making edible playdough is hegemonic.

Last updated: Tuesday, Sept. 7, 10:05 a.m.: The author of the blog described below has acknowledged that the comments posted using my sister’s online identity were not, in fact, posted by the “real” Laura, and she has removed them from her blog. Obviously, I believe this was the right decision and I’m glad and relieved that the comments have been deleted.

My sister learned today that someone has been using her information to troll other websites. This person has been posting ignorant, hateful things and linking them to Laura’s online identity. She has contacted the owner of one blog in particular, asking to have the comments removed, but the blog’s owner has refused to respond to her requests and has even deleted two different attempts* to post a disavowal of the most offensive comments.

My sister is crushed. I, on the other hand, am deeply pissed.

Because it’s bad enough that someone is evil and mean-spirited enough to slander someone else’s name–if my sister is right in her guess, the guy who’s using her identity is someone who spent a lot of time posting mean and petty comments on her blog, which she deleted until she finally decided to block him.

You hear that? When someone posts offensive material to your blog, you have two really good options: remove the offensive content, or block the commenter.

The owner of the trolled blog did neither. Instead, she took the low road: She tossed out insults, told “laura” to go fuck herself, and used the offensive content to spew even MORE offensive content.

For example:

The blog author, who is a Muslim, wrote about her frustration over American anti-Muslim rhetoric over a proposed masjid near Ground Zero, and as one of her key points explained that Muslims are a tolerant and diverse group, and that masjids

host a very wide cross-section of people. There are old people there, like, really old people who are so conservative and traditional it’d make your head spin. There are people like Mama and Papa Hoomster, nearing retirement age, people with one foot in each country. There are middle-aged folks who were the first real folks born here. There are people my age, young professionals who are more closely tied to America than they ever will be to another country. There are people younger than me, school children. It’s not just a bunch of crusty immigrants who barely speak English talking about the white devil and the imperialist America. There are folks that converted to Islam – Caucasians, African Americans, Asians. People from all walks of life who identify themselves as Muslims and Americans and find the idea that the two are exclusive in any way completely laughable.

Point one made by the author: Muslims are tolerant and willing to embrace diverse peoples. Hold onto that while I identify point two: That she’s tired of people who reinforce “the ‘ignorant American’ stereotype.” She’s tired, she explains, of people repeating the ridiculous argument that building a masjid near Ground Zero means the terrorists have won. She writes:

Give me a fucking break. I’ve seen so many people (that I follow on Twitter), people that I thought were intelligent and well informed, or at least made a semblance of an attempt to be, express this sentiment. And my respect for them plummeted in the face of such a ridiculous, xenophobic remark. Guys, you’re really not helping the ‘ignorant American’ stereotype. You’re really not.

Ok, just to recap: Muslims are tolerant and she’s sick of Americans acting hostile and ignorant. Now let’s take a look at how this author, who abhors intolerance, hostility, and ignorance, responds to the comment posted by the “laura” sockpuppet.

First, some apparently ‘real’ person posted a comment arguing that building a masjid near Ground Zero would be ‘inappropriate.’ The laura sockpuppet wrote this:

And the blog’s author, the one who hates intolerance, ignorance, and hostility, responded with this:

This same blogger, the one who hates intolerance, ignorance, and hostility, has used my sister as a foil multiple times, even once going so far as to suggest Laura and people like her are “retarded.” Talk about intolerance, ignorance, and hostility!

Seriously: be cool, you guys. And if you can’t be cool, then at least be smart enough to realize when you’ve just turned into a caricature of yourself.

We know that trolling, griefing, and sockpuppetry–use of an online identity for the purpose of deception–are the cost of interacting with social media. What we hope is that people who are smart and motivated enough to maintain an active blog are also smart, motivated, and mature enough to address these in a productive way. I’ll tell you what’s not productive: Using a griefer to grief right back–not only allowing but actively contributing to a hostile, ignorant, and intolerant discourse. It’s not productive, it’s not helpful or useful, and it’s certainly not worth the waste of energy and time it takes to read.

It’s not clear to me why this blog’s owner allowed the sockpuppet’s abhorrent comments to remain on her blog but deleted* my sister’s attempts to set the record straight–Laura was only trying to explain that she absolutely did not subscribe to the ideas attributed to her by the griefer. The only thing I can think is that this is someone who doesn’t particularly care about pesky things like truth, decency, and common courtesy.

*Update: Thursday, Sept. 2, 10:48 p.m.: It appears that the two comments that the real Laura posted today were not deleted, as I wrote above, but delayed for moderation. The author of the blog has since published today’s comments, though as of this update the earlier comments, posted by the sockpuppet laura, remain intact. I’ll post another update if and when the previous comments are deleted.