Column
When the Online Trolls Are Men With Offline Power
It’s not just losers in basements wearing pajamas
There’s a stereotype that comes to mind when picturing an online troll: Someone sad and pathetic, living in their parents’ basement, eating cold pizza while posting cruel comments. The sad and pathetic part may stand, but it’s a mistake to minimize those who spew online hatred as a bunch of insignificant losers.
Many men who post awful things on the internet — because let’s be clear, the vast majority of them are men — are far from being innocuous jokesters or nobodies. Instead, we are finding over and over again that they are men who already wield real power: They’re police, politicians, industry leaders, business owners, and media makers. And we’d be foolish to believe that the hate these men peddle online isn’t part of their lives and jobs offline.
Over the weekend, for example, the head writer for Fox News host Tucker Carlson resigned when CNN reported that he had used a pseudonym to post bigoted comments, saying for example that “Black doods staying inside playing Call of Duty is probably one of the biggest factors keeping crime down,” and engaging with commenters who used the N-word. He also maintained a five-year-long online thread about an Asian woman he knew where he encouraged users…
