“Hi William – you are a pole smoking butt pirate. I loved Kid Rock last night and not your gay idle Bad Bunny. Eat Shit.”
While the majority of my job involves writing about entertainment in a way that’s siloed away from politics, I knew I was wading into raging waters when I agreed to write a column comparing and contrasting Sunday night’s dueling halftime shows. As a fan of Bad Bunny as well as country music, I tried to watch both the NFL’s official presentation and Turning Point USA’s All-American Halftime Show with an open mind.
In the end, I wrote that the hastily assembled, Kid Rock-headlining TPUSA event was no match for Bad Bunny’s jubilant and welcoming celebration, and my essay took it to task. I braced for plenty of feedback on social media and comments on the post.
Little did I know, though, that so many people would take the time to email me their enraged sentiments. It was surprising given the barrier to entry: It’s one thing to fire off a reply on X, but it’s another to click on my author page, find my email address, draft a message and then send it. There’s inherently a level of intimacy conveyed by email. The sender wants to know that I see it, to get as close as possible via my most prioritized messages.
Most writers are smart enough to never feed the trolls, since it gives them the attention they crave. But something about receiving these particular emails inspired me to respond to a handful, perhaps try to pinpoint why they crave this attention.
The first message I responded to struck me as intellectual compared to the emails stuffed with the most crude homophobic language and egregious typos imaginable, two commonalities in nearly all of the responses. In contrast, this sounded downright scholarly:
“Quick question, how long before the halftime show began, did you complete the article Variety posted? I’m no fan of the current President, but the media continues to show it has no interest in credibility with this ‘resist everything’ practice. We deserve better, sadly you are more concerned with pushing a predetermined narrative than reporting.“
I didn’t love the implication that I prewrote the article, as I watched both in good faith before getting words down. And while I am no supporter of the president, my opinion is my own and nuanced — not anything resembling a media-wide agenda journalists are so often accused of.
My response:
“I finished it about 5 mins before the game ended? I watched both shows first. I know what you’re getting at, but my article is filled with specifics from both events, so I don’t know what to tell you.“
Shortly after, a rather lengthy response from Troll #1 hit my inbox, and there was some intriguing nuance to it. Given that my response wasn’t mean, he opened his message eager to group us together against the hoi polloi: “I’ll elaborate, in a respectful fashion… and I appreciate your comments and response. It is how a civilized nation should act (something we have lost).” It felt reductive to remind him that he’s the one cold emailing journalists to tell them what a bad job they’re doing, so I kept reading.
From there, he shared opinions on many topics: How he didn’t consider my argument to be fair, given the unlimited resources of the NFL versus the low-fi TPUSA concert; commercialization at both events; how his background as an economist has had him preaching a return to national sanity for quite some time; his political affiliation; and his wife’s status as a naturalized citizen.
After I responded to a few of his critiques, Troll #1 ended our correspondence with this: “I appreciate the engagement with me. It speaks volumes for your character. Hopefully how you and I have communicated can be contagious for others. Please be well.” Considering that four messages ago he cold emailed me, calling into question my professional ethics, it was odd to receive a seemingly sincere compliment from a stranger who now believes our communication could be a blueprint for other people.
Could it?
Much has been made of the modern male loneliness epidemic, and this report from the American Institute for Boys and Men contains some interesting data points, including the sobering take that there are five times as many men who say they have no close friends as there were in 1990. Combine that with social media platform algorithms that favor posts that ignite strong emotion, and I think that these men just desperately wanted someone to talk to, to engage with, to tell them that they exist and their opinions matter.
I feel lucky: I have a phone full of supportive family members and friends that I can chat with in any emotional state. So I decided to recontextualize these emails in my mind: Lashing out with cruel language is a way to get attention, even if it is negative. But when I showed a moment of tenderness or understanding, there was always a response to want to connect in some way — even if moments before, I represented something evil and backwards to them.
Take the opening line of this article, which was the entirety of another email sent to me with the subject line “Kid Rock.” I Googled the email address of the sender and found out he was active in his community. To Troll #2, I responded, “Hey there. I can tell you’re a good guy — I searched your email address on Google and your work with [a local church] popped up. It’s great that you’re serving your community by organizing St. Patrick’s Day dinners. I know you disagree with what I wrote, but I still hope you have a fulfilling life, and maybe funnel some of the frustration from this email into further helping your community and church. It will feel better than cussing out someone you don’t even know on the internet, I can guarantee it.“
After another back and forth, a similarly unexpected denouement: “William, you are obviously a nice guy and a good person. I truly am sorry for what I said to you.”
Troll #3’s initial email was the nastiest I engaged with — I won’t quote what he called me, but it was grim. I responded with a bit more of a heel turn, given his hostility, writing, “Ah, the sparkling wit of a MAGA dude. You must be the smartest, funniest guy in your friend group!“
Once more, I was met with something unexpected: “First of all I apologize for my vulgar language. It was uncalled for but I was just boiling over after watching the halftime show and based on what I have seen on social media I am not alone in feeling that way.”
And later in his note: “Do I wish there was a different messenger than Trump – absolutely I do because there are many things about him that are flawed and that I dislike very much but then again some of the greatest leaders in our country were very flawed individuals.”
I was hearing from a man who spoke plainly: He was so fired up from division on social media that he himself had to fire off a cruel, homophobic email to a journalist, or he wouldn’t be able to function. And yet, he dislikes Trump’s flawed messaging, a hallmark of which is his cruelty.
I didn’t respond anymore to Troll #3, or any of the other emails that were still flooding in. It was clear now: The anger, the loneliness, the self-loathing. President Trump has offered fraternity to these alienated men, who then feel in turn like they don’t actually like how he acts, or who they become when they channel him. And yet the cycle rolls on, all because they don’t have friends or loved ones they can talk to freely.
The last email I received about anything Super Bowl-related was two days later and barely even mentioned the halftime shows. Instead, a man was just sharing his thoughts about the big game: “I must admit that the Super Bowl game was so boring that I didn’t make it to halftime. I’ve been to the Orange Bowl game in person in the past to watch my home team play for the college national football championship … The best way to watch any nfl game is to simply record and watch later, skipping the advertising and halftime clown shows all together. It takes about 45 minutes that way to see the game. Otherwise a high school football game in person is far more enjoyable.”
His message wasn’t an angry rant, and he didn’t address anything in my op-ed. I looked up the email address, and it was sent from a 68-year-old man who lives in Tulsa. I really hope that, while I’m typing this, he’s at a local watering hole with some buddies, talking trash about the boring Super Bowl game and how things were better back in college.