0067: How To Really Stick It To Online Trolls

Raw transcript:

i’m sure that like me
you’ve encountered your fair share of
trolls online
and
i’ve often wondered what the most
amazing successful effective way of
dealing
with trolls is
and i just found out and i’m gonna share
it with you on this episode of the vo
heroes podcast
[Music]
we as actors and voice talent are part
of an amazingly supportive community
for the most part uh go to your local
theater uh join a cast
work on television work in film go to a
studio everybody’s nice to each other
everybody’s supportive what can i do to
help how can i help in that particular
setting
we are among the nicest most
awesome people on the planet
and yet
when you add in a dash of anonymity
and
facelessness
being online
you all of a sudden find people turning
into complete
asses
and trolling on purpose because it gives
them
some feeling of superiority or it lets
them exhibit what little humor they
think they have who knows why they do it
but one thing is clear
and that is that they do it again and
again and again and that leads me to
think
okay it’s hard to deal with these people
how do you deal with these people why do
they do that
and it turns out
that both of those questions can be
answered by science okay so i’m
listening to this podcast called the
hubermann lab
by dr andrew huberman who is let me get
this title right stanford professor of
neurobiology and ophthalmology
and he
investigates all these things about how
our mind and our bodies interact
and i’ve been listening to the podcast
because i’ve been very interested in
sleep hygiene
and trying to get better with my health
and trying to get better with how
my mind and my body interact if at all
and it’s just i just find all these gems
in his podcast so here’s
what happened i i was following him on
twitter and i was listening to the
podcast
and as i was listening to it i realized
he was sharing something that we can all
use when we encounter trolls online
he was talking about
the dopamine hit that these trolls get
and how to shut that off
so i’m gonna quote his words directly in
the tweet he said
understand
quote reward prediction error
and you will never reply to a negative
comment again
negative comments open
a dopamine anticipation loop
for the the troll
in the commenter respond and the circuit
closes they get rewarded don’t respond
and their dopamine will eventually drop
below baseline
so you know that phrase don’t feed the
trolls have you ever seen that before i
mean people talk about it all the time
and it’s really hard to do because when
somebody insults you or somebody like
really pokes at you or calls you names
or disparages your parents whatever you
want to respond you want to defend
yourself you want to defend them you
want to defend your such and i encounter
this a lot because
i have this habit of letting you know
what i think and giving advice
and there are people who don’t like that
i do that and they don’t like my answers
or maybe they don’t care about my
answers i’m just an easy target so
i’ve often used the process of kill them
with kindness so i will respond with oh
you know kind of a bless your heart kind
of thing and
there’s a little bit of of passive
aggressiveness in that but when you look
at this
this whole concept of reward prediction
error and dopamine anticipation loops
you can instantly do something that is
the easiest thing in the world to do
and apparently the most effective thing
in the world to do
and that’s absolutely nothing
and that ties into the whole notion of
don’t feed the trolls
if you don’t respond
they don’t get the reaction that they’re
hoping for they’re disappointed and
there’s nothing they can do
it’s not like they can say what’s the
matter cat guy at your tongue because
that sounds stupid they can’t put
another reply and another comment under
their already you know obvious comment
and
and i look at this in general and i go
okay simple to do simple to do
not simple
to institute
because of that emotional urge that you
have to get even or to defend or to not
let them get one on you or to not let
the attack go
unmet
right
so if you can manage to do that
you can make life in all of those
facebook groups that
spend time the old-timers spend time
going have you looked in the file
section have you used the search
function
i mean if you’ve been in some of the
audiobook narrator groups that are open
to members of the community and posed a
question as a new uh member or as a new
narrator you’re taking your life into
your hands
and this is something you can use
everywhere not just in our
groups and in our areas on social media
or in life
you know you just don’t have to respond
and if you do that
you’re really digging the knife in to a
troll because they’re not getting
that
energy that dopamine that they want from
getting a reaction from you
now the question is
is this something you could possibly try
to do because i know it’s the
overwhelming urge to get even
how do you react how do you feel first
of all when trolls do things to you
online
uh how do you handle those things
what kind of things do you say
or type
do you look to be creative
and is it possible that you might
institute this which is
doing nothing
and knowing
that you’re really really hurting the
troll in the process let me know in the
comments below i’d love to know what you
think uh if you’re watching this on
social media note that i’m not trolling
you but i would love for you to
subscribe to whatever channel you’re on
uh or to refer to another actor or voice
talent if you think this might help them
uh hit the like button yeah
relatively easily so that you can use
the like button to like one of my future
podcast episodes
and uh and give us a comment over on
voheros.com that’s where this
conversation is nice and sane
we would love to have you over there i’m
david h lawrence the 17th i thank you so
much for watching and for listening and
i will see you in the next episode of
the vo heroes podcast
[Music]

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