Sports Columnist Tracks Down Trolls And Calls Them

A few folks passed along this amusing column by sports columnist (for SI.com) Jeff Pearlman, in which he talks about how he tracked down a couple of "online haters" who insulted him online (one sent him graphic hardcore pornography) and then called them on the telephone. Both of them turned out to be a lot more apologetic when actually confronted with the real, live voice of Pearlman. No surprise there. Though, Pearlman does note that he actually kind of liked the guy who sent him the pornography:

Then we spoke. And I (dammit) liked him. Without invisibility or the support of his 54 Twitter followers or the superhuman powers supplied by a warm keyboard, Matt was meek and apologetic. "I was just trying to get a rise out of you," he said. "You're a known sports writer, and I thought it was cool. That's all. I never meant for it to reach this point."

And that, of course, is how trolling works. Still, I do wonder if this column will lead to more or less future haters going after Pearlman.

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