Today in class we were talking about internet trolls, cyber bullying and how to deal with it all. Internet trolls are something I’ve actually been dealing with since this summer when I started my internship so all of this was very interesting and eye opening. This summer I started an internship with a popular sports blog called Barstool Sports. I definitely do not fit the typical mold of people who work there which I suspect is part of the reason I got a lot of hate. Some might look at this blog misogynistic, sexist, or offensive in every sense of the word but I didn’t see it that way. I saw it as just plain funny, everything that could be seen as offensive I could see the humor in. Anyways, I was a fan and applied for then received an internship there. I was told when you start working there you really become a “character” with an online personality and I had no idea what I was in store for. I was told you really need thick skin and to be prepared for the readers, “commenters” or internet trolls (whatever you want to call them) to say things about you, learn things about you and peek into your personal life. My online persona became known as “Intern Dana” and throughout the summer I gained 30K Twitter followers, 13K Instagram followers and everything else I kept for myself (Snapchat and Facebook). When I first got my internship people googled me and found out my measurements from my modeling profile online and judged me on that. That was just the beginning. Everything I did that summer was under a spotlight and a microscope. Some of the things that were found in the comment section ranged from being extremely sexually explicit to calling me an “illiterate c**t” and the same thing happened on Twitter. There were rumors spread about me and a coworker all over the internet which I still get tweets about. To be honest all summer I didn’t really care. I stopped reading the comment section quickly and didn’t pay attention to what they said to me. I didn’t feed the troll. I just figured the people behind the keyboards were perverted old men but hearing the story on This American Life really got me thinking. Part of me wants to know who these people are, do they have daughters? Nieces? Sisters? If I had confronted some of them what would have happened? But there’s also just a part of me that still doesn’t care. To me, this is what the internet is and what it has always been. I feel like if you agree to put yourself out there then you’re agreeing to be subjected to this. Yeah, I didn’t ask for it but I also somewhat agreed to it by putting myself on such a popular site. There is no “safe space” on the internet and there never will be or at least not for a long time. When I was in high school there was a site called “Formspring” where people would anonymously write mean things about people, start rumors and just downright harass them. In my opinion these type of people, this rhetoric, and this behavior will always be there. Do I think it’s right and that’s the way it should be? Absolutely not. I just don’t think  there is any way to get rid of it. If you’re going to be a girl working with all men at a sports blog in what is considered a “man’s subject area” then this is what’s going to happen. I think the same goes for girls playing video games. Right now, that’s considered more of a man’s activity (or I think) I don’t know a lot about video game culture so I don’t want to act like an expert. From what we’ve read it seems like that and  a lot like women in sports. From my experience it seems the same, we get more harassment, we get judged harder, and punished harder for our mistakes. I wish it would change but I don’t see it changing any time soon. Obviously the women in gaming and the women in sports are only helping.  But, I think there will always be a dark part of the internet filled with trolls and that’s just a condition of the internet.