One of my new favorite pastimes is playing Spot the Logical Fallacy in this Mike @Cernovich Article.https://t.co/awOLICS9R7
— Morgan Boyer (@_bookofmorgan_) April 21, 2016
You've tweeted this link three times. OK I notice you. You seem nice. Hope you get some followers off of me. https://t.co/BJDGXxIP7X
— Mike Cernovich (@Cernovich) April 21, 2016
Is @_bookofmorgan_ stylish or nah? pic.twitter.com/A181C6qwEB
— Mike Cernovich (@Cernovich) April 21, 2016
That picture was all it took to open the floodgates to his trolls.
@Cernovich @_bookofmorgan_ Jesus she looks like a 1920's train hopping rodeo clown wrapped in a trash bag
— King Boo™ (@grip_n_sipp) April 21, 2016
@_bookofmorgan_ Has your hair ever been pulled?
— Robert (@Jed_Kenton) April 21, 2016
@tassostsl @Cernovich @_bookofmorgan_ She looks like the type of girl that would accuse you of rape ten years later.
— Franz C. #Diversity (@franz_soapbar) April 21, 2016
So many of these chicks have never been fucked right. Sad! @_bookofmorgan_ @Cernovich
— John (@JohnSmith112221) April 21, 2016
When Dana Schwartz called Donald Trump out as an anti-Semite, she received similar and even uglier attacks. A single tweet won her a flood of responses referencing ovens, work camps, greed, and Satan. Trolls made fun of her nose, told her to kill herself, and called feminism a cancer. According to Schwartz, no matter how much she tried to intellectualize the trolling, nothing could have prepared her for how vulnerable the attacks on her appearance, religion, and values made her feel. When Mayte Lara Ibarra announced on Twitter that she was an undocumented valedictorian with a full ride to the University of Texas, trolls took the opportunity to report her to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and ridicule her for her appearance and accomplishments. Heck, they'll even harass a mindless Twitter bot. Regardless of whether internet trolls actually mean the inflammatory things they say, they know their craft, and they know their audience will eat it up. They enable cultures of hatred and promote inequality. Mike Cernovich let me off easy. He’s gotten people fired, he’s broadcasted their back taxes, and he’s proudly humiliated them. To be honest, I was a bit frightened to write and publish this article. If one tweet sparked such a tremendous response, what will these trolls unleash on me after this? I don’t know Cernovich personally. I have no idea what his real personality is like outside of his blog and Twitter antics. But he’ll always exist to me as the guy who condoned my harassment just because I criticized him. And if he and his trolls don’t like my analysis of him, I say to them exactly what he says to his critics: Go. Cry. More.