them to get their money. 

All they have to do is come by and pick it up?!

Why in the world would they not?

Or what about this one? His original post is the best way for him to tell us he's white without telling us he's white:

We even had one saying they'd confidently swagger in like Vince McMahon: 

But, in the end, no one came by. Not even Vince. It all fizzled out, and the trolls won't want to interact with us much moving forward. 

The adage that trolls anonymity is all they have is kind of cliche, but it's WILD how important it is to them in real time.

Heck, we can't even PAY them to remove their anonymity. 

Because their behavior isn't "normalized" or "accepted." They are afraid of how they would look if they had to stand by their behavior or posts. The anonymous ones are just scared. 

Offering them money is just a way of demonstrating how scared they really are.

And in the end, it doesn't cost us anything. 

And that is that! Feel free to try it! 

Oh, finally, since we that petty, we conclude it all with: