The CFL TV Ratings Troll

[Donovan's Monkey]

(Can I rant about something only tangentially related to the TV networks? Feel free to delete this if you judge it to be too far off-topic or inappropriate.)

For those of you here turned off this message board by the thousands of posts shilling for GlobalTV from the one particular poster, and his insults for the other network he inexplicably sees as a threatening enemy, along with his ad hominem childish insults and bickering with anyone who disagrees him and his behaviour -- I can assure you this a relatively mild case when compared to someone I will refer to here as "CFL TV Ratings Troll", who is even more relentlessly obnoxious, childish, and always uses multiple new screen names to agree with himself (often returning many times after being banned by moderators). I was going to mention a first and last name this troll used when I first started seeing his comments several years ago (I'll point to just one of many examples here, where he used it on the second comment), as I assume even he was not dumb enough to use his real name while doing what he does. But then this particular troll is a special kind of stupid. It is incredibly obvious to absolutely everyone (except himself) who sees it, that after one comment he is always immediately registering under different names for the sole purpose of agreeing with himself -- "Yeah, (insert latest screen name used for earlier post here), I agree with you" -- yet he keeps relentlessly doing it even when pointed out by other commenters and even when he is repeatedly banned.

I don't hate the CFL. I typically attend one or two games a year, and even watched some practices and training camp sessions as a child when they occurred in the town where I lived. I mention this because, unlike any normal reasonable person, CFL TV Ratings Troll is very uniquely and weirdly threatened by other sports and those who watch them. Most often his bizarre inexplicable fear and anger are directed towards people who have the audacity to be discussing other sports such as the NBA, baseball, and NFL, and I suppose in his twisted mind committing the sin of simply not mentioning the CFL. He also seems to have a bizarre inexplicable parochial hate for Toronto (because there seems to be relatively less of a CFL following there compared to some other parts of Canada, and he'll often attempt to derogatorily call it Trauna, Trona, etc.), and Rogers (hmmm ... where else have I seen that?) because they happen to own the stadium the Toronto CFL team uses and he blames Rogers for any of the team's perceived problems, real or imagined.

Of course, no normal person cares or would be weirdly offended by people who happen to be interested in watching sports that are not the one they happen to watch. Can you imagine, just to make up a random hypothetical example to illustrate his very distinct stupidity, a comment after an online article about a golf event saying something like "The people who watch golf must hate hockey because hockey is Canadian, and these Trauna people won't watch a Canadian sport." But CFL TV Ratings Troll has no perception of how inane his comments are, or that they immediately identify him, since there can be no other person with this incredibly weird and distinctive obsession. He does this with articles and blog posts that make absolutely no mention of the CFL, particularly if it happens to mention TV ratings of any sport.

At first I thought this must be some child with parents not monitoring his internet use, but this guy has been at it relentlessly for so many years that he can no longer be a child. I don't read every article and usually ignore comments, but this guy seems to be on most of them when I do see them, so presumably there are many thousands more of his annoying idiotic comments I don't see. He also must spend most of his waking hours doing this, which makes we wonder if there might really be some kind of undiagnosed mental or neurologic disorder. In any case, if the guy has any family or close friends, they should stop him from using the internet or notify moderators to tell providers to cancel his internet service. I can almost picture CFL TV Ratings Troll if he sees this post, trying to control himself to not respond in his typical "Wow, I didn't think just mentioning the CFL would cause people to jump on me!" manner. (Did I mention he will often use "Wow" as the first word in such comments like that, also easily identifying him when he obtusely thinks others can't tell it is always the same guy?) I don't know whether to laugh or cringe at the thought of him responding here.

[TVViewer]

You really think he cares what you think about him? What does this post accomplish? Whatever this guy does, it's far less pathetic than what you are doing.

The internet is full of idiots. If you care about what they think of you then you have a problem, especially if one of those idiots types an essay complaining about you on another website with the hope that you might possibly see it.

Just wondering, why did you choose this particular website to unleash your essay? Perhaps because this gave you an opportunity to state your feeling towards me? I'm already aware of what you and the rest of the anti-vfs/anti-television industry minority (with views the exact opposite of the vast majority of Canadians) thinks of me, and I don't care. I do find it amusing though that you actually think anyone wants to read about why you dislike some random online stranger. Why would anyone care that you appear to have an obsessive hatred towards some “CFL troll” on another website?

[Donovan's Monkey]

Like just about everyone else, I subscribe to the "Don't Feed the Trolls" mantra. If you ignore them, they will go away. But there is something kind of astounding that there can be one guy keeping up a reign of obnoxious idiocy for well over a decade (and it's not "a website", it's just about every and any slightly relevant one that allows comments, probably hundreds of them) and never go away no matter how much he's ignored. Like I said, I certainly don't go looking for him, but maybe once every few months I'll be reading an online sports related article, column or blog where you can't help noticing the first few comments at the bottom, and sure enough, there he is, polluting and ruining any reasonable discussion that others may want to be attempting. In one way I guess some could find it kind of amusing, but at the same time it's a little disconcerting that someone can have that kind of obvious lack of self awareness or whatever other disorders may be on display, not to mention being illustrative of why things like message boards (like this one) and comment sections are losing their previous popularity and now slowly disappearing.