The online book reviewing community was embroiled in a storm when young adult author Kathleen Hale published an article in the Guardian about her search for a book blogger who was spreading lies about her new book, No One Else Can Have You. No one involved comes off very well, but the situation has opened up discussions on the nature of book blogging and how to respond to a troll.
For those who haven’t yet had the misfortune of meeting one, an internet troll is one who deliberately says derogatory or inflammatory things to get a rise out of people.
According to Hale’s Guardian essay, Harris posted a negative review on Goodreads, a site for book lovers, saying that Hale’s book made light of PTSD and rape. While Hale’s book does mention PTSD, it does not have rape in it at all. Harris then continued to mock Hale’s tweets and kept bashing her book.
This prompted Hale’s new obsession.
The number one rule about dealing with trolls is do not engage. You won’t win. There is no sense in getting into Internet fights.
Hale began what she referred to as “light stalking.” She looked up Harris’s online profiles and when she found out that Harris was writing a manuscript, she took the first of many missteps: she wrote a passive aggressive tweet, saying that weird, bad reviews were annoying, but it’s a relief to know that all bloggers are aspiring authors. The book blogging community freaked out, saying that not every review has to be good and that not all bloggers are just waiting for their chance to become authors. In Hale’s attempt to fix things, she just kept digging herself in deeper.
There’s no way to win an Internet fight. Especially when you are a professional trying to build a writing career. Nothing good will come out of being childish and passive-aggressive. If it stopped there, Hale would have come off as immature, but might have recovered.
She didn’t and things got worse.
Hale’s obsession with Harris grew as her stalking continued. This is where the core of why Hale mishandled the situation is revealed. Her Guardian essay builds up to the fact that - gasp! - there’s no one by the name of Blythe Harris on Google. She asks, “Was Blythe Harris even real?”
The naïveté is almost painful. You mean people lie about their identities on the Internet? This realization is where Hale crosses the line from immature to insane.
After the release of her book, a book club wanted an interview and asked Hale to pick the blogger to do it. Of course, she had never forgotten about Harris and picked her to do it. The book club asked her to do a book giveaway with the interview, so they forwarded Harris’s address so Hale could sign some books and send them. Hale used the information to look up the house on Google Maps and realized that the house was too small to match interiors that Harris had posted online. Hale found out that the person who lived there was named Judy Donofrio (name changed in the Guardian article) and paid for a background check.
During this time, Hale had been in contact with another author she calls Patricia, who had also fallen victim to Harris. Hale asked Patricia, “I think we’ve been catfished?”
Catfishing refers to someone creating an elaborate fake backstory for someone they are in an online-based relationship with. It does not refer to someone lying about themselves on the Internet, which is everybody.
Hale eventually resorts to A) going to this woman’s house, and B) calling her while pretending to be someone else – essentially what Harris had been doing this whole time.
There’s no real conclusion to the story: Hale doesn’t get an answer out of Harris and never figures out if Donofrio and Harris are the same person. I’m not sure what Hale was expecting with the publication of the story, but the Internet exploded with articles and tweets slamming Hale.
I’ll be clear here: no one behaved very well. Harris is a vicious Internet troll with a history of lashing out. Hale undoubtedly steps over the line in her obsession with Harris. But most articles I’ve read are quick to demonize Hale without scrutinizing Harris’s actions as well.
It wasn’t just Hale going way overboard in reaction to a nuanced and thoughtful negative review. Harris wrote a review full of lies and then mocked Hale on Twitter. Of course this doesn’t excuse Hale’s actions, but to frame this as a black and white story is not right.
Hale’s main issue (other than not knowing when to let things go) is that she is trying to build an online presence without knowing how the online world works. Yes, people will say bad things about you. Yes, there will be ad hominem attacks. But sinking to their level just makes you look bad. In a world where you can Google pretty much anything, there’s no excuse for not learning from similar situations and taking a cue from others on how to deal with trolls.
So what’s a good way for authors to respond to trolls?
Let me introduce you to John Scalzi. He’s a sci-fi author with a significant online presence through Twitter and his blog, and he’s a master at using the Internet. When he was targeted by a troll last year, he said he would donate $5 to charity every time the troll in question posted about him. He capped it at $1,000 and said it would go to four charities: RAINN, an anti-sexual violence organization; an organization dedicated to electing pro-choice Democratic women to office; a charity for LGBT rights; and NAACP. What he didn’t expect was that his high profile friends and ordinary Twitter followers would also offer to donate to charity. The result? About $50,000 donated because of the troll.
This retaliation worked because A) Public humiliation is the best way to deal with trolls, B) Something good came out of it, and C) It made Scalzi look like the better person.
Hale failed because she looked just as bad, if not worse than her troll. She took the situation too personally and too seriously because she didn’t understand Internet culture. I’m not saying that she should never fight back. But she should have fought back in a way that made the world a little better.
