Some light years ago, she wrote a post about microwaving a cup of water for making instant coffee. After the timer buzzed, she took out the cup and found some ants crawling all over the porcelain cup. She was sure there were no ants on her cup when she handled it. They must have come from the microwave. She didn’t check the inside of the microwave for ants. They could have crawled inside the oven through the air ventilation holes.
She was surprised that ants survived in the microwave. The waves boiled water but not the ants. She wrote about this.
Immediately, she received vitriol over abusing ants for fun. When one reader commented, another was encouraged to jump in and contribute to the amount of criticism. Neither critic read the story or their emotions clouded their visual input from reading.
She tried to defend herself by pointing out the facts. There was no pacification of zealots. Every time she tried to defend herself, another zealot would pop up from the dungeons of the internet, calling for her punishment. They became more determined to persecute her for Attempted Killing Of Ants, or Mischief, or something.
How can she avoid all this vitriol? Does she need to make a police report? Does she have to be on her guard for stalkers? Is there a way to stop this avalanche of vitriol?
She eventually deleted her post.
From that day on, whenever she looked at her microwave, she was always reminded of those ants in the microwave and the zealots who brayed for blood.