I can’t believe what a nasty troll said to me online

The Independent’s agony aunt Victoria Richards is here to help. Email dearvix@independent.co.uk for advice on love, work, family and relationships

Dear Vix,

I am really struggling with “being online” at the moment. I run a student fanzine that has music and film reviews and loads of regular readers and commenters. It’s small, but I’m really proud of it and put loads of hard work and love into it. But recently, I’ve been getting targeted by a group of men who say the most horrible things.

When I write a review or an opinion they don’t agree with (if I give an album or a new film two stars, or something, but they think I’m wrong and it should have had five stars) then they absolutely rip into me: calling me things like “s**g” and “s**t” and even “w***e”. They are really misogynistic: they say that as a woman I have no right to be sharing my views on film, anyway; or they call me “stupid” and “ignorant” and “an airhead”. They say I’m “ugly” and worse. They even make nasty comments about my mental health and my hair, and joke that I should “just kill myself”.

I can’t tell if it’s one person who hates me and who keeps creating new profiles to make them seem like more people in total, or if it’s a group of idiots who find it funny to call strangers names on the internet. But I’m actually losing sleep over it. It’s really getting to me. It makes me want to give up on my zine altogether.

How do I make it stop?

Unhappy Online

Dear Unhappy,

I am so sorry. And I completely understand what you’re going through. If you’re a woman writing online in any capacity, it is a sad fact of life that you will probably attract trolls. I’ve battled them for twenty years and have tried all sorts – I’ve written openly to them here, I’ve pleaded with them to stop, I’ve reported direct threats to the police (one troll claimed he knew where I lived and said he was going to run me over in his taxi) and I’ve even conducted my own social experiment in secret, to prove my hunch is right: that it’s not what you write, it’s your gender.

This is how I know: a former colleague of mine and I both wrote pieces for this very newspaper on the same hot topic. We swapped bylines when the pieces were published: he (writing under my name) got personal and targeted abuse, whereas I (writing under a male name) didn’t. Pretty conclusive!

It can be by turns wearing, even utterly exhausting, it can make you feel depressed and silenced and reduced. I often wonder if trolls even bother to think about the effects they have on the very real, very human people they think nothing of tearing apart in the comments. That goes for the users leaving regular, horrible remarks on this column.

You sound like you really enjoy working on your zine and I hope you won’t (to coin a phrase) let the b******s win. You should be able to carry on writing and expressing your considered opinions on the topics you’re passionate about, even if it ruffles certain people’s feathers; even if they disagree. For while some people are engaged and interested, seeking to advance debate – for we can all learn from people with different opinions to our own – abuse is never justified. Never.

And sure, women “troll” too, but there’s a special place reserved in hell for the kind of misogynistic trolling you’re sadly experiencing. They’re trying to shut you down with sexually abusive slurs and veiled threats. It’s transparent and it’s toxic and I blame the “manosphere” for much of it. You know this already, I’m sure, but let me reassure you: calling you names and making personal comments about your mental health says an awful lot about those who are doing it – and nothing at all about you. It’s merely the product of a limited imagination and a bullying personality. They’re trying to make themselves feel better, because – deep down – they feel woefully inadequate. And that’s very sad.

In my personal opinion, certain men who lurk in the comment sections of newspapers and zines like yours, or on social media (and they’re easy to spot, because they use fake names and spout abuse; then get banned and set up immediately under a different name to carry on) are there because either they hate women full stop, or they’re too scared to talk to them in real life. The only way they can get our attention is to call us names. It’s a bit like the behaviour of little boys at primary school, pulling our ponytails. Emotionally and intellectually, they’ve never grown up.

Often, they labour under the misapprehension that they have immunity and anonymity; that it “doesn’t really matter” because it’s online. They forget – or they simply don’t care – that there’s a real person who is reading and being affected by their actions. I bet the majority of them would mumble and struggle to make eye contact IRL, let alone walk up to a woman in the street and call her a “w***e” to her face. They wouldn’t dare. It’s simple: they hide behind the artificial light of their computer screens because they are cowards.

But rather than getting scared and angry and letting them score points, the best weapon against this sort of behaviour is to feel sorry for them. I do: I feel truly sorry for the kind of trolls who are so isolated and so lonely, so idle and so bored and so utterly lacking in creativity (or friends) that they fill their time targeting women on the internet, from the solitary dankness of their bedrooms.

It’s not much of a life, is it? They could be out playing sports, getting fit, going to gigs – and in the case of your troll, who seems to have a special interest in your opinions on films – he could be out at the actual cinema, watching those very same artworks and stretching his mind and expanding his cultural horizons. Instead, he’s sat behind a screen in a room that I imagine smells a lot like cheese, typing out swear words with his grubby fingers and making cheap jibes about your hair. It’s a lot like when kids gather together and giggle and say “s**t” out loud to be shocking. It’s not big and “hard” and clever, it’s tragic.

So, reach – if you possibly can – for compassion. These trolls don’t have any life to speak of, or they wouldn’t be wasting it by being mean to a stranger on the internet. You, however, are ambitious and educated, interested in pop culture and media and film and the world around you. You have passion – they, presumably, do not.

More practically, I would advise you to do what I do (and what I advise other female writers to do) and block certain users or disable nasty comments, set up filters to automatically pre-moderate posts that contain abusive language – and take time out from being online when you need a break. Ask a friend or someone else who works on the zine to “police” the comments for you, for a while. If the abuse ever feels threatening, then please consider contacting the police, here. There are lots of tips online you can follow to try to protect yourself. I’ve found a “brick” device useful: it blocks your phone from accessing certain apps so you can take “time out” from being online. I’ve found that it’s made me hesitant to go back on.

I also swear by one simple thing: never, ever, ever read the comments. It’s just not worth it. I’m sure there will be the same cohort of sad, grey, dreary trolls leaving hate below the line on this very article, but (crucially) you can remain unbothered and untouched by it – by simply not reading it. It’s the equivalent of them firing and then completely missing the target. And it works – because we are far too busy being away, living our very real, very full, technicolour lives. Lives that the sad and lonely trolls can only dream of.

Do you have a problem you would like to raise anonymously with Dear Vix? Issues with love, relationships, family and work? Email dearvix@independent.co.uk