For Heather and Alice et. al.

I don't get comments.  Well, not enough to keep me running back to my Mac just to keep up with them.  The ones I get are from people I know or occasionally someone I read/like. (I thought I was the shit when Winona/daddylikey commented!  Did a little dance and everything!  Called people in real life and bragged.  Uh huh.)  

I read several blogs almost daily (including yours) and I gaze at the occasional comment.  There seems to be a point in every blogger's career (too strong?) when they start getting dumped on by nasty commentators.  If you draw a line graph of blog age compared to number of readers I am assuming the following (I enjoy guessing likely scenarios based on random information, this is why I kick ass at Physics): 

The line is low, the blog is young: comments come from your cousins and maybe a friend or two.

Line creeps up a bit, the blog is young: you have made a few online pals, follow some blogs, and enjoy the cross-traffic.

Let me just add that this is where most blogs sort of peter-out.  They remain in this low-traffic-limbo.  If the author (too strong?) is content with just re-reading her own posts the life of the blog continues.  If the author was expecting more attention and adoration her interest will wane and the blog will slowly die.  However, there are many that continue on...

Line turns up again, there are enough old posts to entertain someone for an afternoon at work: kind people who enjoy your writing send the link to friends who start reading and commenting and driving up the number of unique viewers (because, face it, the ex who keep clicking your profile picture over and over does not count).

Line jumps up huge: the best example is the old Faberge shampoo commercial with Heather Locklear telling two friend who tell two friends and so on and so on and so on.

Based on the number of readers, blogs at this level are bound to get trolls reading and commenting.  I actually think that the vaguely anonymous nature of the comments brings out a higher percentage of negative loudmouths than you find in the general population.  This happens for two reasons.  One: unhappy, angry people need to vent.  The people in their lives get terribly sick of them.  But the blogosphere is a space where they can off-gas all their shit all day long without any repercussions.  They never have to answer for it and certainly never have to address the root of their emotions.  The second reason is that even people who would never say those thinks out loud, who are generally considered lovely people, need to vent.  Maybe these more than others because they spend their days bottling up their emotions so people like them.  

I think of personal narrative blogs as a way for the writer to present a mostly-true version of their life and thoughts.  Much mental editing is done long before the laptop finds a wireless connection.  The writer is creating a persona based on their life.  They are presenting themselves in a way they are comfortable being seen.  Some of these are more open and honest than others.  Some are much more controlled and contrived. 

Which brings us back to the trolls.  While the bloggers are putting down things that show themselves in a certain light, the trolls are less edited and more honest.  But not necessarily with themselves.  See, I think these comments reflect how the commenter feels about themselves.  They are outward, sometimes hostile, expressions of their own feelings of self doubt, self worth, and self hatred.  Something written by the blogger triggers these emotions and the reader/troll has no means to process them authentically.  If they did, they would not be filled with such negative, corrosive energy to begin with.

So Heather, Alice, and others like you who actually generate some revenue off this funny little convention, those comments are not about you.  Not about the size of your ass, the shape of your teeth, the parenting choices you make, the shoes you paired with that dress, or the meds you take to be a better person and parent.  It is the trolls way of reacting to the trigger in their own life that keeps them under the bridge.  My advice, put on some heavy soled biker boots and stomp your way over to the other side.