War Waged By Other Means

Mike stared at the screen incredulously. He could barely believe what he was seeing in front of him.

Mike worked as a tech writer by trade, and a good chunk - a majority - of his day was spent keeping up on news in the blogosphere. He had his own blog, Mikeshow, that he posted to regularly, but the real action happened in the comments threads of the big boys in town, and it was at this that he stared.

He had left his comment fairly recently. The post was a vanilla-type blurb about a new Apple rumor, which the blogosphere was fairly susceptible to, and Mike, as a seasoned journalist, had felt the need to point this out. In a completely respectful way, of course.

The incredulousness came from the comment directly following his. It was from a user called DarkFiddler28, and it read:

Dear Mikeshow, Your comment is puerile and childlike. Of *course* we don’t believe every rumor we hear, but this one is based in facts. Get your head out of your ass. If you want to be a troll, go find a political blog or something.

Mike read and reread the post several times. He was flummoxed. Flabbergasted. He squeezed his chin, contemplating his response.

It was rare that one was called out so forcefully over such a non-offensive comment. It was downright bizarre, in fact. This was surely the work of a troll, hoping, even pleading, for Mike to respond to him, and thus to validate him.

The fact of the matter was, Mike had a reputation to worry about. His user profile linked directly back to his main blog; in fact, one of the reasons for his frequent comments was to juice up his blog’s Google ranking, and so he couldn’t just let something like this - an affront to his good name - go unanswered.

He realized he was pacing around the room. He forced himself back into the chair. Fingers poised above his keyboard, he turned each word over in his head like a pancake before committing it to pixels.

Dear DarkFiddler28, I appreciate your insightful comments, but I hope you are joking. The facts in this posting you refer to are non-existent, and themselves based on ‘facts’ reported on other highly dubious blogs.

Additionally, I take personal umbrage at your claim, and I challenge you to find any substantial evidence backing up the claims in this posting. I just don’t want people to get carried away with another false rumor.

Mike rubbed his hands, reread the comment several times, and hit submit. He stood up quickly and retreated from his computer to get himself a glass of apple juice from the kitchen. He had a sweet tooth for the stuff, a habit picked up at an early age, and nurtured into adulthood. Usually when he was blogging and commenting, he kept a tall glass next to him.

When he returned, full cup in hand, he hit refresh on the page. There was his comment. Directly underneath, there was another comment from this Fiddler fellow:

Mikeshow, stop polluting this thread you troll. The links in the article point to CNet, as well as multiple Apple insiders. What do you want the guy to do, reveal his sources? That would be the end of that source!

Guys like you need to get a life, get outside, do something productive with your life besides ripping down other people. Stop sitting at your computer posting troll comments.

Mike stared, aghast, his mouth hanging open. This was affrontery of the highest order. His hands trembled. He had never been challenged like this, so publicly, and on a blog with such a high Google ranking. He worried about what this would do to his user reputation. The last thing he could suffer was damage done to his public internet persona; the fallout to his blog could prove insurmountable.

The thing about it was, the internet never forgot. A single long forgotten comment on some two-bit blog with a couple of postings a year ago was still in the great machine, still searchable, and still attached to your name. The only way to hit the restart button was to start fresh, with a new name, personality, blog, everything; Mike had invested too much of his life into Mikeshow to pull the plug.

Mike harbored an ambition he told very few: to become a full-time blogger. He was beginning to make income, just a little, from the ads placed prominently alongside his posts, but he ached to be considered one of the big boys himself, and get invited to the industry conventions, the parties, the events. And the only way to do that was to attract readers.

He wasn’t going to attract many readers with the reputation of a troll.

He wrote back:

Dear Fiddler,

I’m not asking to reveal sources, all I’m asking is that we go on more substantial rumors than he said she said. It’s like if I said some random guy told me that Apple is working on a flying car - would you believe it? No. You have to have some facts. Like a patent, or something.

Furthermore, I do have a life, sir, and I do many productive things in my day. To prove I’m no troll, this will be my last post on this comment thread. I have my own blog, where I will post my thoughts, and if you feel the need to continue this conversation, you can do so there.

And he left a very prominent link at the bottom of his comment. He smugly hit the submit button and watched the comment appear on the bottom of the blog. He smiled to himself. That had been handled rather well.

The mark of a professional journalist in the internet age was just that: professionalism. Before the internet and blogs had picked up steam, the typical journalist would get maybe a handful of letters to the editor in their hometown newspaper; if their writings were truly incendiary, they might get a few dozen.

The fact was, writing a letter, finding the right address, and mailing the thing was hard work, not suited to most lives of busy Americans. So, journalists of the days of yore had a lot more leeway to write what they felt, instead of having to parse every word on the internet.

Of course, not everything was lost. The blogosphere provided a fantastic forum for instant feedback, and publishing costs were nil. A writer such as himself would have had trouble breaking into the boys club of the magazines of yesterday, and Mike was eternally grateful to the soap box that his blog (still free, of course) provided him.

Nonetheless, he often felt a twang of nostalgia for how things used to be. But there was no use dwelling on the past.

He had hit refresh several times. This Fiddler fellow had seemed to disappear. It seemed that his comment had defused the situation. He smiled to himself. If the internet never forgot the bad stuff, it also never forgot the good stuff either. The only way to protect your reputation was to be 100% professional, all the time. When there was something negative, you had to do everything you could to neutralize the threat.

And he had done just that. Anyone traveling to this blog would see the calm voice of reason in his comments, and perhaps consider reading a post or two on Mikeshow. That’s how the internet worked.

He was almost ready to call it a day when he hit refresh one more time. There had been several comments since his, disregarding the thread and responding to the article itself, so he considered the matter closed; but there, at the very bottom, just posted, was another one from Fiddler. It read:

Dear Mikeshow,

I went to your blog. It sucks.

You’re criticizing the reporting here? Your blog is just a linkfarm to other reporting. You have no original sources and no original thoughts. Also, I’ve seen your blog theme used before, at HeavyBalloons and PaulFineman. Seems like its a popular one!

Take a clue from these guys you’re commenting on. They know how to do original reporting, and they know how to treat their readers. Do you berate your readers in the same way? Oh wait - you don’t have any!

Get a life buddy - or an audience - then you can act like a big man.

Mike sat there, slumped in his chair, staring at the words taunting him from the screen. He read and reread them, over again, not quite believing they actually existed on the comments thread of one of the most popular blogs in the blogosphere.

With one trembling hand, he hit the refresh button on his browser, somehow hoping the comment was an illusion, and would just go away. When the page reloaded, it was still there, taunting him from the void of pixels a thousand miles away.

His body shaking, he picked up the glass of apple juice and in one gulp swallowed the entire contents. He would need every ounce of energy to deal with this latest barrage on his reputation.

Breaking his pledge, he placed his cursor in the comment submission form, and began writing his response.

Fiddler

Oooh, you’re calling me a big man? Who the hell are you? Where’s your blog? Oh wait - you don’t have one! All you do is post stupid comments on other people’s blogs ripping them down.

It’s so easy to stand at the door throwing stones. Why don’t you try and build a house for once. It’s not as easy as you think.

I’m really not the one who needs a life. I have a perfectly good one that I’m pretty happy with, and I think most people would agree. It’s you who needs to get away from your computer and do something constructive. It might help you.

Mike submitted his comment proudly. Let’s see this fellow respond to that!

It didn’t take long for the response:

Mike, I don’t have a blog because I don’t need to hear the sound of my voice in order to feel wanted. Maybe you should take that to heart, too.

He couldn’t believe it! This Fiddler fellow had completely sidestepped his line of attack, and was continuing to denigrate his blog, on a public forum.

The sun was beginning to set as Mike set about what he hoped would be his last entry in this long and sullied saga of shame.

Dear Fiddler,

Clearly, you have your opinion and I have mine. But I know you’d never say all that to my face. Hiding behind your keyboard you think you’re such a big man, but face to face I’d take you down.

I’m not going to keep arguing with you on this thread. Either get your own blog, or shut up. Let the adults have a polite conversation.

Meet me in person if you want to throw insults at my face. Otherwise you’re not a man. You’re just a boy.

Mike hit submitt and left his computer. That was it. He was done. There would be no more comments.

The sun had set outside his window. He was not planning to go out this night, though it was the weekend; blogging was a hard work, and demanded 24 hour attention. He couldn’t spare the time to go out and engage in frivolties.

Trouble was, he would have a hard time blogging after this escapade, also, roiled up as he was; he was tense and felt as if he would snap any second. He considered watching television, but with all the excitement the internet offered, watching television would be a flaccid experience indeed.

He returned to the blog and hit refresh, not knowing what he should find. Sure enough, there was a response.

You want to meet me? I’m in New York City. I see from your IP you’re in Jersey. That’s a shame.

If you want me to say these things to your face, come meet me. I’ll be here all night.

And he left an address. Taunting him.

Mike lipped his lips. He realized they were chapped. He mulled over his options. On the one hand, no one on this thread - or the blogosphere, for that matter - knew what happened in the real world, ‘meatspace’, in blog parlance. If he didn’t go, no one would be the wiser.

Except that, they would know. Mike could not trust this Fiddler fellow to play by the rules, to play nice. He would comment again and again and he would let it be known that Mike had chickened out, failed to meet him, and it would be entered into the internet’s long ledger that he, Mike, author of the soon-to-be venerable blog Mikeshow, had chickened out.

He couldn’t allow that. When someone was throwing punches at you, you had to play dirty. You had to play below the belt.

He picked up his keys, took one more look at the address, then shut down the laptop and put it in his carrying case, which was a classy leather number he had picked up at a steal. He had paid upwards of a hundred dollars of it, and he liked to show it off when he could.

His car was parked down the street, and it emitted three friendly beeps as he unlocked it. He got in, the familiar smell of car enveloping him, and he pulled out onto the street.

He instinctively put on his favorite music, Dave Matthews Band, and began bobbing his head to the intricate interwoven melodies; then he thought better of it, realizing that such a fight as the one upcoming would demand fight music. He put in Fall Out Boy.

With the music as his soundtrack, his foot on the gaspedal, he sped down the Jersey Turnpike, the buildings growing taller, the skyscrapers in the far distance. His body moved, back and forth to the music, as he clenched his hands on the steering wheel. If it was a fight this Fiddler fellow wanted, it was a fight he was going to get.

By eight o’clock, the skyscrapers had grown large before him, and he hit traffic. Three hours and a good amount of Fall Out Boy later he turned off I-95 to drive through Staten Island, then over the Verrazano, the lights of the city blinding him. It was hardly scenic but then nothing in this city was. It was a horrible city, which is why he lived in Jersey, and anyone who lived in it was despicable, the most egregious example being the infamous Fiddler whose ticket he was about to punch.

Finally, close to midnight he made it into Manhattan proper. The address had been something like 230 St. Marks, a particularly egregious swathe of street that contained all manner of hipster, goth, and other undesirable. Mike ambled his car slowly down through the throngs of people, trying to avoid the temptation to hit the pedestrians running across the road in front of his car - didn’t they know the rules of the road? - looking for the address.

He came to the end of the street. It was a park. He had to turn. Where was this address? He went around the park, but the street was nowhere to be found.

He returned to the beginning and drove down the road again. Sure enough, it ended before he hit the address. He must have remembered the address wrong. Was it 130 St. Marks?

Mike cursed himself through the soundtrack in his car - by this point he had changed it back to Dave Matthews Band, he only had brought two cd’s - and idled his car to the curb of the road. He spotted two Starbucks before him - within a stone’s throw of each other, New York truly was despicable - and he brought his laptop inside with him.

After buying the requisite coffee so he could surf the internet in peace, he dropped the foul drink into the trash can beside him and it made a satisfying wump as he heard the liquid pour all over the trash can. He opened his computer, taking great care to clean the table before putting the expensive leather carrying case on it, and logged onto the internet. The internet demanded concession of his credit card, which he gave freely, before beginning to surf the painfully slow internet.

Quickly he navigated to the blog, typing the address in directly, and clicked on the post, which was no longer the most recent. It took a lifetime to load, which he passed anxiously tapping his hand along the table. The other patrons around him were filth; one dingy fellow even had dreadlocks, which Mike thought had gone out of style in the sixties. He looked back to his screen, still loading the post. The energy of the fight was beginning to dissipate and he had to psyche himself back up to get into the mood again.

Finally the post appeared on his screen, and he scrolled down, looking for Fiddler’s comments. There were at least a hundred posts, and he skimmed them all. He found nothing. He did a search for Fiddler’s name, but found no one. He must have had the wrong post. He went back to the main page - but no, it was certainly that post, the Apple post. The false rumor. He went back, reread all the comments - searched for himself, nothing.

He opened multiple posts up, the ten most recent, did searches on them all for Fiddler, and for Mikeshow, came back with nothing. It was as if he had imagined the whole thing - he had dreamed it! But he hadn’t. He knew had hadn’t. His blood pressure was too high for that sort of thing.

A little blinking light was beeping in the corner of his screen, and he clicked it. A new email sat in his inbox, from the author of the blog. It read:

Dear Mikeshow,

I regret to inform you that we have a no-trolls policy here. Pursuant to this policy, we are deleting your account and comments, and banning your IP.

If you wish to petition for a reinstatement of your user after a period of three months you may do so with the email subject “Petition”.

Mike leaned back in his chair. So that was it. He had just been wiped from one of the most prestigious blogs in the ‘sphere. He was speechless - or more specifically, actionless. He was shaking with fury, angry at Mikeshow, angry at this two bit hustler playing God with his reputation, angry at Apple for generating a fanbase so idiotic they would lap up the tiniest drop of milk thrown at them.

True, it was brash, he though, but he could not let this slight stand. He opened up his email and began typing out a reply.

With all due respect, sir, I am not a troll. I’m a concerned member of the public, or at least I was until you banned me.

The comments I expressed were my personal opinion, all backed up by facts, and I stand by everything I said. I think it is sad that you value sensationalism over the facts. Clearly freedom of speech means something different to you than it does to me.

I hope you reconsider this stupid policy. If you reread the comments you’ll find that the only troll in the room was the fellow I was speaking to. He came out of nowhere to denigrate my initial post, which was entirely respectful and based in fact.

If you can’t see that than you’re as much of an idiot as he is.

He sent it, shut down his laptop, standing there in the coffee shop watching the dreadlocked man bob his head up and down to some invisible music. This guy seemed happy enough. Mike wondered what his secret was.

He left and turned onto St. Mark’s, walking up and down the street, spending no time dillying in the stores, pushing past reams of people who were filling the sidewalks like macrel, passing the faceless rows of houses.

Suddenly, with a fury that surprised even him, he opened his mouth: “Fiddler!” he shouted. “Show yourself!” He shouted up to the towering buildings around him. “Be a man!” There was no response but stares from the tourists along the sidewalks; taxis honked at him to get out of the road. He realized he had fallen onto his knees.

“Fiddler!” he shouted again. People were yelling at him. One old man told him to get a job. Mike looked wildly at the buildings around him, faceless, curtains drawn, lights dimmed, countless apartments and people; a needle in a haystack. He realized, there, on his knees in the middle of the street, with a line of cars a block long honking, that it was done. He had been beaten. Mikeshow would go down in internet history as being felled by a lone troll. At this he shed a tear, not caring what the people around him thought, and returned to his car a defeated man.