SALON

Mary Elizabeth Williams

Monday, Jun 11, 2012 3:30 PM UTC

Isabel Fay: Hating the haters

British comedian Isabel Fay's troll takedown goes viral, creating -- you guessed it -- even more vicious comments

By

Topics:

Isabel Fay: Hating the haters

Oh no, thank you, Isabel Fay. The knowing laughter you’ve been hearing the past few days, ever since the British comic uploaded her musical tribute to Internet trolls titled “Thank You, Hater!” is just our way of saying, Oh yeah, we get it.

Fay, who cranks out comedy with the production company Clever Pie, is no stranger to vitriol — nor are the hilarious bundle of chums she and producer Tom Hopgood enlisted for their tribute to “those hard-working Internet trolls.” In just four-and-a-half incredibly satisfying, song-and-dance-filled minutes, Fay and company give props to those poor, maligned “sexually aggressive, racist, homophobic, misogynistic, cowardly, illiterate, waste of human skin” that make the comments sections of our lives so colorful.

With its cheeky delight in mocking the most horrible people never to move out of their parents’ basements, no wonder the video’s been burning a path through the Twitter feeds and Facebook walls of everyone who’s ever dared to do anything online – and felt the wrath of the online lynch mob for it. A more expansive riff on the classic “It’s Okay to Not Like Things,” Stephen Fry promptly declared it “a masterpiece.”

As someone who defines her resolution not to read the comments to her stories as the second healthiest thing she’s ever done — right after cancer treatment — my only problem with the song is nailing down one favorite line. How could anyone choose between gems like “I’m really sure that if I met you, you probably wouldn’t rape me like you promised that you would” and “You wished me cancer … and misspelled ‘cancer’”? It’s like she’s read every response we ever got in Broadsheet! (What, no “Lighten up, slut”?)

Fay told the U.K.’s Telegraph this weekend that the genesis of the idea was, predictably, experience. “I’ve had some pretty awful things said to me,” she said. “And I’ve ignored them all because you’re meant to ignore the trolls.” But after an especially vivid comment in response to a benign clip she’d posted about Easter, an idea took root. An idea that would articulate the suspicion many of us have that “Mr. Insightful” is posting his spew while “wanking like a gibbon.”

Since debuting Friday, the clip’s racked up international attention and, surprise, plenty of comments. Some are clearly lighthearted parodies of exactly the sort of trolling Fay mocks. Others, however, reveal the most stunning display of total lack of self-awareness since Lindsay Lohan called herself an “artist of many things.” Seriously, read through some of the less-knowing responses to the video. These guys are amaaaaazing. There’s the dude who has some ideas elsewhere about “stupid Mexicans” and that lady who “needs to shove her vagina lips back into the black hole in which it came from.” There are the commenters whose YouTube feeds reveal their opinions that “I dislike faggots, girly people, boyscouts, kittens, emos, sober people and most of all, you.” Isabel Fay couldn’t have done it without you, fellas. And now that her little clip has taken her to a new level of fame and made her a hero to the troll-scorched multitudes, as she declared proudly to the Telegraph, she’d like to “thank them all – again.” As would we all.

Next Article

Related Stories

More Related Stories

Featured Slide Shows

The week in 10 pics

close X
  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11
  • Lisa Montgomery embraces her nephew Thursday after a tornado tore apart her home in Cleburne, Texas. The twister killed six people and destroyed entire swaths of the North Texas town.
    Credit: AP/LM Otero

  • Jack McMahon, the defense attorney for abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell, speaks outside the Criminal Justice Center in Philadelphia Tuesday. His client was convicted of killing three babies in his clinic, and will serve multiple life sentences.
    Credit: AP/Matt Rourke

  • A photo taken Monday captures Vice President Joe Biden's response to a Milwaukee second-grader's innovative proposal to end America's epidemic of gun violence. This guy!
    Credit: AP/Jenny Aicher

  • Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., flanked by a grouper-eyed Michele Bachmann, addresses the IRS' admission that it targeted Tea Party groups in advance of the 2012 election. In an op-ed for CNN Thursday, the Kentucky senator slammed the president for his faux outrage.
    Credit: AP/Molly Riley

  • Ousted IRS chief Steven Miller is sworn in on Capitol Hill Friday. Miller testified before the House Ways and Means Committee on the extra scrutiny the agency gave conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status.
    Credit: AP/J. Scott Applewhite

  • Attorney General Eric Holder pauses as he testifies on Capitol Hill before the House Judiciary Committee Wednesday. Holder is under fire, among other things, for the Justice Department's gathering of phone records at the Associated Press.
    Credit: AP/Carolyn Kaster

  • O.J. Simpson sits during an evidentiary hearing at Clark County District Court in Las Vegas, Nev., Thursday. Simpson, who is currently serving a nine-to-33-year sentence in state prison for armed robbery and kidnapping, is using a writ of habeas corpus to seek a new trial.
    Credit: AP/Las Vegas Review-Journal/Jeff Scheid

  • Major Tom to ground control: On Sunday astronaut Chris Hadfield recorded the first music video from space, a cover of David Bowie's "Space Oddity."
    Credit: AP/NASA/Chris Hadfield

  • When it rains it pours. President Barack Obama speaks during a news conference Thursday with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, inexplicably inspiring an #umbrellagate Twitter meme.
    Credit: AP/Jacquelyn Martin

  • A smoke plume rises high above a road block at the intersection of County A and Ross Road east of Solon Springs, Wis., Tuesday. No injuries were reported, but the the wildfire caused evacuations across northwestern Wisconsin.
    Credit: AP/The Duluth News-Tribune/Clint Austin

  • Recent Slide Shows

  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11

Related Videos

Comments

 22 Comments

Comment Preview

Your name will appear as username

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href=""> <b> <em> <strong> <i> <blockquote>

Mary Elizabeth Williams is a staff writer for Salon. She's written for The New York Times, Time Out, The New York Observer, and more, and is the author of "Gimme Shelter: My Three Years Searching for the American Dream."

follow salon

Most Read

Popular on Reddit

links from salon.com

vote
Oklahoma senator: Tornado aid “totally different” from Sandy aid
3078 points3079 points | 2084 comments
vote
Anyone Regret Slashing National Weather Service Budget Now?: With GOP-backed cuts to forecasting agency, experts warn future storms will go undetected and more lives lost
959 points960 points | 503 comments
vote
Oklahoma senator wants to offset tornado aid with other cuts
146 points147 points | 54 comments
vote
Horrifying new trend: Posting rapes to Facebook " In Chicago this weekend, prosecutors announced three teenaged boys will tried as adults for aggravated criminal sexual assault after allegedly raping a 12-year-old girl — and posting a video of the attack on Facebook."
28 points29 points | 15 comments
vote
New campaign compares gun control to anti-LGBT discrimination
23 points24 points | 10 comments

From Around the Web

Presented by Scribol
listener_new_rect The Listener: So long, Sookie Stackhouse

Recommendations