One comedian's brilliant idea for fighting back against trolls

Sofie Hagen is a comedian and podcaster with thousands of social media followers to her name.
 
By anyone’s standards, Hagen is ‘killing it’. Yet every single day, her social pages receive comments so gobsmackingly vile they would make anyone want to dive under the bedcovers and hide there forever.
 
Unfortunately, Hagen isn’t alone in this experience. Too many women are subjected to cruelty and outright abuse from complete strangers, simply for sharing their opinions and lives online. For being women with voices.
 
In a recent post addressing her “haters”, Hagen explains she used to actively delete abusive comments and ban the posters from her pages.  

“No happy person feels the need to go online and attempt to make a stranger sad. These people who are making these shitty comments wear their vulnerability on their sleeves,” she writes. 

“No one says ‘F**king pig kill yourself’ and then gets into bed with their soulmate and feels that pinch of true happiness in their stomachs.”

Ultimately, Hagen says, there’s a fundamental difference between trolls and the people they habitually target: one group are “destroyers” and the other are “creators”.

There are people who spend their lives trying to spread joy or positivity and there are people who spend their lives trying to spread sadness and negativity,” she writes.

“Imagine being one of them. Imagine being that sad.”

Despite countless women speaking up about the abuse they receive on their social media accounts, platforms like Facebook, Instagram and Twitter are yet to crack down on the issue in any meaningful way.

So, Hagen compels her followers to take matters into their own hands and combat the hatred by spreading “joy and positivity and love”.

“Whenever you see anyone post a vile and sad abusive message online - go find someone who receives it and give them love,” she suggests.
 
“For every abusive comment or tweet - send two supportive and loving tweets or comments to someone who deserves it. Or knit a scarf or paint a picture. 

“Do something creative that makes you or someone else happy.”

Sounds like a plan to us.

You can read Sofie Hagen's call to arms in full here.