Friday, November 18, 2016

Marvel writer recounts her time as an internet troll

R29:
GR: "Am I worried about the trolls? No. I’m worried about not telling the story. I’m worried about little kids out there who wouldn’t get the story because we would be afraid of trolls. That’s ridiculous. And hey, honestly, I was an internet troll when I was 15 and I was scared of coming out. I behaved badly online when I was a teenager for like six months because of the pain of being closeted. So whenever I see internet trolls there is a part of me that’s like damn what are you hurting from? What hurt you? What do you need? Can we talk to you? Where is this pain? So, that’s kind of how I view it."

Who did you troll?
GR: "Lesbians.

On Twitter?
GR: "Oh my god, thank you. [I’m 34] I’m talking, like, AOL chatrooms. I was so scared of who I was that I would go into lesbian AOL chat rooms and be like, ‘The lord hates you.’ And then this one Lesbian from a chat room wrote me back and was like, ‘Let’s talk; are you okay? What do you need? I want to understand you.' And that was the first person that made that connection with me. And it changed my whole life. And it put me on the path to find out who I am and why I was channeling my frustrations that way."