Formspring Trolls + the Notion of Self-pity

I'm sure that most of you would know by now that I have a Formspring account. For those of you who don't know what Formspring is, I'll tell you now. It's a website where you can go to ask people questions, either anonymously or with your identity. If you have an account, people have the opportunity to ask you questions. Most questions are asked anonymously, of course. Now, during my time on Formspring, I've received plenty of questions and comments (but not as many as John Giang-Nguyen). Unfortunately, a lot of those questions and comments have been insults, directed at either me, or people close to me. The people who leave these insults are known as trolls. The comments made by these trolls range from harmless sexual comments (people saying that they want to do things with my penis), to criticisms of me as a person (mostly that I'm pretentious), to the worst of all - people being very aggressive towards me and even my family, leaving comments that are just vulgar and disgusting. Here's an example: "your great great grandmothers corpse feels so good around my cock." Earlier this year, things got very serious when one of my responses to a troll resulted in racial conflict. During that period, I didn't even feel safe walking past certain people from my grade. Not too long ago, a bunch of trolls attacked me over my visual arts major work mark, which I was less than pleased with. They kept making jokes about my artwork, and as a result, I was quite pissed off. I had a mental breakdown at school on the day I received my result, so their insensitive comments didn't help one bit. I would love to know who these gutless assholes are. They are low people...so low and pathetic that they spend their time putting someone else down over the Internet. Some of the comments I receive over Formspring make me lose faith in humanity. It saddens me to think that the perpetrators are people from the Year 12 2010 cohort at Pats. I really hope that these people are just bored strangers who stumbled across my page one day. What I want to know is WHY? Why the fuck do you trolls do it? What the fuck have I ever done to you? I'm not deserving of all this crap, and I happen to be a very nice person. These trolls need to know that their words can, and often do hurt. They may think it's a joke, but they have no idea how it feels to be on the receiving end. Some people would have committed suicide by now, but not me...I don't believe in that. If any of my trolls are reading this, then I doubt this post will mean anything to them. They will most likely carry on with their cowardly ways, without any signs of empathy. Oh well, they will fail at life. For ANYONE who is reading this - if you have any suspicions about who the trolls on my Formspring may be, please let me know. I want these fuckers to be found out. Thank you.

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It's time to share my thoughts on the emotion that is self-pity. Before I divulge my thoughts on the topic, I advise you all to watch this short clip, featuring some wise words by the wonderful Stephen Fry:

Powerful; isn't it?

The reason why I chose to discuss this emotion in this post is because some of the comments I receive on Formspring make me pity myself. I know that they shouldn't, but sadly, they do. Thankfully, I stumbled across the above video, and since I did, my feelings of self-pity aren't as strong. The reason why some of the Formspring insults make me pity myself is because I cannot think of a reason why I should receive them. As far as I know, no-one else who's close to me receives the same type of comments on Formspring, and thus I feel targeted. What Fry says about self-pity is correct: it only makes matters worse, because it doesn't actually solve anything. I could pity myself for days on end, but it wouldn't lift me out of my sorrows. A bad case of self-pity could lead me to thinking I'm not worthy of helping anyone else. It's just a massive indicator of inner weakness and insecurity. My problems with trolls on Formspring are insignificant compared to some of the evil acts committed around the world. I have it lucky compared to so many people. Still, it's so easy to fall into a state of self-pity, because the individual is in complete control of how much he/she pities himself/herself. You often encounter those people who say "I understand where you're coming from", in an attempt to make you feel comfortable. Most of the time, they actually don't understand, and that phrase is some generic line that they spit out to everyone else who's not feeling well. Hey, I'll be honest and say that I've used that phrase a few times, and I've never felt as though I'm helping when I've used it. The worst situation of all is when you feel as though someone should be pitying you, but that pity never comes, and you feel it's almost necessary to pity yourself. I've been in that situation a few times, and it's not pretty. For those guys in my grade...do you remember how we had to do that group activity at the Year 12 Retreat, where we sat in groups and shared our answers to questions on a sheet? Well, we had to complete this sentence: When someone hurts me, my immediate reaction is to... I answered 'wallow in self-pity'. Looking back on that, I now realise that self-pity would only intensify the hurt. So...what's the solution to self-pity? I would say ignorance - if you feel that you are the victim of undeserved taunts, or feel that you could have done something better, don't dwell on it. Put it behind you instead, and do something that you know you'll succeed at, something you know you'll be appreciated for, and most importantly, something that will restore your faith in yourself. 

Thanks for reading,

Steven