When virtual gets real AF
‘Online actions have real world consequences’ – Simon Hooper, 'dadfluencer'
In late 2019, “mumfluencer” Clemmie Hooper, whose Mother of Daughters Instagram account has more than 660,000 followers, was outed as an online troll. She’d used a secret Instagram account to stalk other mumfluencers — even reportedly attacking her own husband Simon Hooper, whose Father of Daughters account has more than one million followers.
The fallout was huge, with the news of Mrs Hooper’s shocking behaviour splashed all over the news.
I won’t even get into the semantics of mumfluencer as a word in itself but I was intrigued enough to dig deeper into the reasons why a woman seemingly at the top of her game, threw it all away.
In her own words, she started her trolling account after seeing thousands of negative comments about herself and her family on a particular website.
“Reading them made me feel extremely paranoid and affected me much more than I knew at the time.
I decided without telling anyone else that I would make an anonymous account so that this group of people would believe I was one of them, or that I could maybe change their opinions from the inside to defend my family and I.”
The “situation spiralled” when she began writing negative comments about other bloggers in a bid to cover her tracks. “Undoubtedly I got lost in this online world and the more I became engrossed in the negative commentary, the more the situation escalated.’
The obvious trigger for this poor woman was paranoia following the online attacks on her family. However I would go further, to say it started a lot earlier.
I’m making a guess, but the problems probably started when she began to get all the followers and attention, and her online life became her all consuming passion. She most likely began to spend hours engrossed in Instagram and her entire wellbeing and self-image became attached to how much people liked her … posts.
I know this because I’ve had very close friends and even family who are global influencers - and they all admit to being slaved to their accounts, some hardly sleeping or eating to keep up with the 24-7 pressure.
Many start to withdraw from everyday normal life because their social media lives are all consuming. This can lead to isolation and strangely enough a deep loneliness despite the thousands of followers.
Again, I know this from speaking with friends who’ve had to deal with the negative effects of their social media fame.
For Mrs Hooper, the lack of sleep, the pressure and anxiety most likely led to exhaustion and a cascade of poor decisions. A few negative comments overwhelmed her common sense and she was soon attacking others arbitrarily.
Social media is a strange beast. It can feel like sitting naked in an auditorium full of thousands of people all staring at you.
Watching your every move, clapping when you perform perfectly yet waiting to pounce and devour you when you fail.
It’s an extremely vulnerable place to be and when you’re under pressure, with little sleep and with the overwhelming demand to be present all the time, it’s easy to see how one can make a series of poor choices.
I feel badly for Mrs Hooper’s victims and the negativity they had to endure. I’m not defending Mrs Hooper but I feel sad for her too - that she didn’t recognise the beast before her and slay it before it slayed her entire brand, career and reputation.
Insight Inspiration
How do we keep our feet firmly in the real world, when we’ve got an online world to manage?
I’ve sense checked the advice below with a clinical psychologist as well as Psychology.com. However this is not professional advice. Please seek professional help if you think your wellbeing and mental health is at risk.
1. Realise that social media is not a replacement for your family, friends, brand or your self-esteem. Strictly monitor and limit the number of hours you spend on it – 1-2 max per day, and that’s already generous.
2. Know that people who troll may be feeling isolated. This could help with distancing yourself from the emotional effects of the trolling in order to blunt the impact.
3. Don’t get caught up in online attacks and become a counter-troll - i.e. “giving it back just as hard as it is doled out, even resorting to troll-baiting to get a good fight going.” While it can deliver an initial dose of adrenalin and post-revenge elation, that high can drop very quickly into feeling horrible about yourself.
4. Ignore and unfriend trolls - alongside maintaining community standards to disallow trolling.
5. Don't play the rescue card - While it’s hard to empathize with perpetrators, bringing up loneliness in an online altercation is NOT a constructive move. “Approaching such people with the intention to offer support and connection is, at best, likely to go nowhere… and more troubling, may lead to harm to the would-be helper and ultimately greater isolation for the person trolling.”
6. Be very clear about the rules of your pages upfront. If you run a group or social media page, look out for potential trolls and give them warnings, and if they contravene the page rules, unfriend/block them immediately.
7. Lobby your social networks - for interventions designed to provide more community support, that can be ‘potentially programmable into the platforms, and meaningfully reduce the amount of trolling which takes place.’ Psychology Today states that future research is needed to further spell-out how loneliness and online trolling interact, and what interventions may be effective to create a safer online space for our ever-more-connected society. By asking the social platforms for more support, you’ll be advocating for better behaviour and mental health for everyone online.
__________
Sources:
- TheGuardian.com, News.com.au
- What Makes Internet Trolls Tick - https://www.psychologytoday.com/au/blog/experimentations/201908/what-makes-internet-trolls-tick
___________
