From Out of the Dark

"dude you have no life,you post so many videos like you are popular when you are really just an old saggy, crusty man with no life.......you also look like santa, but a very ugly one" -- Anonymous Youtube Troll

 What to say?  Made me laugh, anyway.

Now before anyone leaps to my defense, I should admit that I have changed the name above, deleted the comment and blocked the "user" from making further hay.  Wouldn't want to encourage this sort of thing -- huff, puff -- and my years in retail have taught me that the last thing one wants in such circumstances is to engage the angry troll in further conversation.

I did however have a think about the particulars of his complaint and decided it might be worth a closer look here, at a safe distance from the event.  (I doubt very much he can be bothered to trace me here, to beard the lion in his den, as it were -- even such "an old saggy, crusty" lion as me.)  Why?  Well, let's examine the particulars first, and start right at the beginning.

"dude".

There was a mad old woman who came to the bookstore for years.  Dead now.  She was Hell.  Rude, abrasive, frankly mean, she seemed to delight in both monopolizing and offending anyone unlucky enough to be cornered, clerks and customers alike.  (I once had a customer approach me after witnessing a predictably unpleasant encounter at the Information Desk.  "That woman," said this third party, breathless with shock, "is... not nice." Indeed.)  In her thick, Austrian accent the not nice woman used always to address me as, "man," as in, "Man, you can't be dat stupid," and "You clearly don't know vat you are talking about, man."  It was not endearing.  Based on the little I came to know of this person's history, I assume that her use of "man" as her preferred manner of address came from her first dip in American idioms, presumably some time in the swingin' Sixties.  Of all things, that's what she retained of peace, love and understanding, that one word.  That I should find that one word so grating must have had nearly everything to do with all the other, bitter words in which she nested it.  Yet it was always at "man" that I winced.

Truth be told, the last person who could get away with calling everyone "man" was, in my opinion, George Carlin.  Of course, George Carlin's dead now too. The few greying hippies still asking, "What's up, man?" -- at least to my ear -- may as well start a conversation with, "I prithee, good sira."  That's how dated, man, honest.  And from the mouth of that not nice woman?  Somehow it was worse, but then everything from such a one will be.

So it is now when I'm addressed as "dude."  Whether it's followed by, "spare change?" or "can I bum a cigarette?" or just, "seriously?", no good comes after, "dude."

Off on the wrong foot then.

As to this person's critique of my person, what can I say?  I'm not actually old, though I may well seem so to anyone young enough to address their presumed elders unselfconsciously as "dude."  The beard went white nearly a decade ago and the hair went around roughly the same date.  As to "saggy, crusty," "santa,"  and "only very ugly," I will concede all but the last.  I've never thought myself good looking, but that last modifier seems excessive, surely?

A bit boring and unimaginative, all that, but I suppose de rigueur when trolling.  I can't speak to the wider issue of trolling as either a pastime or a menace.  It hasn't happened often enough to me. (This was not my first troll of course.  There have been a few others; here, and on my Youtube postings, etc.  My favorite to date struck me as specially elegant in it's most inventive and revealing phrasing, "You am a ass," it said.  I treasure that one.)  I never read comment threads on any of the news sources I read online, or anywhere else but on my own efforts.  I rarely comment in such forums myself and on the rare occasions I do it is usually in support of the original post.  Else why bother reading such things, no?  Safe to say, it is not a good thing, trolling.  Neither do I see much point in speculating as to this person's motives in commenting on the video I put up.  When I checked, the user's profile on Youtube was all but empty of content: no personal information, nothing posted or shared, just a few friends.  Looking at their profiles I was unsurprised to find they all looked alike.  That would seem about right for this sort of commentator. 

Really, the only reason I can see to even mention this business at last is all to do with the premise of the whole:

"... you have no life,you post so many videos like you are popular when you are really just an old saggy, crusty man with no life... "

Most obviously, I have what I think a fairly satisfying life, all things considered.  I like my job, love my husband and for the most part enjoy what I do with my leisure.  I read.  I write a little, draw a little, read aloud from the books I like. It may be an unambitious life in many ways, but hardly a negation or a very convincing bid, come to that for popularity.

Part of my surprise at this snark was the video to which it was attached.  There could be few readings less likely to attract attention, negative or otherwise I should have thought than an excerpt from an essay called "My Books" by Leigh Hunt, my selection entitled, "Kissing a Folio."  That video has had all of 19 "views" since it was posted a month ago, including presumably the troll's.  Were I able to do even the fairly basic math required, I could calculate the actual popularity of my readings and posts fairly easily.  As I can't, or can't be bothered to, at a guess I would say the average number of people likely to read what I've written here is between six and twelve.  The number of people who may have watched any given reading I've done for Youtube may be slightly higher, but not if I were to limit the sample to just those I did all by my lonesome in the comfy chair in my office, which constitute the vast majority of the better than 500 video-posts I've made.  (My most popular efforts in this line, much like the podcast I started more recently with my dear friend, Nick, have nearly all featured collaborators, or put it another way, coworkers I'd rather bullied into participating.)

As a bid then for popularity, I clearly lack either the means or the motivation.  But then, in a way, that's rather the point of the person who made the comment, isn't it?  His wording is important though: "you post so many videos like you are  popular", and that's the bit I find intriguing.  What does he mean?  I've looked at videos posted by genuinely popular contributors to Youtube, "vloggers" who have followers in the thousands and they do seem to post with remarkable regularity.  There is an argument to be made that posting videos of one's self at all is not something one does to maintain one's anonymity, certainly.  It takes a certain ego to participate in all this business even at the level I do and yes, I do enjoy the attention when I get it, and the comments when they are flattering.  Were I a shy person, I would not be up at this hour worrying this bone, would I?  Not entirely his fault then, but after some serious thought, I do think my troll has misunderstood me nonetheless.

I have never been popular.  I have however always had friends.  If anything, my life online has brought me more; via social media, putting me back in touch with friends from my past, but also by way of what I do here making me more and new ones.  It's nearly all been lovely, from where I sit.  Popularity, let alone fame, would seem to me to be of most value to younger people; something to be pursued by those with fewer obligations and singular interests, to say nothing of marketable talents.  At fifty-one, five foot six and 280 lbs, I do not see myself becoming a sex-symbol.

Early in Fred Astaire's film career, someone supposedly said of him, "slightly bald, can dance a little," or words to that effect.  (Probably apocryphal, by the way, that story.)  Well, I can't dance. At one time I did dream of an acting career, maybe even a job on Broadway.  But I did little or nothing to further that goal beyond taking freshman classes at a second rate college after failing to make the cut at my audition for Carnegie Mellon University.  Circumstances intervened, it's true, but that was probably the last time I really dreamed of fame and fortune.  Instead, I found a life, mine and I've grown, as I said to enjoy it.  Part of it now is sharing my thoughts and enthusiasms here.

I can understand why a stranger might wonder why I bother or just what the hell I think I'm up to, reading Leigh Hunt to a dozen people, for instance.  I don't say they're wrong.  I wonder sometimes myself.  But I enjoy doing it and now that seems to be enough.  Or rather, it's enough that a few others seem to like what I do.

I wish I could explain this better to my anonymous new not very nice acquaintance, but I don't know that I could.  As another old joke roughly runs, if I am now rather modest, it is because I've got a great deal to be modest about.  I can't imagine trying to explain modesty to someone who posts such comments, come to that, or in an atmosphere where relentless self-promotion has become an established cultural value and "modesty" reduced to a euphemism most often employed in the media by women participating in their own oppression by trying to explain why they think it appropriate to go swimming in floor-length dresses and veils.  From where I sit, I am content to have the friends I've found, to still be startled by the rare bully I encounter, and to think that what I do here amuses the occasional stranger.  That last I think specially marvelous, not to say miraculous, considering just what it is I do.

So, yes, I suppose I do rather post videos, etc. as if I were popular when I clearly am no such thing.  You have me there.  That you may not understand why I might is the only part of this I find rather sad, my new not very nice friend.  I hope someday you may.

Life can be rather wonderful, if you let it, dearie, even for old, saggy. crusty -- if not, I must insist -- very ugly santas.