Cat Article Summary
Blogging, creating videos, and engaging in social media activities are some of the many ways that people participate in when they are online. In today’s generation, these activities are considered recreational. When the internet was first discovered, it was meant to be a method for people to find answers and communicate with others from faraway places in a much convenient way. However, in one way or another, the internet has brought people together and torn them apart as well. Mary, in this article, is using blogging as an opportunity to meet and interact with others. She has written a blog about lolcats during her retirement. This is where people can view and comment on the images they are seeing.
Mary’s blog (icanhascheezbuger.com) contains around 12 users who seem to have been active participants over the years. Mary has even gone ahead to meet with some of them in person. Mary created a “cheezland” where she can receive personalized updates and from her participants and find a way to put them on her blog. This enabled the group to identify messages easier and in an organized manner. Within no time, the group created a positive image and climate for interaction among the members. Although some of the members were ill and going through hard times, Mary was able to get updates on how they were fairing on. She also managed to find a way to post this information on her blog page for others to view and comment on. All these were made possible because of their shared interest in cats and the lolcat images.
Mary has a hobby of being online. She found it very easy to translate the comments in lolcat language to Standard English then posting it on her blog. This helped her create some sense of a community within her blog. For example, there was a sympathetic mood when Blues fan’s mom became ill, and there was joy when a member was “adopted” in a way by a stray dog. However, Mary noticed a different set of reactions in the comments section when she logged into the blog page after a day of traveling. She saw a large number of “war “comments that may have been incited by a troll. Mary got worried and wondered how these trolls seemed to enjoy posting a malicious comment and calling the members names. Some of the sensitive comments had been removed before she logged in. However, the moderators of the blog had responded quickly to the situation in a fair manner.
It was at this point that Mary knew that something had to be done about these trolls. She reached out to her laptop and sent emails to three members she knew had no crisis in their lives at the moment. These three members were Lisa, Pat, and Fade leaf, and they responded to her email almost immediately. Lisa and Pat condemned the actions of the troll and reported what the troll did while Mary had been away. Then Fade leaf sent an email to Mary, and her message did not seem to condemn the troll’s actions. Fade leaf informed Mary that those members were getting too agitated and quick to respond to trolls who are begging for attention. She added that members might need to understand that not many of these “trolls” are familiar to the site, and they may have mixed feelings.
After receiving the reactions of the three members, she had no idea how the rest of the members would feel. Mary decided to type on her blog window, saying that she has noticed many individuals liking and disliking her page over the years. She adds that some of the trolls who pass by say something then leave, and some harm and bully others. The article ends with Mary taking a sip of her tea, and breath then ponders on what she would say next.