"That was really dumb" and other wisdom from the Five Types of Nurse Blog Trolls

Ah, Spring. The birds are singing, the tomatoes are setting fruit, and the trolls have come out from their long winter hibernation to share their wisdom with the world.

Or, at least, with me.

Every year about this time there's an uptick in the number of silly, pointless, and just plain weird comments I get. Some years there's an uptick in the volume of abusive ones, too. Most years I get many, many more anonymous emails (both lovely and not) in the spring, as the pressure of class and graduation and job-finding Gets To Be Too Much for blog-readers.

So here, then, are the five commonest types of trolls Your Faithful Blogger encounters between, say, March and June:

1. The Okay....So? Troll.

Primary Characteristics: Harmless and pointless. Usually comments on a post that is quite old.

Primary Commenting Style: That was stupid and boring. Why did you post it?

Primary Response: Okay....so? Then I go back to picking my teeth.

2. The Auto-Troll.

Primary Characteristics: Posts multiple times on multiple blogs, thanks to the wonders of spidering. Includes dummy email address with each post.

Primary Commenting Style: Hello, dear Friend, I am sorry I could not find your email address to your blog, but this is a lovely blog. My late Father, the Commandant and Supreme Commander of the Backobeyondistan Home Forces, left me sixteen thousdadn dollars upon his demise, with which I have begun a small operation selling Fashionable and Quality Nursing Scrubs to fine people like yourselves. Etcetera.

Primary Response: Yes, I really do want to delete this forever, and I know it can't be undone.

3. The Concern Troll.

Primary Characteristics: Aggression and hostility disguised as concern. Multiple posts on the same or related subjects, usually going back years.

Primary Commenting Style: It seems to me that you have a lot of issues with anger directed at your patients. When I was in the hospital for the sixteenth time last year, with my Undiagnositis, I ran into a lot of nurses who seemed to have the same issues. Just because your work schedules suck and your (sic) forced to work with difficult populations doesn't mean you have the right to refuse me my pain medicine. Maybe you should get counselling.

Primary Response: .... .... .... .... ....I am. It's called a blog.

4. The Straight-Up Lunatic

Primary Characteristics: Straight-up lunacy.

Primary Commenting Style: FEMALE NURSES ARE THE MOST UNPROFESSIONAL BUNCH EVER TO COME DOWN THE PIKE AND ARE PROBABLY LIBERAL MUSLINS AND TERRORISTS BESIDES WHY DON'T YOU EVER TALK ABOUT THE WONDERFUL WORK THAT DOCTORS DO SAVING THE PLANET FROM CONTRAILS AND GOVERMENT PLANS FOR A NEW WORLD ORDER THE CURRENCY IS BEING DEVALUED OH AND BY THE WAY YOU'RE KIND OF UGLY AND YOU'RE PROBABLY FAT. (repeated, with variations, ad infinitum)

Primary Response: Giggling. Then I post it if it's really funny.

5. The Hysterical Shrieking Ninny (thanks, Abilene Rob, for the name!)

Primary Characteristics: Having never read a nursing blog before, and having little to no skill in the field of reading comprehension, this commenter gets really, really abusive and angry. She (it's usually a woman unless it's political) accuses me and other nurses of crimes against humanity. Sixty percent of the time they pull out the "For the CHILDREN" card, or suggest I get a new job. Women then recruit their friends, who threaten to find me and ruin my career. Men (on political posts) merely suggest that I be raped and beaten.

Primary Commenting Style: I can't believe you'd write such a cruel post on XYZ. When my son had XYZ, it was easily the most traumatic thing we'd ever undergone as a family, and led to many psychological problems for me down the line. He recovered fine, but it's no thanks to awful, horrible people like yourself. You make me sick. I'll find you, where-ever you are, and tell your boss about this blog and you'll lose your job, which is only fair, because you ought to find a new one FOR THE CHILDREN so that you're not around these helpless people any more when you're lacking compassion and caring and oh by the way you're sort of ugly and you're probably fat and maybe you ought to be raped and beaten. And I'm going to tell all of my friends so, so that they can write in with posts that exactly correspond to my writing style and typos and misspellings.

Primary Response: I used to try to reason with them. No more. Now it's Yes, I really do want to delete this forever, and I know it can't be undone.