He’s Not a Troll…

…he’s a naughty little boy!

The third location was a friend’s house.

The Troll was his son. His 17-year-old son.

I was gobsmacked.

Except, of course, he wasn’t a troll at all. A stalker, maybe. A nasty little shit, possibly, a jerk who thought that he was playing a game, oh, yes. but a troll, no. A troll is a specific beast, one who will try to provoke a flame war on forums and message boards –  posting comments designed to get such a response. Trolling for a bite as it were.

Sometimes as with the one Captain Ranty (and others) and I had to deal with, they move from the latter to the former. Ranty’s started out with anti-smoking trolling on a site dedicated to personal liberty. He then moved onto the personal threats, so, yes, he was a troll but one who shifted onto the cyberstalking. Indeed, it would have been better to refer to him as a stalker by then.

But Leo Traynor’s tormentor –  nasty though he was –  was not a troll. Never was. That said, Traynor used the same tricks I did to track down the culprit and well done to him for fronting him up, but anonymity ion teh interwebs wasn’t to blame –  you did notice the underlying swipe, didn’t you?