Online threats replaced with rainbows and kisses

According to The Drum, this is the work of an ‘anti-trolling browser extension’ developed by V-Hab, a clever campaign site to promote New Zealand's V Energy Drink.



Apparently, some One Direction fans took umbrage to British GQ's pairing of a Harry Styles cover with the cutline "He's up all night to get lucky" and reacted the way only juvenile fanatics seem to be able to anymore: with threats of violence and sexual assault:

A V-Hab spokesperson told the Drum:

“We love British GQ, but boy did those poor souls not know what they were getting themselves into! “Luckily for them, at V-Hab we’re all about countering trolls with a bit of positive energy so we’ve created humour and positivity into what has clearly been a rather large misunderstanding on all sides.

Coincidentally, Jezebel's Lindy West wrote a lengthy rant yesterday about how she felt "don't feed the trolls" was bad advice, especially for women:

I feed trolls. Not always, not every troll, but when I feel like it—when I think it will make me feel better—I talk back. I talk back because the expectation is that when you tell a woman to shut up, she should shut up. I reject that. I talk back because it's fun, sometimes, to rip an abusive dummy to shreds with my friends. I talk back because my mental health is my priority—not some troll's personal satisfaction. I talk back because it emboldens other women to talk back online and in real life, and I talk back because women have told me that my responses give them a script for dealing with monsters in their own lives. 

V-Hab's mockery is not the same as the fight that Ms. West is advocating, but it still feels good to watch aggression mocked so sweetly.