Social Media Achievement: Troll Level 1 Unlocked!
By: Gina Gallois
Tags: Humor, Life Lessons, Blogging, Social Media, Satire

Social Media Achievement: Troll Level 1 Unlocked!

You never forget your first troll

I’ve only been running my Facebook page, Living Imperfection, for about nine months now. So, yeah, I’m still a relative newbie. My page is dedicated to my writing, my personal brand of antics, and my homemade opossum memes. There has been a steep learning curve, but I’m making steady progress, learning something new every day.

But today wasn’t just any old daily grind on social media for me.

Today, I finally got my first troll. I’m so proud. The excitement of the short exchange I had with my troll was truly exhilarating.

My troll’s name is Jackson, or so his profile says.

I did my best to take good care of him, but it was difficult to connect with him on a personal level because he had no friends, no posts, and no personal information. Even Jackson’s photo was a kind of composite, photoshopped collage, so I don’t even know what my troll looks like.

I have so many questions about him — like, why is he so afraid to put himself out there?

Until Jackson came along, I had simply never been accosted on social media and given unsolicited advice on meme-making (or anything) in a cocky, condescending, mansplaining manner before.

Have I been missing out or what?

I quickly grew attached to Jackson. For a short time, he was like my new, poorly behaved pet who was probably abused by a previous owner.

I know they say not to feed trolls, but I wanted to take care of Jackson. He seemed kind of cute in a runt of the litter, underdog, barking up the wrong tree kind of way. I felt somehow responsible for him. I wanted to know who hurt him.

Oh? What’s that? Trolls don’t make good pets, you say?

My troll was different. I know in my heart if I had just known how to nurture him properly, my love would have transformed him into a model Internet citizen.

I wanted to rehabilitate him.

You didn’t know Jackson like I did, which, admittedly, was not very well.

Still, this was a major rite of passage for me. For the first time ever, I feel like I have a real presence on the big, sprawling, anonymous interwebs.

I’ve been noticed unfavorably on social media.

Ok, full disclosure: I did get a bad review on my Facebook page from a guy who was mad about my meme content last week.

Alexander eloquently wrote:

“Another page using cute animals to push vapid idpol, move on and save your eyes the rolling.”

Then I made the mistake of asking my followers to review my page as well and I commented back to Alexander that yes, he probably should keep moving to a page that’s more his style.

I never heard from him again! He didn’t even care enough to come back and berate me one more time. Obviously not a real troll.

Jackson wouldn’t leave me like that! He kept coming back to post more and more criticisms of my tech prowess — he called me a “boomer”! — and to cast aspersions on my person. Jackson kept commenting long after I stopped engaging with him.

Then he was gone.

I cared deeply about my troll — but I adhere to a strict, no exceptions policy of tough love when it comes to my loved ones. I didn’t want to starve him, but I couldn’t in good conscience overfeed him either.

Will he be back tomorrow? Has he abandoned me after all? Has he found a better host? Someone who can give him more of the indignation and pointless argumentation he craves?

I’m gonna work on myself, ask myself the hard questions, figure out what I did wrong, and how I can do better next time.

I’ll never forget you, Jackson! You’ll always be my first!

Thanks for reading.

Get on my list here & follow/troll me on social media for my daily original opossum memes here.