“Who says I don’t give a damn, I do care. It’s just that there is nothing I can do anything about it,” says Rachitha Mahalakshmi, best known as Meenatchi of Vijay TV’s Saravanan Meenatchi. The lady who is being trolled in social media, technically, because she is a woman.

Rachitha won the Best Actress award at the 2017 Vijay Television Awards. And like never before, her acceptance speech was zestful. She told the trollers that she is here to stay and they can continue with their trolling.

Once this program was aired, the unexpected started happening. Before the award show, the meme creators were targeting the character Meenatchi and judging the chastity of the character.But after the award show, Rachitha is being targeted and harassed. It is sad to acknowledge that most of the netizens find this irresponsible trend entertaining.

“I am very upset. As much as Tamil audiences have made me proud they have made me suffer, too. If they had understood what I was saying, they wouldn’t have started this. I don’t expect them to celebrate me, just let me be the way I am. How I see this is, when I said what I wanted to, maybe some one’s ego got hurt and to express that they are started trolling,” told Rachitha.

Asked if she will be filing defamation cases against the trollers, “I don’t know what to say. But the trolling definitely won’t stop even if I file defamation. They (trollers) don’t understand the seriousness of this issue. In the extreme level, anything may happen. With such a pressurized, tensed lifestyle there are chances we take this trolling to the heart and do something. They don’t care about all this” she said.

What can possibly be the psychology behind this trolling?

“When it comes to social media trolling, in this case, it is not just objectification of the person. Centering on a person and trolling has more to do with the sexual dynamics and so this does constitute as sexual harassment. And when she breaks the stereotyped ‘woman nature’, she is allowed to be treated inhumanely, which is purely sexist,” activist Namitha Jayashankar told Covai Post.

“She doesn’t target anyone in her speech. But these people feel insecure as somebody who is faceless in media. It is too obvious this has everything to do with misogynistic and patriarchal mindset. The trollers don’t happen to have the same persona outside Internet. Without their anonymity, they simply cannot react. In the presence of a screen which helps them hide their identity, they feel strong. This comes from inadequacy problems. They may have self-esteem issues, which they force down others, to feel better about them”.