I follow and interact in around +50 active groups and forums every day, ranging from film, scriptwriting, anime, videogames, to geopolitics, neighborhood watches and community boards. Not even counting the memes and shitposting ones, then it easily reaches 100.

Safe to say, reading and commenting online constitutes about 90% of my social interactions. I always try to be as nice as possible, offer good information and jokes, and avoid all kinds of conflicts, especially trolls, cults and fanboys. This keeps me sane and maintains a daily healthy exchange of communication.

There is one absolute and undeniable truth: Shitty people exist, they live among us and use the internet to tell us the type of stuff they think and do.

You simply cannot avoid them, even indirectly, they will affect you. I know this firsthand because that’s a priority in my life, I actually go out of my way and make an effort just to not deal with them. But it’s not enough…

The amount of horrible shit I read that’s being done to other people still gets me on a bad mood. Most of them don’t have the capacity to identify said shitty people, and then go online to narrate us what happened to them in their encounter. It’s sad, and infuriating. Even if you do know how to handle it, and maybe avoid the bigger conflict, you’ll still have a bad time trying to resolve the situation. Because that’s what they do, they bring the shit and try to make you eat it. If you deny them the chance, they’ll just spread it around you and on your things. Shit is always gonna get smeared on you. There’s no escaping it.

What to do? Awareness, street smarts (to avoid conflict, not take advantage of people) and good old-fashioned luck. At least the ‘good guys’ are way more than them, even if the shitty group is the one making the headlines and fucking everything up for everyone.