So yesterday while I was moderating comments and I came upon one that started like this: “As you can tell by my name I am a black man…”

The name on the comment was Tyrell. My first thought? Tyrell doesn’t sound like a real name, it sounds like the kind of name people think sounds like a “black name,” like Shaquanzaa or something. (Watch, I am going to get nasty emails from girls named Shaquanzaa now.) Anyway, the comment didn’t strike me as terribly authentic from the first line, and the email address kind of sealed my skepticism:  Tyrell.DaPlaya_3864@yahoo.com.

Anyway, I scanned further down the mod queue and came across a different comment by someone named Jake, who breathlessly informed us all that we’re taking this whole Psychology Today thing “too personally.” Really? Really. And the best part? Jake and Tyrell have the same IP address.

This kind of thing happens every so often. A white person or a man will roll up in here, decide to troll, see that their comments don’t make it out of moderation, then decide to pretend to be black or a woman thinking I’m going to let them out of the box. The problem is, they don’t know how to actually pull off being something they’re not, so they fill their comments with unnecessary qualifiers like “As you can tell by my name I am a black man…”

These people are never as smart as they think they are… which is why they spend time trolling the Internets.