Your argument is invalid: Trolls.

Internet trolls are the ugliest of all trolls

So, tonight I have had the displeasure of being directly confronted by a troll on the Internet. Have we all been there? I feel like it is a universal belief that everyone has been there, but certainly I have not been there very often. When it happens to me, I'm sometimes a little bit shocked, because I try to be fairly agreeable on the Internet. I have a knack for seeing every single possible side of an argument-- it's why I'm so indecisive. I often can't pick which side I think is right. So when someone attacks me because they disagree with me on something, it sets me off. I don't think that's an unreasonable reaction. What maybe is a little unreasonable is that I have an oddly physical reaction to trolls who direct their hatred toward me, which is that my hands shake and I find my facial temperature rise a few degrees.

When this happens, my immediate response is to type as quickly as I can in defense of myself. I don't know why I feel the need to defend myself to strangers on the Internet; but I do. I'm sure this is not uncommon. But tonight's troll wasn't just attacking me, he was attacking everything that I find good about the Internet, everything I like. He was attacking the foundations for many of my friendships and my hard and fast belief that the things I like are worth liking.

And that is something that makes me angry.

The troll's argument is that books like Divergent and The Hunger Games are not worth the adoration they have been given by "idiot teenage girls" (direct quote, because apparently only girls are foolish enough to like these things and guys are superior). Now, let me clarify that I am neither an idiot nor a teenage girl. But these are two of my favorite series. The troll is obviously a book snob who believes that the name of the author carries more weight than the words he or she has written-- he probably sings of his love for Kerouac and Thoreaux and Salinger from the mountaintops, but scoffs at the names Rowling, Collins and Meyer. He cannot distinguish between "literature" and "classic literature," or between "classic literature" and "good literature."

As someone who can distinguish between these, I could have responded to this by explaining that while The Hunger Games may not be classic literature yet, it is still literature. And good literature at that. These books have knocked even the toughest of critics off their feet. As someone who enjoys reading both modern and classic fiction, the Hunger Games books are steadfastly my favorites of all time. And I have bookshelf after bookshelf full of other books-- from classic to historical fiction to paranormal to contemporary and beyond-- to which I can compare them. I will read just about anything fiction. To illustrate my point, let me tell you that that this week I finished reading the Vampire Academy series and then started reading A Tale of Two Cities. I'm no stranger to appreciating a variety of books.

The thing is that the troll, well, is.

The troll does not understand that just because a novel isn't lyrically written with grandiose vocabulary, or driven by descriptions of every single thing that happens or exists in the novel, does not mean that it isn't literature. I could have set him straight by explaining exactly why The Hunger Games is fodder for teenage girls and literature enthusiasts alike, but I think this guy already did a pretty good job of that. It would be a waste of my time.

What I feel like I do need to defend, however, is my right to like The Hunger Games, even if the troll doesn't. I have a right to be a part of the Divergent fandom, because to me, there is no reason not to be a part of it. I guarantee you that every single person in that particular fandom is well aware that those books are not perfect-- but we have a right to love these series and these characters, because we do love them. We can see past faults, and it's worrisome that some people cannot. There is nothing inherently wrong with the message or the themes portrayed in the series, as there are with a series like Twilight. There isn't the overall idea that a girl is incomplete without a boy, or that it's okay to change everything about yourself in order to be with someone else. There are no ideas that set society back. But even if there were, we'd still be allowed to like it. People are allowed to like Twilight. I am allowed to enjoy anything I want to enjoy. To love the things I love with or without anyone else's consent. My love for them is not hurting anyone-- certainly not the troll himself-- and so I don't see why it should stop.

You cannot take away someone's right to like things. You can use your words to belittle us all you want, call us idiots, try to make us feel like we're not smart because we read a certain type of book, but you cannot take away from us the things that have made us feel better, the things that tell us we are not alone. That's what these books do for us, and your telling us that we're wrong for feeling that way is just proving to us how little you know about the world. Your argument is invalid. Take your blows to make yourself feel stronger, but you're not making us any weaker. We've built communities around the things we love-- can you honestly say you've accomplished as much? What has your hatred built?

We are people who read stories. We can spot foreshadowing, metaphor, and parallelism the second we lay eyes on it, whether it's in The Hunger Games or Moby Dick. We analyze and question and intellectualize everything. We know the importance of storytelling, which is more than we can say about you. Because if you don't understand why the world needs these stories, you don't understand why the world needs stories. Period. Every story is important, and it's a shame that anyone would live in denial of that just because he takes pride in classifying himself as a literature snob.