Inner Trolls and Better Angels: Being a Person, Online
When our daughter was in elementary school, she received a certificate for being the “Quietest Student.”
Our high energy extrovert, the neighborhood ringleader, was quiet in the classroom? …Who was this child?
We human beings act differently, in different situations. This is a good thing: it’s part of being a highly social species.
But for living with intention, it means you want to watch what kind of person you become, in different contexts.
Who are you, when you’re online?
And how are you different, from being with others in person?
Meeting Your Inner Troll Online
Jaron Lanier, in his book Ten Arguments for Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now, talks about how he met his inner troll when he participated in online discussions in the 1970s; long before algorithms superheated online interactions.
Lanier found that text discussions in and of themselves — without algorithms AND without the mediation of nonverbal cues — fueled conflict:
“…I noticed something horrifying all those years ago. Sometimes, out of nowhere, I would get into a fight with someone, or a group of people. It was so weird. We’d start insulting each other, trying to score points, getting under each other’s skin. And about incredibly stupid stuff, like whether or not someone knew what they were talking about when it came to brands of pianos. Really.
“I’d stew between posts. ‘I am not ignorant! I know about pianos! How dare that moron say those horrible things about me? I know, I’ll ruin his reputation by tricking him into saying something stupid.’
“This happened so often that it became normal. Not just for me, but for everyone. It was chaotic human weather. There’d be a nice morning and suddenly a storm would roll in. (…)
“I just stopped using the stuff because I didn’t like who I was becoming. You know the adage that you should choose a partner on the basis of who you become when you’re around the person? That’s a good way to choose technologies, too.” (Lanier 2018, Kindle Locations 566-579; emphasis mine)
Meeting Others’ Better Angels Online
Theologian Deanna Thompson opposed online communities, in principle. Thompson, the athletic daughter of a pastor, had long argued that healthy communities, especially faith communities, only properly worked through in-person relationships.
Thompson resisted the push toward social media in the 2010s. She believed that it distracted people from participating in what she considered true community: in-person, synchronous, real life, analog encounters.
Then, in her early forties, she was diagnosed with late-stage cancer. Cancer hurtled her into the spiritual darkness of life-threatening illness.
And for long periods of time, cancer took away her ability to take the baseline physical actions necessary to participate in communities in person: to get out of bed, and get dressed.
Or to have the emotional energy to be with people face-to-face; especially as they reacted to the physical changes in her appearance from the cancer and its harrowing treatment regimen.
But when she wrote online, Dr. Thompson felt like herself again.
When she wrote online, she was still a respected academic, a thinker, a writer: her identities that preceded being a patient. No one could see the changes in her appearance. People online treated her just like they had, before!
The cancer was all too real; but her work was also real, her thought was real, her books were real.
Writing and thinking online restored her sense of herself to her. Being active online kept her in the academic and publishing communities. Although the experience of illness deeply shaped her theology, the theologian could not be reduced to it.
And Thompson also discovered the power of other online communities. During another round of treatment, her brother asked if he could set up a Caring Bridge account for her. She said that if she hadn’t been so heavily medicated, she would have said no; but this time she agreed.
The outpouring of love, comfort, and practical help she received online not just from people she knew in person, but from people all over the country, sparked what Thompson now calls her “conversion experience.”
Thompson found that virtual communities can be as sustaining as in-person ones, in a different but still powerful way.
For people wrestling with serious illness, care-giving responsibilities, or other challenges to getting out of the house, their options might be virtual community; or none.
Meeting Your Own Inner Angels Online
Because Dr. Thompson is a theologian, speaking about virtual communities connected with churches, she referred to Meredith Gould’s poem “Christ has no online presence but yours,” an update of Teresa of Avila’s poem, “Christ has no hands or feet but yours.”
What wisdom tradition resonates with you?
Who are your role models for being intentional about how you present yourself?
Keep a quote, or an image, where you can look at it to align yourself.
If I were a stoic, I might stick this quote on my monitor, from Marcus Aurelius: “Waste no more time arguing what a good man should be. Be one.”
A Reluctant Thank You to My Own Inner Troll: Write Down Your Personal Policies for Being a Person, Online
I write on this site about the importance of writing down your commitments to yourself, and to other people.
It is important to externalize your thinking about how you want to live your life. Writing down what matters to you, and what kind of person you want to become, forces you to think about this in the first place.
Writing is thinking. And even better, writing is thinking you can refer to, later. When you write down guidelines for yourself, you have your own inner wisdom to consult when you need it most.
I got off all the major social media platforms because I was spending too much time on them and not doing my own writing.
But also, like Jaron Lanier, I realized I didn’t like the person I was becoming online. My easy-press sarcasm button is too easy; and my temper is too quick.
It turns out that my inner troll is always heavy-breathing under the keyboard.
So my work, in being a person online, is to keep my inner troll under the keyboard, not pounding on the top of it. I had to get off algorithmically-driven social media, because it’s like a gym for my troll.
I’m a person online still, but I find I behave better in my own online spaces; quieter, slower spaces. Spaces with my name on them. Context matters.
As part of my personal framework, I wrote down some guidelines about what kind of person I want to be, online.
All of my guidelines for myself emerged from encountering my own inner troll: so a reluctant thank you to it, for that.
Here are some of the things I wrote down:
All violence begins with words. I commit to not reducing others verbally to objects, roles, or labels.
I commit to posting things that are helpful or entertaining to others: it’s about building up, not tearing down.
I commit to not seeking out the heady stimulation of outrage, or righteous indignation. These are the hot, steamy emotional buffalo chicken wings that energize my inner troll.
I disengage from threads that fuel my own anger and defensiveness. If I do advocate for something online, I do it on purpose (not reactively), and I take care of myself emotionally.
I draft what I write, away from the platform. (Apart from buying myself time to think, this also makes for a nice back-up strategy: my little notepad program is a lot more stable than any online platform I’ve used.)
I use my 24-hour parking lot folder to age any drafts I’ve written*, in response to anything that irritates, or elates me. I wait 24 hours to settle down, and reread it, before I post / email / text / reply.
Being a Person, Online: Why Your Online Presence Matters
If you are online, you are part of wider communities.
Social media or stand-alone online discussion and community groups obviously; but if you share thoughts through your own website or blog or podcast or video channel, you are still part of the wider community of the internet itself.
What you write and say and post and share will have an impact on anyone who encounters it.
I think often people feel pressured to broadcast political opinions, or take public stands on various issues.
Recently, I came across an online conversation where a blogger wondered what he was even doing online; wondered if it mattered that he posted observations about his life, and took photos of his neighborhood.
Why did he bother?
Was he providing any value?
Did his web presence matter?
YES.
Yes, it does. It matters to me, because I enjoy reading what he writes and posts; it gives me a glimpse into a different life.
I see great value in sites that post personal observations. They do what novels do: they help us grow in empathy and imagination. They help us to see one another as full human beings rather than objects, roles, or labels.
This man’s blog and the others like it that I follow, are about people’s observations from their daily lives.
In a bigger sense, however, these sites are about how to be a person, online.
How you present yourself online affects how other people present themselves online.
We human beings are social creatures; we learn how to be human from observing how other people act. This process continues all our lives. How do I act at school, when I’m age ten? Or when I’m in a romantic relationship at age 17; or how about in a different one, at age 43? How do I act when I become a grandparent; get diagnosed with cancer; start a business; become an artist?
We are always learning from one another how to be persons in new contexts.
Your presence online — how you decide to be a person online — can make the whole internet a better place to be.
Don't underestimate the power of a gracious, and observant presence online. It gives others inspiration and permission to become the same.
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References
Lanier, J. (2018) Ten Arguments for Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now. Kindle Edition. New York: Henry Holt and Co.
Thompson, D. (2022) ‘The Body of Christ Has Always Been a Virtual Body’. Being the Church in a World Impacted by Pandemic. Virginia Synod ELCA Gathering of the Ministerium, Virginia Beach, Virginia, 18 October.
Clendenin, D. (no date) Previous Essays and Reviews. Available at: https://www.journeywithjesus.net/PoemsAndPrayers/Teresa_Of_Avila_Christ_Has_No_Body.shtml (Accessed: 24 October 2022).
‘Christ has no online presence but yours - Liturgy’ (2011), 20 June. Available at: https://liturgy.co.nz/christ-has-no-online-presence-but-yours (Accessed: 24 October 2022).
‘Stoic Quotes: The Best Quotes From The Stoics’ (no date) Daily Stoic. Available at: https://dailystoic.com/stoic-quotes/ (Accessed: 9 November 2022).
Notes
* Fun fact, here are the stats on my 24-hour parking lot folder, which I use to store posts or emails or texts or replies that I write, when I’m stirred up by big emotions like irritation, outrage, elation, etc.:
Drafts sent out without major editing the next day (or later): 0, zip, nada, none. ZERO! All of my drafts, written when I was charged up emotionally, ended up being deleted; or majorly revised.
Drafts sent out with major editing and revision: about one third of all my drafts.
Drafts deleted entirely: two-thirds of all my drafts, which I deleted the next day.
Time is a friend.