During my youth, I used to play with and collect troll dolls.
Some of you may remember the colorful plastic dolls with big eyes and neon hair that stood up straight.
Nowadays, the term troll or trolling is used quite differently.
According to urbandictionary.com, trolling is the art of deliberately, cleverly and secretly making someone mad via the Internet using dialogue. The most essential part of trolling is convincing the intended victim that the troll truly believes in what the victim is saying and gives the victim malicious instructions.
Social media has become a big part of all our lives and it has become easy for me to identify trolls on and off the Internet.
However, I must disagree with the definition. Most trolls I’ve seen are not clever.
For the most part, they appear to be uneducated about their topic and unable to properly hold a friendly debate with someone.
For the most part, they don’t add anything to the conversation and seek to bring misery to their intended victims, for reasons I am unaware.
There is nothing kind about writing terrible and hurtful things on the Internet. It’s an awful character trait.
That’s why I’m glad I found The BAKE Project page through Facebook.
It was started by a local resident who is on a mission to promote the practice of good deeds in our community.
Nearly every day since the page’s creation, there has been a picture posted with a quote promoting kindness.
No matter the mood I’m in, when I see the image pop up on my screen, I try to remember to show kindness to the next person I see, whether they return it or not.
For the most part, I ignore the trolls. I pray for them. Maybe they weren’t shown enough kindness as a child and brought that contempt into adulthood.
We can all start right now, by performing small acts of kindness for our friends, family and strangers. Maybe one day, trolling will be a thing of the past.