Dear Amy: In the past year, “Steve,” my boyfriend of several years, has disappeared into the seedy underbellies of Twitter and 4chan.
Steve used to listen to an assortment of news sources. Now he gets most of his news off of the Trollish “alt-right” sections of those sites.
Steve has become increasingly and self-admittedly anti-Semitic, and has adopted offensive terms popularized on his internet hangouts that he finds hilarious.
He makes purposely inflammatory tweets under an anonymous account, and has been banned more than once.
Amy, I thought this was a knee-jerk reaction to the current political and social climates surrounding white men — and that it would pass. It hasn’t.
I get morbid and inappropriate humor. I’m not easily offended.
I’m an advocate of the First Amendment, even when the words are distasteful. This just feels wrong.
I have not stressed how deeply this bothers me, and that’s on me. It’s affecting our otherwise good relationship, and I want my boyfriend back.
— Ms. Internet Troll
Dear Ms. Troll: I can’t quite imagine how your relationship with this guy can be “otherwise good” when he is admitting to being anti-Semitic, admires someone you believe is a Nazi and has already been banned by a famously loose social media site (a user has to dive into seriously threatening territory to get banned from Twitter).
