When it comes to troll-avoidance, you can't really say Gwyneth Paltrow does it well, what with her Goop lifestyle website serving up niche food ideas costing more than a month's normal food-shop, parenting tips which sort of fail to mention how easy life can be when you've got access to 24/7 childcare and, of course, that announcement of the 'conscious uncoupling' approach to hers and Chris Martin's separation.
But it's not for us to say that the sort of hatred she gets online, just for daring to exist in her own particular way there, is deserved. 'It's culturally acceptable to be an anonymous commenter. It's culturally acceptable to say: "I'm just going to take all of my internal pain and externalise it anonymously."' she told the inaugural Code Conference on technology, according to UPI.com.
'It's taken me a long time to get to the point where I can see these things and not take it as a personal affront and a hurt. I see myself as a chalkboard or a whiteboard or a screen, and someone is just putting up their own projection on it.'
Whatever reasoning she's using – new-age hippy ramblings, inspirational quotes from Instagram or even just common sense – she seems to have hit the nail on the head with why people will take time out of their days to anonymously say mean things about strangers in public forums: 'At a certain point, when you've been made fun of and excoriated and dragged through the mud ... For 20 years ... You realise it's not really about you.'
She added: 'You come across [online comments] about yourself and about your friends, and it's a very dehumanising thing.'
Totally. It might not be easy to be nice to Gwyneth Paltrow online. But it's still a massive waste of time logging on just to be mean to her, and if someone's day is that dull in the first place, they might as well go grind their own vegan pesto in a pestle and mortar.
** Follow Sophie on Twitter @sophwilkinson**
Picture: Getty
This article originally appeared on The Debrief.