The outing of an Internet troll showed women can win

Monday, 4 April 2022

OPINION: The story of Young Nat Jessee MacKenzie is depressingly predictable.

He’s the guy who admitted last week that he’d been secretly, systemically trolling female politicians in Christchurch. He came clean after the courts released his flatmate’s IP address, apologising and saying that he’d had a rough break up.

And I don’t think anyone was especially surprised. It was never going to be an octogenarian ex-librarian with a budgie and a pink wafer habit that was sending all these messages. It was always likely to be an angry young man. One who anonymously took to social media, so he can make women’s life hell because, well, they’re women. And in power. And he feels crap.

Ugh. God, at this point, that kind of online misogyny is so depressingly, exhaustingly, overwhelmingly normal it’s almost banal to talk about it. But not last week.

**READ MORE:

* 'Disgusting' abuse targeted at women in Wellington local government

* Facing up to the trolls

* Unmasking a troll - how to turn the tables on an online harasser

* National deputy leader condemns actions of 'one individual' after Young Nat trolling saga

* Enough is enough: Christchurch City councillor calls out online bullying

**

Oh no, last week we stopped and stared and whispered fervently about it. Because last week, city councillor Sara Templeton became Christchurch’s answer to Wonder Woman.

It was Templeton who caused his unmasking. She actually harnessed the leviathan of Facebook, rode it into battle, brandished the Harmful Digital Communications Act, and won victory in the courts. MacKenzie surrendered. She won.

I feel like I need a lute, a mediaeval tapestry and a chorus of trumpet players to express what a victory this is. I want to raise a flagon of mead to a new Robin Hood. Because when you’re a young woman growing up in the Kingdom of the Internet, online misogyny feels as inevitable as death, taxes and adverts for stick on bras.

No one wins against the trolls. Let alone the many-headed snake of Facebook or Twitter. But Templeton did. And actually, this isn’t just a fairy tale victory about taking out an evil troll. It’s about something much deeper.

See, the world always has ways to tell young women that we should lead smaller lives.

In real life, when we hit puberty we start being told that we need to reign it in, so we can stay “safe”. Like, the first time I was ever followed home by a barista, it was because I was too friendly. Or the first time I was ever sexually harassed at work, it was because I was too nice. It was made clear to me that men harass you when you’re too visible. And after this happens enough times, you start thinking that it’s true. Maybe you need to be less, well, everything…

Then of course the Internet came along and turned up the volume on all of these insidious, whispering fears. Harassing women off the Internet became the goal of trolling gangs. Female journalists and politicians are bullied remorselessly for being visible figures of authority. Every day women get stalked simply for having a vibrant life a man wants but can’t have.

It feels as though your only option to survive, especially in an online era, is to fold yourself up ever more tightly. Some part of you knows this is wrong, but you’re also too scared to listen to it. So you shrink back in the misguided hope that the smaller you are then the safer you’ll be.

Which is why watching Sara Templeton has been so revolutionary. Not only is she proof you don’t have to be smaller to survive on the Internet. She’s shown us that you actually need to be bigger, bolder, braver and ever more badass. And not only do you survive, it’s how you win.

It’s the kind of story that should be turned into a legend and sung to every young woman around a virtual digital campfire. Huzzah!