I tracked down considered one of my on-line trolls – she wasn’t the ‘Mean Girl’ I used to be anticipating… however a 71-year-old GRANNY

As someone who has created businesses that rely on the online world, I am no stranger to being trolled – it’s become part and parcel of my everyday life.

I’m Lisa Johnson – a global business strategist, a Sunday Times-bestselling author and a 47-year-old mother-of-twins who went from being £35,000 in debt to making £20m in sales in seven years – and I teach others how to do it too.

My childhood and young adulthood were not an especially happy time. Relentless bullying led to underachievement at school and zero confidence in myself, resulting in some less than positive life choices.

So, it would stand to reason that the spiteful online comments from the little troll collection (for those lucky enough not to know what a troll is, it’s an online bully) I seem to be acquiring would hit home, opening old wounds and resurrecting painful memories.

At the start of my business eight years or so ago this had an element of truth to it, as it was a shock to begin with. ‘Why are these people being mean to me? They’ve never even met me!’

But it didn’t take me long to realise these comments had no impact on what I did or whether or not I was successful. There is a quote I stumbled across a while ago that really puts the little trolls into perspective, and it is simply this:

‘You’ll never be criticised by someone who is doing more than you. You’ll always be criticised by someone doing less.’

No one who has a successful life or feels truly happy about themselves will take the time out of their day to post nasty comments about somebody else, and so I kept a pragmatic attitude based on the fact that what other people think of me is really none of my business.

In theory this was a great attitude to embrace, and I can honestly say on the whole, the comments now make me chuckle more than they upset me. I also work with a company to get the comments printed on merchandise!

But I am also intrigued by who would take time out from their lives to post hurtful comments online.

What was their reason for it? Did they feel better after writing them? Are they angry at something else and using me as a scapegoat? Are they friendless and does a like or a comment make them feel noticed?

The most aggressive incident took place in a very well-known online chat group aimed at female parents, where they cover a variety of day to day subjects such as parenting, cooking and hurling horrendous comments at random people who they just take an instant dislike to based only on their social media profile.

Suffice to say there was one particular participant whose comments seemed to be getting more and more extreme.

At the beginning, she seemed to be fairly objective about the stuff being posted about me, but as it grew and the seriousness of what was being said escalated, her ferocity and her bitterness seemed to grow with it.

She was commenting with conviction on every thread, quoting personal encounters and interactions with me that backed up each argument and painted an ever increasingly horrendous image of me as both a person and a business owner.

I couldn’t let it lie, and as this particular troll-fest escalated out of control, I decided to instigate my private investigator mode, and find out exactly who this ring leader, chief mud slinger, and all-round mean girl really was.

So I did some research and finally I found out who it was (which wasn’t too hard as she gave enough info away in her comments).

Now I had a name and an email address and I sent a politely worded message regarding the things she had been saying and asking whether she would be willing to jump on a call so we could chat in more depth, and I could find out exactly what it was about me that annoyed her so much.

Surprisingly she agreed (I’m assuming because she thought I’d name and shame), and as I dialled her number on FaceTime and waited for her to pick up, I had images of a feisty woman, full of attitude and strong opinions, unafraid of voicing them to show the world what she really stood for and why ‘people like me’ needed bringing down.

What I actually got was a 71-year-old lady with knitting in her lap and photos of her grandchildren on the mantelpiece behind her.

She was open and honest and I believe somewhat perplexed by how things had escalated so quickly.

I asked her if she had anything against me personally. She replied, to the contrary, at the beginning of the post she actually thought I seemed like a decent person, and had started by posting fairly positive messages, but as the negativity upped the ante within the group, she got ‘swept along’ by it and started joining in.

When she posted something mean, other people in the group (probably the real ringleaders) agreed and applauded her, and she found she was getting caught up in a vicious circle where every comment brought her more attention and the feeling of being an important member of the group was so alluring, she pretty much forgot what she was commenting on in the first place. She, it seemed, just wanted to belong and by the united hate of yours truly, she did.

She had no idea if what she was saying was causing upset elsewhere, this was not the purpose of her commenting.

And so she apologised and assured me she wasn’t usually like this and she would not make a similar mistake again.

Ending with where we started, trolling does not cause me to lose any sleep, but what this story and in particular my conversation with this lady has done is to make me reassess the who and the why in incidents of trolling.

Of course, there will be countless different agendas for those who get involved in online character assassination, but those faceless critics are unlikely to be who we expect them to be, and their reasons may well surprise us too.

My final thought is a simple one. Everyone has an opinion, and it’s great to discuss different points of view, but if you wouldn’t say something to someone standing directly in front of you, then it’s probably wise to not say it on social media.

Lisa Johnson is a global business strategist running That Strategy Co, helping ambitious people to create passive and semi-passive income streams.