Category Archives: Blog

Blog, Hate Mail

Dealing with your Personal Troll, Personally

drawing of snarky satan in bowtie
Self Portrat digitized in Adobe Illustrator

This is from the sidebar of the most recent Hate Mail exchange titled “Mr. Nobody’s Flickering Light” but I felt it was worth highlighting on its own here for those who might have missed it.

Trolling’s definition has only been widely understood by the public within the last decade or so, years after my site was first posted, which in itself was a lesser form a trolling.

Jesus Dressup trolled Christians, ie: it fished for a reaction, which I in turn would post as entertainment in my “Hate Mail”. However it was more of a passive troll because I wasn’t invading blogs & online communities to post the link for a response. That just happened by me putting it out there publicly for people to fall into on their own. It did however give me great insight on how to handle trolls, and pretty much snuff out their light between my fingers.

The technique is simple, but has to be handled delicately, and with a momentary shedding of ones pride. It’s a process of gently, very subtly convincing them that you’re submitting and want to be their penpal, because the one thing trolls don’t have is friends. That’s their weak spot. And playing to it is a graceful dance which can’t be resisted by the lonely troll.

The key is to act as if you’re impressed with their insight & cleverness in a believable way (without trace of sarcasm). Things like-
• “What’s funny is I wouldn’t think you could tell all those things about me from a simple email exchange [reading my blog, my Facebook wall, seeing my picture, etc] but it’s weird how you know these things.” or,
• “Lots of those things you said I know are true, I just have trouble admitting to them. It’s kind of embarrassing to think someone could figure all that stuff out like that.”

Also include an apology of some sort, or an act of submission like,
• “I actually didn’t mean to come off that way. I apologize if I sounded defensive, or jerky, [use words they used here]. I’m really looking to change these things about me.”

These are things a troll wants to hear so it’s easily believed. Using their words also plays to their pride.

Once you’ve got them, (and you’ll know you’ve got them because they’ll drop the persona to keep you as a submissive in hopes that you’ll revel further in their glory), that’s when you pull the rug out from under them and reject them on a personal level. It’s harsh, but believe me, deserved. In some cases this process has been known to destroy the troll altogether.

When constructing your rejection letter it’s really important that you don’t sound angry or emotionally frazzled. Simply express sorrowful pity for the situation they’ve found themselves in.
And keep it short.

Then, and this is important, never respond to their emails again. Don’t even open them. After you’ve tossed them aside and made it clear they’ve been completely rejected as a human being you’ll find that they’ll be stumbling over themselves like a broken winged crow to get you back in line. The emails that follow will be long & drawn out, one after the other sometimes just minutes apart, reeking of desperation. It’s an extremely clumsy struggle, and a complete shunning is almost manditory from here on out.
However, if you absolutely cannot resist, a short but sweet“LOL!” (and nothing more) reply to their followups will do the trick every time. For some reason those three capitol letters are a nail in the coffin to a fumbling troll.

It may seem a little cruel at face value, and I promise you they will feel that rejection deeply, but it squashes their power and can dissuade them from future trollings.

An example of this method being used properly can be read on page 510 of my Hate Mail section here.

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Blog, Games

Drawing Yolandi

1 Comment
Yolandi Visser art
Yolandi Visser signature snarl portrait digitized in Adobe Illustrator

Earlier this year (Feb 2012) I drew this snarling picture of Yolandi Visser of Die Antwoord. I’m a big fan of the band and drawing her with that signature snarl came pretty easy. However, while researching images of her, I noticed a trend – Every artist who’d attempted, few drew her without the snarl. And the ones who tried with any sort of a normal facial expression failed (in my opinion) at capturing her unique likeness. They succeeded in drawing some girl who was perhaps trying to look like her, but none would leave you to confidently proclaim, “That is Yolandi Visser.”

In the months following that first illustration I’d randomly stumble across other caricatures of her where different artists couldn’t seem to agree on whether or not her eyes were too close together, or far apart. Is her nose big or tiny? Is her mouth little or huge? And for some reason these questions seemed to be plaguing the renderings throughout my searches at Google Images.

After realizing all of this, I assigned myself the personal challenge of capturing a recognizable likeness WITHOUT the snarl, or growl, or sneering. A normal facial expression that is clearly, unquestionably, a portrait of Yolandi.

After my first few stumblings I found myself running into these same corner-cutting solutions other artists before me had fallen into. Make her eyes farther apart and that’ll separate her from any other girl with that haircut. How about her eyes closer together? No, that’s not it either. Clearly a tiny little button nose is what makes her so adorable. Nope. Well, she doesn’t have a big nose either. How about no nose at all? Then the viewer’s eye can sort it out. Right?

Five illustrations later and I was getting nowhere. Simply putting sharp, shortened bangs on a strange looking little girl wouldn’t cut it. And I swear to you, with each sketch I put to paper she got uglier and uglier. It was terribly, terribly frustrating.

I put the project away for about a week before I could return to it again. I had to try something new. A new angle. That was the key.

Yolandi Visser art
Yolandi Visser Portrait digitized in Adobe Illustrator

It wasn’t until I stopped trying to draw her straight on and instead tilted her head to a 3/4 view that it started to come together. Her mouth protrudes, and that’s something difficult to convey head on. Her nose is neither big nor tiny. It’s flaired, and the nostrils are well defined, coming forward as part of her Gelfling-like mouth. Her eyes are certainly big, but not googly. They’re neither too far apart or too close together. That in itself is a curveball for a caricature artist. And as a girl who was walking behind me at the coffee shop pointed out, “She has Nordic eyes. Not Anime eyes. Think Bjork. Not Sailor Moon.”

It was the three-quarter view that gave me the base to sculpt the shape of her face around. It’s the first right thing that happened in this project. After I had a completed sketch, I scanned it into my computer and traced it in Adobe Illustrator. This is where I can cheat some more and do all the gradual tweaks that you miss on the first (my case, 7th) attempt. Tilting the eyes, adjusting the mouth position and the curve of the upper lip, then adding color, and the white lashes & eyebrows to drive it all the way home.

The whole idea behind this project was that the final piece could be used as a display model for a Yolandi Dressup game. And if you want to get a feel for the confidence level I had going into this, I wasn’t going to spend the $12 on the yolandidressup.com URL until it was successfully rendered in Illustrator.

The whole process took place over the course of a month (that doesn’t include any building of the dress up game, art for the clothes, etc.). I’m proud to say that I feel vindicated. I drew a perfectly recognizable illustration of Yolandi with a variety of facial expressions to choose from, allowing me to be the creator of the greatest ever Yolandi Dressup game on Planet Earth (at least at this particular moment).

I urge you to check out the fruits of my labors at YolandiDressup.com, and try out my latest invention – a Clothes Toolbar on the far right side of the page. It’s my solution to getting all the clothes you’d want in a dressup game without all the art having to be tiny. The game is loads of fun, and I hope one day to hear she agrees.

Amazing Strangers, Anthropology, Blog, Free Hugs, Free Hugs Nazi

Plugs

There’s this guy from Union Square whom, I’ve realized, terrifies me to the bone. He terrifies me so much that I’m not even sure I want to write about him. But it’s impossible for me to ignore, considering I see him everywhere I go (Union Sq, East Village, even just now walking in front of my window at the Astor Place Starbucks).

And this fear is not because he’s some big scary guy who I think’ll kick my ass if he sees me talking shit. My fear is based on something he exposes about the human condition, and the inescapable traps we create for ourselves, and voluntarily allow ourselves to cook in, until it’s too late.

Man with bad hair plugs on cellphone
Plugs

I used to call this guy the “Free Hugs Lurker,” because he always lurks around a few feet away from the Free Hugs kids wherever they are at the park. He doesn’t carry a sign or anything. He just lurks in their vicinity. Anyhow his new name, his real one that’s obviously going to stick, is “Hairplugs.” And his name is Hairplugs because he’s clearly your average middle age man with male pattern baldness who’s gone and gotten one treatment of hairplugs, and then stopped before it was finished. So what he’s ended up with is a perfectly measured grid of hairplugs plugged into the top of his scalp, but clearly not enough of them, so you can see exactly what’s going on, and it’s hideous.

But the scariest part hasn’t happened yet. Because what happened last week was one of the Free Hugs kids, the one who tore his shirt off and was yelling “Where are my bedbugs, homey?!?!“ came up to me and told me basically that he saw the video I made of him, he finally got the joke, laughed and called me an asshole for making him look stupid and all that, but he was fine with it.

He did however want to know, for real, what really was the problem I have with Free Hugs. I brought up the Free Hugs Lurker and pointed out how odd and creepy I thought it was that“grown men like this hung around all you kids every day, following you around the park, lurking.” And I specifically asked him what was up with that particular guy. “What do you think of that guy hanging around all the time, just there lurking in the background with you kids?”

At first he just explained, “Oh, that guy. Yeah, he’s a nice guy…” and all that bullshit, but then he told me he once asked the Lurker “Yo, what’s up with your hair? Why don’t you just shave your head?”
And the Lurker responded,“They’re hairplugs, and I could only afford the one treatment. I paid too much for it to shave them off.”
And that, my friends, is the line that sent chills up my spine.
I’ve seriously laid awake a few times since then trying to absorb that self-inflicted prison sentence.

Just before I started writing this about him, he walked by the window in front of me. He was wearing his awful Terminator sungalesses, marching straight ahead. As he strode away, he pulled a comb out from his back pocket and ran it over his pitiful scalp several times.

I see him every day sitting by himself with those shades on staring straight ahead. Just staring. And I know the undigestible reality he’s doing battle with on the fringes of his ego. It’s the sort of thoughts that make one shake ones head “No” while walking down the street alone.

If you’re beyond curious to see Hairplugs, he can be seen lurking in the Sunday Stroll through Union video at about 1:11 on the far left in the green shirt. He’s pointing me out the the Free Hugs Nazi to, in some way or another, find his purpose in life.

He sometimes shaves the sides of his head (the part that’ll grow back) in an attempt to disguise everything that’s going on. And, at least to me, he vividly sums up the ugliness the Free Huggers attract, while simultaneously illustrating the jailcell we’re all so willing to build for ourselves if we let it, brick by brick. No take-backs.

Amazing Strangers, Anthropology, Blog, Peepers

Explaining my Fascination with the Peepers

5 Comments
Man following girls art
Pen & Ink of the Original Union Square Peepers whom we named “Peepers”

Subject: Peepers and your thoughts on them

“Hi Bob,
This isn’t fan mail or hate mail, just a legitimate inquiry I had after reading the page on peepers on your site.

I’m curious to know what your reaction is to finding and documenting peepers. Was the purpose just “for fun” and curiosity about these people, or did you ultimately want the press and the public to be alerted to what was happening? How did you feel (like morally) when you first found out about their existence? I know you’ve gotten some hate mail telling you that you are just as bad for peeping on the peepers, and that the women they’re peeping on “like it”, or that if they didn’t want to be peeped on they shouldn’t wear skirts/dresses. It’s all complete horse shit to me, and I’m glad you exposed them. I’m sure they’re not just limited to peeping at Union Square so thanks for basically telling the world to be on the lookout for them, whether you intended it or not.

I guess this kinda turned into fan mail, sorry for lying.

Keep up the good work,

T.”

Very good question Mr. T!
I’m actually surprised it took this long for someone to ask. I’m happy to give you a full explanation to clear up any confusion anyone might have.

man with weird look
The Original Peepers of Union Square

My documenting of the Peepers was a gradual process. It started with this guy I actually named “Peepers” at Union Square, NYC. He was a short pudgy man with greasy slicked back hair who came to the park regularly to peep. And he peeped heavy. He would sit on the step in front of a girl in a skirt, sometimes as near to her as sitting between her feet so she’d have to move them up closer to herself, and he’d stare at her panties while she read a book, or talked on the phone. He would also “Front Row Peep,” standing just a few feet in front of a girl sitting on the steps and loom over her until the moment became too uncomfortable to bear and she’d get up and leave. I even witnessed the man we called Peepers follow these girls out of the park. This was back in about 2004/05. And I only had a picture taking camera at that time, but I documented him as best I could.

Then, at around 2006/07 me and my friends started to notice a change in the park. More and more Peepers began to appear at Union Square, to the point where they were almost impossible to avoid if you hung out on the steps there. I would be sitting with a friend or two talking away, and there’d be a line of these men standing in front of us. We’d look to our right, where their line was pointing, and there’d be a girl in a skirt. This is what’s now known as a Peeper Train. Other times one of these men would sit down, his back pressed against my leg. I’d look to see that he wasn’t paying any attention to where he put himself because all of his concentration was focused on trying to peer up the girl’s skirt sitting down from me. They quite simply became such a ridiculous spectacle there was no avoiding making fun of them amongst friends. That then of course led to the internet – [Jeepers Creepers, Even More Peepers].

We’ve all seen girls who sit and accidentally (or not) expose themselves. It’s human nature and normal human sexuality to look. There’s nothing wrong with looking. It’s when it becomes looming, an invasion of space & privacy, and stalking, that it becomes a nuisance and joke worthy. This is exactly what happened.

The population of Peepers at Union got so out of hand that they were actually chasing girls away. Their peeping was so obvious and invasive girls were getting up and leaving, creeped out by them all. Peepers would sit in front of a girl, or stand a few feet in front of her, and hover. If the girl moved, the peeper would move too. They’d loom until the girl couldn’t take it any longer and she’d split. This is around the time when I began taping the Methods of a Peeper series. The video was specifically to illustrate the length of time spent and the aggressiveness of their peeping. Something I couldn’t depict clearly with just photos.

It’s surprised me to see people on blogs and comments under videos [VoyeurForum] accusing me of being a peeper myself, “wanking it” or being no less of a perv than the peepers. Yes, I go home to do those things. I do it in private without including the people at the park, subway train or public staircases. My precious masturbatory sessions are kept in private. That’s how I personally think it should be done if you’re a grown, sane adult. I’ve also heard people declare that filming peepers is no different, or just as creepy as peeping itself. I think this is easily judged by whether or not the peeper in question wants to hide from cameras or not. FIlm me. Post it on YouTube. I don’t mind. I’m a Peeper Peeper. I make no secret of it. It’s the category I’ve put myself under on the Union Square Matchgame Postcard which I hand out at the park. #5EE. That’s me!

And to those people who call me a prude, or compare me to preachers who condemn homosexuality and are then caught giving blowjobs in a back alley. I’m a perv. I relate to peepers. I understand the feeling of wanting to stare unrestrained at beautiful women. My feeling however is that unrestrained staring is creepy, so I choose to contain that urge for dignity’s sake. I make a conscious decision to present myself to the world differently than the way a Peeper would. And it is because I can relate to Peepers on this level, and their opposing views on dignity & self presentation that I find it so worth documenting at such great length.

Thank you for your questions.

Bob