I often daydream about beating up my enemies. Usually in these daydreams, I’m wearing an awesome Wonder Woman costume.

I approach said naysayers and say, “Naysayers?”

“Yes, Julie?” Except instead of Julie they use a word that starts with B and ends in -itch.

“Hiyaaaaaaaaa!” (Those are my mad ninja sounds.) “Prepare to get an ass whooping!”

And then I whoop their respective asses.

In the real world, unfortunately, I am not an ass-kicking awesome person; I don’t even know how to throw a punch. This little column space right here is my only venue for metaphoric ass-kickery. More unfortunately, most of the asses I would like to imprint with a permanent mark of my foot are asses I should not publicly discuss in my column. Doing so would set me up for future consequences I care not to consider; furthermore, it would be tacky. At those times, I also daydream about taking them down via some anonymous post in an asinine, infantile gesture of cowardly egocentric whinery. Sadly, I lack the safety of anonymity, since my lovely mug floats bodiless below these words.

But in respect to this column’s enemy, I would be fighting fire with fire. Yes, today’s enemies are pesky online commentators who have nothing better to do but be personally offended by things that aren’t about them.

When you or I imagine Rabid-Internet-Commenter-Person, we picture a sweaty, ill-lit maniacal pizza face with a Napoleon complex who just cannot help him or herself. He or she feels compelled to throw metaphoric rotten tomatoes for fear of losing their flimsy persona. Often, he or she responds in incomplete, badly constructed sentences, or just forgoes the English language entirely to Tweet along the lines of, “OMG for realz U R going to HELL u sLuT for what you saidz it isnt even tRu.”

Popular culture has immortalized this commentator: On Entourage, he was the fat, smelly blogger at Comic Con who controlled the fate of Vince’s movie even though he clearly had no life outside the Internets; on an especially meta West Wing episode, Josh took on a slew of online guerilla commentators, only to realize that he could never battle their craziness and copious free time.

These unattractive depictions of the twitterati and commentariat are largely unfair. The internet, after all, is supposed to be the last great beacon of democracy in a society run by news conglomerates. Who are we to judge the average citizen for creating a handle like “I-iz-more-better-than-you” and challenging everyone from pundits to public figures to TV writers? Shouldn’t we be heralding these rabble rousers for taking on The Man — even when The Man is actually a 23-year-old, curly haired Jewish girl who don’t mean nobody harm? (Me, you dimwits. I’m talking about me.)

Although the internet is supposed to be a forum for the people, it doesn’t mean the people suddenly lack culpability. I can’t sue someone for libel if they send me threatening e-mails that call me a slutty writer (true story) or comment about how I’m a self-hating Jew (also true story).

But I can be sued if I say something wrong. True, I’m employed (for free). True, the institution of comments created a space where media makers and their audience can interact, and a space for the audience to constructively criticize, condone and even sometimes correct a pundit’s argument or a writer’s plotline. But there is a line between constructive comments and purely vitriolic attacks.

For instance: After a major character on the BBC’s cult series Torchwood was killed off, the fans vehemently attacked one of the writers on his Twitter, accusing him of trying to make them commit suicide. Torchwood and other TV writers are certainly not the only media producers who suffer.

My greatest issue with blogs like IvyGate, Gawker and Texts from Last Night stems from the obnoxious comments that fill up pages of RSS feed. It makes me grateful to The Sun’s own web editors who take the time to screen out the most virulent trash talk. Hell, even Miley Cyrus deleted her Twitter because people were being jerks. Non-celebrity high school students aren’t even safe: It seems like every time I turn on the news, some other kid has actually committed suicide because of a soccer-mom turned internet terrorist. Does the whole world need to be sent to online anger management class?

These attacks are rooted in nothing but solipsism, where the political becomes literally personal and where everything I say is all about You, You, You. Have there always been so many narcissists in the world, or did the internet breed this pathos? With social networking sites playing up the everyman’s importance and placing media producers and consumers in the same space, it allows for both constructive dialogue and the figurative rotten tomato hurling. Thank you, Twitter, Facebook and Livejournal. Rotten tomatoes everywhere, and what a mess it will be to clean.

Well, commentariat, in this case, I am actually attacking you. Hiyaaaaaaaaaa! Let the vitriolic responses commence.

Julie Block, a senior in the College of Arts and Sciences, is a former Sun Arts and Entertainment Editor. She may be reached at jblock@cornellsun.com. WTF, Mate?! appears alternate Wednesdays this semester.