I saw a thing today where someone asked a dumb* question and everyone piled on them, assuming they were a troll. I’m going to thread about this really quick.

*I maintain that in the age of Google, there are dumb questions. Sometimes, you really should just google that shit, not post it.
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I tend to feel like sometimes, we assume people are being dicks, when really, they're just uninformed, complacent, or both. 3/

It's often a privilege to be able to be complacent or uninformed in 2020. I want to recognize that before I move on. 4/

Anyway, it makes sense that we assume these folks are trolls. In part because feigning ignorance is something people who are extremely online and/or trolls use frequently. See the "Okay, I'll bite, who's...?" meme, et al
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But when I see these dumb questions sometimes, I think about this friend of mine. Let's call her Clara. 6/

Clara is, in many ways, not dumb. She's actually pretty intelligent when it comes to certain subjects. She excels in anything involving memorization. But, tbh, she's never been much for critical thinking. It's just not what lights her intellectual fire. 7/

I don't mean that as a dig. I think that we all have different skills. I could spend all day on my couch, sitting and pondering some question or topic. This would be torture for Clara. She would much rather be reading or hiking or cooking. 8/

For all her intelligence, the way Clara interacts with the world, with the things she doesn't understand, and with the internet, can make her appear, well, dumb. She will always, a l w a y s ask the dumb question rather than google it. 9/

In the interaction I saw today, the suspected troll said and asked exactly the kind of things that Clara would have said/asked. And Clara would have done so quite innocently. When Clara says, "I'm just trying to understand..." she really means it. 10/

I gave the suspected troll the benefit of the doubt and did what they wouldn't do: I googled it. I posted a link to an article (the actual link, not a LMGTFY link, as tempting as it was) explaining the answer, the suspected troll said thank you, and that was the end of it. 11/

I think Clara, and maybe this suspected troll, represents a certain type of person who maybe gets piled on frequently, because they seem like a troll, when in reality, it's just a lack of information and/or laziness, a failure to try to understand. 12/

I don't mean to defend this behavior. For example, I've often seen this result in the person asking a question of a marginalized person, asking them to do the emotional labor. 13/

ie: Clara might ask a Black person to explain why "All Lives Matter" is hurtful. This info is readily accessible, but it's easy to wait for an explanation to be handed to her with a tidy bow.
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In Clara's mind, it's better to ask, because she's getting the info from someone she knows, because she thinks Google can't be trusted. (Because that's what her teachers told her in the early aughts) 15/

I promise, I'm getting to my point here: I think about people like Clara a lot. It seems to me that they are generally the moderates, the undecideds, the people who "can see both sides." And because of that, they are important and dangerous. 16/

When we assume Clara is a troll and pile on her as such, we risk pushing her in the other direction. She is teetering on the boundary between sides in any debate, and could easily tip with the slightest shove. 17/

I don't think that this kind of behavior should be encouraged. But I also believe that it can't be ignored. 18/

Clara is close to me, I've known her for years, and because of that, I've developed a patience with this kind of behavior. When I suspect that someone just doesn't get it, or when I want to believe that someone isn't a troll, I try to share info with them as best as I can. 19/

Sometimes this makes me look like a dweeb, bc the person really is a troll. And me explaining it to them only lights them up. So then I mute the thread and take my leave. 20/

But also, sometimes, like the suspected troll today, they really just didn't know. And I helped them learn, and it was fine. 21/

I said earlier I think everyone has their skills, the things that they can offer society, and I recognize that this is not something everyone can do. 22/

In fact, I have a hard time with this when the subject is close to me. Trans and queer discourse, for example. In those situations, I'll often say nothing and hope someone else has the energy to deal with it. 23/

Anyway, tl;dr, I think that sometimes we pile on/assume the worst of people, when maybe they just don't know or understand, and I wonder if that isn't a dangerous habit of the Online Set. Idk. Maybe everyone is a troll. 24/

Maybe I just desperately want to believe that people are generally good. Maybe I'm a dweeb for that. But anyway, sorry about the 25-tweet thread about maybe sometimes people suck, but not the way you think they suck? 25/25