Chloe Petts: ‘Dear internet trolls – I’ll wear whatever I like’

 I then asked famously cantankerous ex-referee Mike Dean what he thought coz he’s no stranger at all to being called a “wanker” by hordes of football fans baying for his blood. He said three simple words: “Ignore, ignore, ignore.”

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I think Mike is correct but simply muting and blocking trolls and switching off my social media still wasn’t enough. When you’re being faced with a deluge of abuse online, you can shield yourself from it, but it didn’t stop this feeling in me that my image was being taken out of context all over the internet and, even worse, the insidious sense that people in my real life were somehow reading all of these criticisms and thinking the same thing that those online were saying.

I don’t believe that people should be beyond criticism. If you don’t enjoy something I’ve made then you’re entitled to share that opinion with your followers, but tagging me in a series of vitriolic tweets seems to go beyond a healthy engagement with my work into an arbitrary dislike of someone who you’ve never met. I was perplexed as to why it felt so integral for someone to take time out of their day to try and ruin mine.

It’s difficult to know what I can contribute on the subject of trolling when so much has been written about it and any sweeping statements seem trite and overdone: “be kind”, “remember that your words are reaching a real person with thoughts and feelings”, “people who troll are just cowards themselves with horrid little lives”. All true, but also vomit. If people on the internet haven’t got that it’s horrid to be horrid by now, then they’re unlikely to ever come to this conclusion.

Therefore, my advice would take a more pragmatic approach. It’s unlikely that we’ll ever truly stop trolling; it would take the complete rehabilitation of hundreds of thousands of dimwits or total global reform in how we legislate the internet and that seems unlikely to happen soon. Therefore, it’s about how we change our own personal attitude towards hate speech and the internet.

It’s very easy to think that trolls represent the real world because our brains can’t distinguish between near threat and faraway threat, but as long as a troll isn’t on my street shouting that they don’t like my jacket while wielding a knife then they can’t hurt me. It’s also pretty powerful to think that I’ve angered hundreds of men across the internet simply for existing. 

And, if all else fails, you could write an Edinburgh Fringe show about your experience so you get to have the last laugh, muahahaha. 

Chloe Petts brings her brand new show, How You See Me, How You Don’t, to the Pleasance Courtyard, Forth as part of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe from 31 July to 25 August at 7pm and then on a UK tour. Chloe Petts’ debut stand-up series for BBC Radio 4, Chloe Petts’ Toilet Humour, is available on BBC Sounds.

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