The benevolent troll-queen of the internet prefers to remain anonymous, but here’s what we know: the 30-year-old US-based cartoonist and internet personality who goes by the alias CartoonsHateHer (let’s call her CHH for short) has, over the years, published hundreds of posts to online forums like Reddit under various alternate identities.
These posts have often gone viral – thanks largely to CHH’s masterly navigation of the line between absurdity and believability. Essentially, she pretends to be someone else online – for the lols.
For example, CHH has posed as a bride seeking validation for her choice to organize her wedding party based on Harry Potter house affiliations:
AITA for grouping guests at my wedding by Harry Potter houses pic.twitter.com/N1ZTXkAEWO
— my [69F] boyfriend [420M] is texting other girls (@CartoonsHateHer) May 6, 2020
She’s assumed the identity of a man who calls his petite girlfriend “Big Chungus”:
AITA for calling my girlfriend “big chungus”? https://t.co/8GGc6QgU9v pic.twitter.com/F5OdW1inEs
— Am I the Asshole? (@AITA_reddit) October 23, 2019
And she’s asked advice from the perspective of a woman whose boyfriend pathologically classifies everything he encounters within the incel-affiliated dichotomy of “virgin” or “Chad” – a post which the Barstool Sports Pardon My Take podcast took at face value:
My [22F] boyfriend [25M] categorizes everything as Virgin vs Chad and it’s annoying https://t.co/QWmEjrqHUZ pic.twitter.com/0HV05QpzI2
— relationships.txt (@redditships) September 28, 2019
At this point in her trolling career, CHH has fans who analyze any astonishing story they find online for clues that she may be responsible for it.
Last month, CHH republished many of her posts in The Troll Handbook: 100s of Accounts, 100s of Bans, 100s of Posts, One Bored Girl, part analysis of her craft, part memoir about her life as an internet troll. It’s a hilarious read – but CHH’s joyful self-identification as a troll also raises some questions, not least of which being: but aren’t trolls … bad?
“I think when people think about trolling, they think about your quintessential kind of alt-right, aggressive, nasty, racist, bigoted, homophobic, sexist people that send horrible messages online,” says CHH. “But I don’t consider those people trolls. I consider them assholes – because they’re not assuming a fake identity, some of them genuinely believe what they’re saying.”
According to her, “good” trolling is a kind of satirical storytelling. Rather than imps who aim to harass and sow discord, today’s “good” trolls are more like very online Jonathan Swifts, weaving fishy tales in order to illuminate the stranger aspects of human nature.
“Getting to watch people talk about whether or not what I posted is real is one of my favorite things to do,” she says. “Just watching people say, like, ‘There’s no way this can be real, this is too crazy.’ And someone else says, ‘No, it could be real because my cousin did something almost exactly like this …’
“I fucking love that.”
However, despite her popularity, and her rationale for what constitutes a positive troll, not everyone agrees that such contributions to web forums are appropriate.
Marc Beaulac is the creator and a moderator of the ultra-popular “Am I The Asshole?” subreddit, a forum for those seeking input on the objective morality of their behavior during various interpersonal conflicts. He considers CHH’s posts, and others like them, thorns in his side – a “class of nuisances”, he says.
The format of r/AITA – in which users routinely create burner accounts to divulge the details of their specific experiences – is super appealing to users like CHH, who love making up short, shocking stories that really get people going in the comments.
In Beaulac’s view: “We created this subreddit (and continually volunteer as mods) to serve a positive purpose in helping real people that need outside perspectives on their genuine conflicts. Trolls selfishly take time and resources away from achieving that end in a petty bid for attention.” Ouch.
CHH says website moderators have grown increasingly strict about their no-trolling policies. Her IP address has been blocked by Reddit before, hindering but not completely stopping her trolling adventures.
As someone who has been an online prankster since ye olde days, CHH is uniquely positioned to speculate as to whether the internet really is – as nostalgists bemoan – getting less fun.
“I think the internet is becoming more fun and less fun at the same time,” she says. “I think the wrong things are being cracked down on a lot of the time, to be honest. And I don’t just mean my trolling, but as an example, the post I did that sent Reddit over the edge banning me was about an anime-themed wedding – it was harmless and goofy.
“But, you know, people who talk about how the age of consent should be lowered to 13, you can post that and it doesn’t get taken down. So I think the internet has become really strict in some ways, but not always about the right things. And I’m not just talking about Reddit. I’m talking about all websites.”
On the other hand, CHH points out that 15 years ago, fewer people were online than today, and more voices with more varied perspectives equal more opportunities for humor.
“When I was a teenager, not only was the internet connection terrible, but there weren’t that many people contributing their opinions. And now you go on the internet and people in their 60s are posting, and people that didn’t have internet access 10 years ago are posting. Even with the emergence of TikTok – I’m seeing 14-year-olds making such funny videos,” she says. “And you just see that people really are hilarious.”
