Secondhand Trolling
We all know what trolling is, it's a form of bullying on the internet. We've seen this before, multiple times actually; however, do we know what secondhand trolling is?
Secondhand Trolling is witnessing trolls on the internet bully someone, without taking action upon it. Often times, we scroll through popular posts that have some form of argument in the comment section, we can even find ourselves to be a part of an argument with people we don't even know! We even let these disagreements make us mad in real life, it's not worth it.
Being a secondhand troll isn't exactly a bad thing; however, we should open our minds to the ultimate truth: we have hurt people. Of course, we may not have hurt them intentionally but we have because by not supporting someone through bullying we can make them feel alone. By not standing up against the racists, sexists and whatever great force of hate there is out there, we show the world that we are okay with this type of behavior.
Initially, we scroll past posts with trolls because we don't really want to associate ourselves with it. It seems like no matter what you do or say to these trolls, they'll try and find a way to get under your skin. This possibility stops us from taking action and defending the victim from their bullying. What we don't understand is that there is a way for us to help.
We can prevent this bullying by simply reporting their comment and/or profile on whatever social media site we see this bullying on. In that case, we aren't personally getting into the fight but we are helping the victim. Maybe after we can send them a message simply asking if they're okay.
I don't think I can agree with you more. This reminds me back when we were taught about bystanders. Second hand trolling is essentially being a bystander and it won't get better without any action. As long as we make one small positive action, it will make more of a difference than by doing nothing at all.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you Chelsea as many people simply don't want to end up in a conversation or post that they were not involved in the first place. There are times though that I feel like we should take action. For example, whenever a situation goes too far such as racist as you mentioned and others who spread unnecessary info. We cannot stand any form of aggressive online behavior that will disrupt the peace. We should all start going online and finding trolls ourselves and seeing if we can do anything to stop it such as seeking for help for others. We need to not stand there and do nothing rather to contribute to the victim in a positive way
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