Living in LA. Driving everywhere. One learns a great deal about the human condition. How brave those with no real strength, a fragile old lady for instance, becomes in her SUV.
Hiding behind the wheel of her huge (and not so huge) car she can charge at other cars like a wild bull, she can intimidate like a boxer facing off before the big fight, she can insult anyone she pleases like a street drunk after midnight. Stop at a stop light however and scream at her in the real world for her appalling behavior, stripped of her super powers… she apologizes, looks horrified.
We delude ourselves that we are protected by our big car… or the anonymity of the internet.
The internet. From time to time… the hating trolls can’t help themselves. In their haste to leave vile, anonymous messages the stupid ones forget the trail of evidence they leave behind in their rush to insult and malign.
Like a hair loaded with DNA at the murder scene… they leave behind their IP number. The ever more accurate, location revealing IP number.
The most recent hater? Ohaiman. This particularly stupid troll lives on Elm Avenue in Norwood, a suburb of Cincinnati. With Google street view I opened a window into his sad life. I stood outside his shabby apartment building, I wondered which one of the beaten up cars parked in his parking lot was his. I wandered dolefully up his treeless, ugly street. I flew over his nondescript building in my google plane.
I felt like the NSA.
Not realizing that I already knew too much about him I engaged in a long conversation with Ohaiman… this vicious troll. He had opinions about every aspect of my life. The life of my boyfriend… apparently my bf is in the closet. He told me who I should be dating… someone over 50. He let me know how much money he thought I had. There was no limit to the reach he thought he had into my life.
Can you imagine what it must be like to have real celebrity? What chaos these trolls cause?
After he unravelled more than enough rope to hang himself… I revealed that I knew exactly where he lived. Like rolling down my window at the stop light… He balked. He apologized. He was ‘just joking’, he didn’t mean what he said.
Understandably, I haven’t heard from him since.
I don’t care what people write about me in that secret space created by the internet where foolish men believe they are the kings and the queens, ‘super users’ addicted to outrage and poorly formed opinion… mostly without consequence.
