Allen ‘Alanzo’ Stanfield, blogger, businessman, and former Scientologist wrote a comment on my story, Damon ‘I Will Endeavor Not to Feed the Hatred I Have Felt Toward Frank.’
He took exception to a sentence I wrote as if it had a hint of hypocrisy.
The sentence is, “Damon Brink is trying not to hate me, and for that, I won’t thank him. I will thank him for putting his name behind his words.”
After calling my attention to the offending sentence, Alanzo commented:
And yet you fill the comment section of your blog with the worst, most cruel, lying, and racist anonymous trolls – personally attacking your commenters and hiding who they are.
You and I have discussed important sources who have been driven away from your blog by this.
Tell us, Frank:
Why don’t you moderate your blog?
My Reply
By Frank Parlato:
Why don’t you, Alanzo, try being diplomatic. Not with me, but with commenters who distress you.
Try not to reciprocate ad hominem attacks. As it is now, trolls love to taunt you because you make it fun for them. While they are anonymous, you are not; they know who you are, so they make it a sport to try to get a rise out of you.
A troll after getting a reaction from Alanzo
You get angry; they love it…
“I got Alanzo pissed, and he attacked my anonymous persona. Now I’ll change personas and pretend I am serious about what he just said and get his goat again,” – Porcine the Troll.
Trolls love to pose as being wiser than they are…
Try humor. Never show temper. Don’t be petulant. Trolls will either be amused if they are kindly trolls [as most Frank Report commenters are], or they will get bored and leave you alone.
That is the secret of dealing with trolls — when using your name — while they are not – never get angry and, of course, never afraid. Who can be afraid of an anonymous troll?
Scientologist Trolls?
Some trolls may be Scientologists who have an agenda to discredit you for your longstanding criticism of Scientology.
These Scientologists are wise, bright folk, for they know about Xenu, the dictator of the Galactic Confederacy, who brought billions of aliens to Earth in a spacecraft 75 million years ago, then placed them around volcanoes, for dramatic effect, and killed them with hydrogen bombs.
According to Scientology, the ghosts of these aliens, called thetans, still haunt the earth, possess humans, and are commenting on Frank Report.
But how could anyone be angry at a thetan or someone who believes in them? Isn’t a little compassion indicated for such a tormented, ghastly long-suffering creature? And don’t forget the thetans have it bad too.
Most Commenters Don’t Care About Scientology.
Most commenters who mock you are not thetans or Scientologists in the clear.
Most are online hobbyists who size you up and want fun. Some of the most acerbic comments have been from commenters who have been around long before you started gracing us with your insightful words.
Nice Guy [above] knows damn well that feigning anger towards Alanzo, attacking him, and getting him to attack will be one of the highlights of his day. He did the same thing to Scott Johnson.
Johnson Came and Went
Scott Johnson, like you, Alanzo, used his real name. Like you, he had a bad experience with a group that some have called a cult – Amway.
He didn’t sign a two-billion-year contract, but I think he had a good decade in and lost money.
Scott, a big Texan – like he was 6’6″ – felt it his duty to give a snappy answer to everyone. He littered the Frank Report with thousands of comments, mostly one or two liners, all negative and usually responding to somebody else’s comment.
He was miffed because he could not get anyone on Frank Report to share his enthusiasm for anti-Amway discussion.
Readers asked that I ban Scott. At one time, I blocked most of his comments. I tried to ask him to comment on topics instead of criticizing commenters. He would even comment on a typo, calling the commenter a moron or stupid.
An artist’s depiction of Scott Johnson trying to make a commenter feel small.
One little rascal posted this on social media.
Anonymous Cowards
For my part, I enjoy trolls.
“I pose as a young woman and will call Frank out as a hater. I am, after all, a social justice warrior,” said the anonymous troll. “My anonymous online community will applaud me and commend my being such a brave young woman.”
It gives me satisfaction to know trolls have to hide who they are to be able to say what they want while I am out in the open – warts and all – saying whatever I like – in my own name.
One time, I was attacked by trolls who felt it their duty to reveal what a devil I am.
MK10ART
At the time, I was a little wroth, so I investigated and found out who they were, got background on them, called people, and found out more — where they lived, what they did. I contacted them by phone and said I was writing about them and would use their real names. They both filled their diapers.
One lied at first and said it wasn’t him. I said, “No problem, then it won’t matter if I use the name.” I never heard a peep from him again.
The other one told me she could lose her job if I outed her. Get into real trouble at home. She had spewed vitriol at me for months, anonymously. Now I had her. The tables were turned.
She was petrified. Then I realized she was just a baby, brave only so long as she was anonymous.
I didn’t out her.
Since then, I’ve especially enjoyed anonymous trolls who criticize me, for I know they are babies who prattle with their big little mouths because they think no one will ever call them out and make them change their diapers.
They are safe to shit on others and think their own excrement is fragrant because they do not have to stand behind what they write.
I feel a little superior, for the anonymous vitriolic troll is a coward. They don’t put their yellow backbone behind their silver tongue.
In my world and yours too, Alanzo, if you are going to dish it out, then be able to take it, which means you take it in your name, not some fake persona.
A guy with the courage to be out there with his real name in the land of trolls, even if he is a defiant ass like you are, Alanzo, and I am, is worth a thousand trolls.
But there is no harm in being diplomatic, in practicing noblesse oblige.
Sure, I like to have fun with cowards, but I am careful not to scare them. I never threaten a troll that I will find out who they are. That’s giving the coward too much credit.
Of course, many trolls are mentally ill, and others, as you said, are looking to vent their racism.
I admit sometimes I taunt them.
Patriot God
Like this fool Patriot God who, in response to calling me names, I told him I was a psychiatrist and had diagnosed him with an acute epileptoid manifestation of the pan phobic melancholiac with paranoid delusory affectation. I urged him to take his medications.
He responded by calling me “ginzo” and “nigger.” I was depressed. I had hoped for something subtle and clever in repartee, but the best he came up with was Frank Niggerlato.
I learned my lesson. Never expect clever repartee from a troll.
If you want my best advice in dealing with trolls, never show surprise, be amused, and don’t show temper.
If you follow my advice, I won’t have to do a thing about moderating the comments section.
Now, if you will forgive a short poem:
A Poem
If you can comment tit for tat with trolls and keep your wittiness,
Or write back and forth with anonymous boneheads—and not become as stupid as they,
If neither obnoxious nor sarcastic anonymous comments can do anything but make you laugh
If trolls’ comments excite you, despite what they are —prattle;
If you can respond to the unforgiving nasty comment
With sixty seconds’ worth of humor and fun,
Yours are the trolls and everything that’s written online by them,
and—which is more—you’ll be a troll master, my son!
A Word on Being Misquoted
It is inevitable that, in addition to insult, some troll will misquote you.
When they do, remember these sage words of Rudyard Kipling that someone recently posted online:
“I am the most widely misquoted man on the internet. When people who use their own names do it, I resent it. But when anonymous trolls misquote me, and I find it on some blog or social media, I find it intolerable.” Rudyard Kipling
