It's the internet, strange that the author didn't face abuse like this before. He doesn't seem too young to have experienced such abuse online growing up.<p>I wish I could say that everyone should be exposed to some aimless and unfair adversity while growing up, it helped me grow some thicker skin.<p>But I've met people who really can't handle it, and exposing them to even a bit of it would be unethical, it wouldn't help them in any way. Some people are really sensitive, on the edge of mental stability, with crumbling self respect, or whatever other issues. Abuse like this does affect them significantly. Such people are the perfect victims for these immature trolls, and I really don't see a way to help them.<p>I remember hanging out on forums as a teen, and there was this script kiddie who would hound users on some local forums and IRC servers, both plainly insulting and/or threathning them, and trying to 'hack' them. He was annoying, but I was so used to these edgy insults and such that I never took them seriously (just a bit of roughhousing among teens)... Yet he was really successful in pissing people off and made a significant number of them leave. He was banned many times, but would just re-join with new account(s) (the joys of dynamic IPs every time you dial in). Took him years to quit.<p>If you're offended by things like this to be affected significantly (we're all affected a bit), don't be fooled, you're worse off than people who aren't. It's not your fault by any means. But finding a way to care less about things like this, if possible, will improve your wellbeing. You can ignore and / or react (which might make it worse), but there's not much you can do against assholes without ushering in censorship, surveillance, or making everythign worse otherwise. You can't fix other people, but you can at least try fixing yourself.