Story highlights Jill Filipovic: We don't need to feel sorry for Internet tormenters, whether a guy in his parents' basement or in the White House

She says they use their spare time to post hateful commentary for kicks, and plead they "didn't mean it." Of course they do

Jill Filipovic is a journalist based in New York and Nairobi, Kenya, and the author of the new book "The H-Spot: The Feminist Pursuit of Happiness." Follow her on Twitter. The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of the author.

(CNN) Here we are today, in Donald Trump's version of "modern day presidential": Random badly behaved men on the Internet suddenly find their juvenile online aliases thrust into the national spotlight, as "HanA**holeSolo" did this week when he conceded he had created the Trump v. CNN meme -- and it was further revealed that he was a regular purveyor of racist and anti-Semitic content on pro-Trump subreddits.

Jill Filipovic

For women who write on the Internet, the existence of these kinds of trolls isn't new. It would get boring to recount all the harassment I've received from anonymous men on the Internet, but suffice it to say there are few creatively misogynist insults (and many more pathetically uncreative ones, usually starting with the letters B or C or involving obscene demands) that haven't been hurled my way.

Two of these anonymous men have shown up in my real life, off the Internet. A few of the comments have been sufficiently alarming that I've contacted law enforcement.

And yet usually, the line between "real life" and "online life" stays impenetrable -- at least according to the trolls themselves, who, when they are found out, nearly universally describe themselves as normal upstanding citizens.

HanA**holeSolo claimed, in an apologetic subreddit post Tuesday, that his online comments weren't a reflection of his character, despite one earlier post that put Stars of David next to the head shots of CNN contributors, and others that called African-Americans the N-word and described wanting to stab Muslims in the neck. Don't worry, HanA**holeSolo wrote, he never meant any of the hateful or violent things he said. "I was trolling."

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