This Woman Went Face-To-Face With The Man Who Harassed Her On The Internet For Years
So begins Lindy West's tale of being violently trolled on the internet by anonymous strangers.
West, a feminist critic and former Jezebel staff writer, joined This American Life this past week to share her story with listeners.
Back in 2013, West was constantly receiving threats due to her stance on how male comedians should approach rape jokes (they shouldn't).
The threats ran the gamut of what you usually see on the web if you're a woman with an opinion; people called her a stupid b*tch, a fat b*tch, and every other NSFW and derogatory name under the sun.
But one creative troll took things a step further and set up a Twitter account in the name of West's very recently deceased father.
Then the troll began to harass her.
"I don't remember what [the message] said, but it was mean," West recalls on This American Life.
We hear the following phrases a lot: "Don't read the comments," and "don't feed the trolls." But West couldn't let this particular harassment go. She publicly called out her troll in an article on Jezebel. Then the unthinkable happened - he apologized.
"I don't know why or even when I started trolling you," he wrote in an email to her. "I think my anger from you stems from your happiness with your own being. It served to highlight my unhappiness with myself."
Hey Lindy, I don't know why or even when I started trolling you. It wasn't because of your stance on rape jokes. I don't find them funny either. I think my anger towards you stems from your happiness with your own being. It offended me because it served to highlight my unhappiness with my own self.
I have emailed you through two other Gmail accounts just to send you idiotic insults. I apologize for that. I created the paulwestdonezo@gmail.com account and Twitter account. I have deleted both.
I can't say sorry enough. It was the lowest thing I had ever done. When you included it in your latest Jezebel article, it finally hit me. There is a living, breathing human being who's reading this shit. I'm attacking someone who never harmed me in any way and for no reason whatsoever.
I'm done being a troll. Again, I apologize. I made a donation in memory to your dad. I wish you the best.
Everyone understands the feeling of being a little braver sitting behind the screen of a computer, especially with the promise of anonymity.
West reached out to this guy (she chose to keep him anonymous.) West wanted to hear from him, hear what made him decide to apologize, and what made him troll her in the first place.
Part of it, he explained, was because she was a confident and secure woman; more confident and secure than he was.
He told West,
Women are being more forthright in their writing, they're not-there isn't a sense of timidity to when they speak. They're saying it loud. And I think for me as well, it's threatening at first[...] I work with women all day, and I don't have an issue with anyone. I could have told you back then, if someone had said to me, "you're a misogynist, you hate women," I would have said, "Nuh-uh! I love my mom, I love my sisters, I've loved the girlfriends I've had in my life." But you can't claim to be okay with women and then go online and insult them, seek them out to harm them emotionally.
"Our silence is what the trolls want," West explains.
The story is incredibly powerful to listen to. You can listen to the full episode here.