What it’s like to be attacked by a troll

Shaking off a ‘poisonous puddle of troll bile’*

It’s taken me almost four months to be able to write this post about my experience of a troll attack, and it’s still a difficult one to write objectively.

One evening in March I was casually checking the latest ratings on the Amazon page of my book Work from Home, which had had eleven 5-star reviews for months, when I spotted someone had given it a 1-star review.

But that shock was nothing compared to the contents of the ‘review’, which started by accusing the entire population of Bath of ‘having their head up “somewhere”’ and ended by calling me a slave-driver, thanking God they had borrowed the book and not bought it, and…a smiley face.

In between I was accused of bragging about my business achievements (a window cleaning business, apparently, which is news to me), writing uninteresting waffle, belittling my cleaners, controlling their personal lives and not doing the dirty work myself. In addition it seems I have no morals and am a stranger to hard work.

It’s hard to describe what it’s like to see lies written about you by a stranger and presented as facts on a public page. The shock literally takes your breath away and you can’t help asking yourself why anyone would take the time and trouble to do such a thing. Why and how can I have inspired such loathing, you wonder.

That, of course, is a question that’s not worth asking. Because this kind of spiteful retaliation is the action of a troll. I won’t dignify them by that other name of cyberbully, ‘troll’ is much more descriptive. A troll is a creature that lurks in the dark, too ugly to let itself be seen, so it hides behind an alias to unleash its venom, safe in the knowledge that the person it attacks can’t hit back.

And of course the worst response is to respond by addressing the accusations with the truth, because the truth is not a concept of any interest to a troll and has no place in its warped mind.

As illustrated by the comment the troll posted in reply to repudiations of their ‘review’. Apparently all the 5-star reviews and supportive comments have been posted by me and my ‘husband’ and we are ‘extremely dishonest to peddle your goods… in this fashion.’ Along with more poison about ‘useless waffle’ and ‘training for a real job would be too much hard work for the both of you’.

So my best course of action was to ask Amazon to remove the so-called review, which I felt clearly contravened their rules on not posting spiteful remarks. To cut a very long story short, after a number of emails to Amazon the ‘review’ was removed, only to reappear without warning a short while later. Apparently it ‘was initially removed incorrectly’ and ‘doesn’t violate our posted guidelines’. My question as to what exactly constitutes a spiteful remark was not answered.

There is a facility to report to Amazon comments that an author considers defamatory, which these remarks clearly are, but who would want to waste any more energy on such a negative, unpleasant and unproductive task?

All I can do is tough it out. I wince at the thought of people seeing that ‘review’, although everyone assures me it is so obviously unhinged that nobody sane is going to be put off. And my book does continue to sell.

Writing this I can feel myself getting angry and upset again. My only comfort, not that it’s any comfort at all, is that having started to talk about this, I’ve learned that so many other people have been on the receiving end of a troll attack.

The lovely and down-to-earth Claire Mitchell, of The Girls Mean Business, I know for a fact has helped many women to get their businesses going and back on track. Her amazing 30 Days to Boost Your Biz online course gets almost full marks in our review, and provides wonderful support for women running businesses from home who might otherwise feel too isolated to carry on. (And coincidentally starts again this very day if you feel in need of a boost in the company of likeminded women).

About the same time as me, Claire was subjected to a sustained troll attack on several platforms, including social media. She has written about the experience on her blog, and also very kindly posted a spirited defence of my book and me to the troll’s last comment.

It’s interesting to note the similarity in the bile both Claire and I received – a belittling of what we do, accusations of being fraudsters, of not being able or willing to ‘get a real job’.

You will probably be as horrified as I was at the number of people commenting on her blog who have had similar experiences or know someone who has. As one commenter says, ‘Clearly the person has their own issues, and is jealous of your success, so, I guess in a very strange way, it’s a sure sign you’ve made it once you have your own cyber stalker!’

Jealousy does seem to have a great deal to do with it, and a distorted perception of the reality of our lives. Both of us put in plenty of hard work and experience tough times and failure as well as a modest online profile. So remember, if this happens to you, it’s not you, it’s the troll… 🙁

* A ‘poisonous puddle of troll bile’ is how my Workhubs friend Lisa describes the ‘review’ in her comment on Amazon, providing one of the few lighthearted moments of this experience.