Lone Wolves of the Web - Masked Torturers and Deluded Martyrs
The Anatomy of Sustained Digital Persecution
What drives someone to spend years stalking and harassing someone online, all while hiding behind a mask of morality or martyrdom?
Some trolls go beyond opportunistic drive-by trolling. Unlike others in this series, they aren’t content with snark, insults, or subtler forms of abuse. They’re in it for the long game, aiming not just to deride but to devastate, using sustained emotional harm to turn online discourse into psychological warfare, fuelled by their need for control and vindication.
These extreme ‘lone wolf’ trolls fall into two distinct but related subtypes: the Masked Torturer, driven by relentless internal pressures of perfectionism and mortification, and the Deluded Martyr, who seems to believe that the world desperately needs their unique form of 'enlightenment' (whether anyone asked for it or not).
Their targets aren’t random; science educators, vaccination advocates, LGBTQ+ activists, and others on the front lines of public discourse often become the unwilling focus of these relentless campaigns, designed to break down their sense of safety and self-worth.
At the heart of their behaviour is a tangled web of shame and envy. Both types share a common drive: they want others to suffer as they have, and they’re propelled by deep psychological ‘splits’ that fuel their relentless cruelty.
The Masked Torturer: When Perfectionism Becomes Predatory
The Masked Torturer channels their internal shame and rigid perfectionism into an obsessive need to correct others. Their internal world is dominated by a relentless sense of inadequacy, fuelled by an inner bully that brutally criticises their every action. This unbearable pressure finds a release valve in trolling, where they project their self-loathing onto others. For the Masked Torturer, trolling is not just a game. It’s a compulsive mission to correct perceived wrongs in others.
A Shame-Dumping Campaign
Trapped in their prison of perfectionism, the Masked Torturer offloads the overwhelming shame onto their victims. This "shame-dumping" often begins with the tiniest flaws: misplaced commas, slight misquotes, small errors most would overlook but which, to the Masked Torturer, demand a moral crusade. What starts as nitpicking can escalate into a sustained campaign of harassment.
Moral Enforcement as Release
For the Masked Torturer, attacking perceived flaws isn’t just about being correct. It’s a momentary escape from the suffocating grip of their own inner critic. Each correction or attack offers brief relief. Their target becomes a symbol of everything wrong in the world, and the more the target resists, the more the Masked Torturer escalates, acting out their compulsive cruelty.
Anonymity and the Curated Public Persona
Unlike attention-seeking trolls who might choose anonymity for convenience, the Masked Torturer requires it for psychological survival. Their carefully curated public persona isn't just a social mask - it's one half of a rigid psychological split. In public, they appear moralistic and ethical; anonymously, they release a cruel, relentless enforcer. This isn't simply hiding bad behavior; it's a way of keeping two separate selves in different psychological ‘rooms’ so they never meet.
Ms. Danvers has struggled with failed relationships and infertility, and her unresolved pain is further compounded by a cruel, punishing mother-daughter relationship that she replays internally. The idea of empathic motherhood, which she was never shown, deeply triggers her. She makes a fake profile and targets a parenting blogger who writes about nurturing, emotionally supportive parenting. Initially, Ms. Danvers's criticisms are minor, nitpicking the blogger's advice. But her envy and internal shame escalate as she begins to fantasize about the blogger’s failure as a mother. When the blogger posts a family craft activity using plastic bags, Ms. Danvers twists the innocent content into "evidence" of negligence, cruelly wondering if her children might suffocate.
Escalation Tactics
As the Masked Torturer’s campaign intensifies, they often escalate to more severe actions, such as doxxing. For them, revealing a target’s personal details isn’t an attack. It’s a righteous public service, carried out with the pompous gravity of a knight on a crusade, when it’s really about harassing someone over a disagreement. When blocked or ignored, they don’t stop at targeting the individual. They broaden their attacks to include the victim’s family, colleagues, or professional networks. They may file false complaints with employers or ethics panels in an attempt to ruin their victim’s reputation.
After Ms. Danvers is blocked by the parenting blogger, she doesn’t stop. She leaks the blogger’s personal information and begins harassing her family members, accusing them of complicity in "child abuse." She even files a false complaint about child endangerment and contacts the blogger’s employer to get her fired, all under the guise of "protecting children.” Her sadistic envy fuels increasingly dark fantasies of tragedy befalling the blogger’s family, justified through a distorted sense of moral superiority.
The Deluded Martyr: A Crusade Against Expertise
Unlike the Masked Torturer’s internal suffering, the Deluded Martyr often begins with a legitimate grievance, perhaps a medical misadventure or professional sanctions. Many are patient advocates in anti-psychiatry or alternative medicine circles who feel wronged by mainstream systems, while others are disgraced professionals facing consequences for promoting unproven treatments. Despite these different origins, both take their external suffering and turn it into a crusade against perceived corruption, directing their ire at the experts they blame for their pain.
The Wounded Healer Delusion
For many Deluded Martyrs, personal suffering alone qualifies them as wounded healers, more enlightened than any credentialed expert. They see their pain as akin to a shamanistic initiatory crisis that has granted them profound insight into the wounds of the world, beyond anything mere education could offer. Armed with this self-declared wisdom, they take to social media as prophets, heroically exposing corrupt forces that… most people haven’t even noticed. They often believe their rivals - doctors, scientists, public figures - should be forced to endure the same trials to realise the same truths. Their grandiose healer persona masks their real motives: a desire to make others suffer as they did, while dismissing the competence and expertise they secretly envy. Beneath layers of delusional denial, their so-called wisdom is little more than an expression of unresolved pain and deep resentment.
Noble Crusader vs. Wounded Self
The Deluded Martyr is similarly driven by a deep internal split. Outwardly, they assume the role of a righteous hero on a mission to "enlighten" the world. But beneath this facade lies an unacknowledged wound, feelings of inadequacy and distress they refuse to confront. Instead, they externalize their suffering, projecting it onto their targets. The crusader persona shields them from their own shame, but the harm they inflict reflects their inner turmoil. Their need to make others suffer, cloaked in moral or spiritual superiority, fuels a relentless campaign against those they select as their ‘dark twin’ rivals.
From Legitimate Concern to Harmful Obsession
Even when the Deluded Martyr’s journey starts with a genuine grievance, as their anger festers, the initial sense of injustice twists into a harmful obsession. Their fight shifts from seeking justice to pursuing personal vengeance.
Dr. Erik’s initial concern appeared genuine: in the early days of the pandemic, he advocated for Ivermectin and other alternative treatments, warning his followers about “mainstream cover-ups.” His audience grew quickly, but soon after, he received a notice from the medical board regarding his unproven claims. Instead of re-evaluating, he doubled down, casting the board’s warnings as further evidence of medical “corruption.”
Envy of Expertise and Magical Thinking
Underlying the Deluded Martyr’s crusade is a deep envy of the expertise their targets possess. Rather than putting in the work to develop real knowledge, they turn to alternative medicine, anti-vaccine pseudoscience, or magical thinking. These are paths that allow them to maintain the illusion of superiority without the effort real expertise requires. They frame these pseudoscientific beliefs as "truths" that rival established knowledge, elevating their status in their own eyes while avoiding the rigour of real education.
Dr. Erik began singling out doctors who championed evidence-based approaches, dismissing their expertise as a smokescreen for profiteering. Convinced of his own superior insight, he lashed out, accusing these doctors of poisoning patients and selling out to Big Pharma. When one doctor blocked him, his focus on her intensified; he attended her public lecture, accusing her of malpractice until security intervened.
The Hero-as-Abuser Mindset
The Deluded Martyr embodies the classic "hero-as-abuser" archetype. They genuinely believe their cruelty is a necessary evil to save the world from corruption. Initially, they may view their targets as merely uninformed or misguided. However, when these targets refuse to engage or block them, this rejection ignites a volcanic rage. No longer just unenlightened, the target is now seen as wilfully resisting the Deluded Martyr’s truth, transforming them into an active agent of Evil in the Martyr's mind. This shift justifies even more extreme behaviour, including veiled threats of violence or death.
Undeterred, Dr. Erik escalated his attacks, messaging her colleagues privately with thinly veiled threats, warning that anyone supporting her stance was part of a conspiracy. He saw her as his archetypal rival in the battle for medical truth, stalking her professional activities and framing her work as actively and knowingly harming patients. When she continued to refuse his demands for “debate”, he grew darker and more vindictive, suggesting that justice would eventually come to those who poison patients, thinly veiling his death threats as prophecies of karmic retribution. His crusade to expose her became an obsession—no matter the cost to those he targeted and his eventual license suspension, as one who dared to tell the truth.
The Addictive Power of Control and Vindication
Both the Masked Torturer and the Deluded Martyr are addicted to control. The Masked Torturer seeks relief from internal torment by dominating others, while the Deluded Martyr craves vindication through their self-appointed crusade. Each escalation feeds this need for power, driving them toward increasingly extreme behaviour.
When blocked or ignored, both types escalate their harassment. They target their victim’s friends, family, and professional networks, making vexatious complaints to employers, ethics panels, or other authorities. The harassment often expands beyond the individual to anyone perceived as being associated with them.
This spiral starts as a defence against inner shame and the criticism their behaviour attracts often causes more shame, so they double-down. This is the pattern of a behavioural addiction.
The Role of DARVO Tactics
Both types of trolls employ DARVO (Deny, Attack, Reverse Victim and Offender) tactics when confronted, using this strategy to escalate their cruelty while maintaining the illusion that they are the ones being wronged. We covered this behaviour in our discussion on Concern Trolls and Sealions, but these extreme trolls add new layers to the tactic. The irony is, of course, that trolls who use DARVO tactics often present themselves as victims of a cruel world and their rival’s critiques - one that refuses to recognise their heroic sacrifices and ‘truth-telling’ missions. In their mind, any consequence or pushback is simply proof of the system and their rival’s corruption.
The Darker Shades: Sadism, Narcissism, and Machiavellianism
The behaviour of both the Masked Torturer and the Deluded Martyr is driven by traits from the Dark Tetrad: narcissism, Machiavellianism, and sadism at levels more intense than those seen in lesser trolls.
The Masked Torturer’s Machiavellianism allows them to manipulate and harm others while maintaining anonymity with their narcissism is manifest in their deep need to feel superior through moral enforcement. But it is their sadism, the pleasure they derive from causing pain, that sustains their relentless behaviour.
The Deluded Martyr’s narcissism is more overt. They see themselves as the only person capable of enlightening the masses and are driven by a hero complex. Their Machiavellianism is evident in their attempts at strategic manipulation of narratives and public perception. However, their sadism, framed as "necessary cruelty", remains as the driving force behind their escalating behaviour.
Conclusion: Disarming the Trolls
Understanding the psychology of these trolls is just the beginning. To truly disarm them, you need to exploit their vulnerabilities. For the Masked Torturer, the key is Exposure. These trolls depend on anonymity, hiding their lust for cruelty behind a moralizing facade. By exposing their identity and actions, you force them to confront the very shame they project onto others. Whether through public accountability or legal measures, shining a light on their behaviour strips away the power they derive from their hidden cruelty.
For the Deluded Martyr, the strategy is Starvation. These individuals feed on validation, attention and being taken seriously, whether through arguments, engagement, or acknowledgment of their mission. To disarm them, starve them of the kind of recognition they crave. Block them, refuse to engage, and encourage others to do the same. Without an audience, their grandiosity collapses, leaving them without the platform to continue their obsessive crusade. Alternatively, if sarcasm or humour are in your arsenal, don’t take them seriously and wit can be a weapon.
Of course, our Masked Torturer and Deluded Martyr are likely to view any lack of their desired kind of engagement as ‘proof’ of their victim’s moral failings. After all, if they were wrong, wouldn’t you be engaging with them on their terms? But the best way to disarm these trolls is to cut off the sadistic supplies they crave: recognition, validation, and attention.
Both types are driven by a need for control, over their victims and their own narratives. By cutting off their sources of power, anonymity for the Masked Torturer and attention for the Deluded Martyr, you reject the control they seek to impose.
Strategies for Reclaiming Control
When facing these types of trolls, here are some practical steps to stay grounded:
Recognize Patterns: Trolls tend to repeat phrases and tactics. Spotting these patterns can help you mentally categorise and anticipate their behaviour, making it easier to manage.
Practice Detachment: Think of troll comments as background noise, or visualize them as clichéd movie villains. This reframing reduces the emotional impact of their words, protecting your mental energy and making it easier to brush off their cruelty.
Control Visibility: Use privacy settings to limit troll access to specific posts. Controlling what trolls can interact with keeps your engagement on your terms, putting the power back in your hands.
Use Humour: Nothing throws a self-appointed crusader off their game like a joke at their expense. If they’re foaming about how you’re “destroying civilization,” a breezy “Thanks for the prophecy, Nostradamus” should do the trick. Nothing takes the wind out of their sails like treating their doomsday warnings as comic relief.
In the next two posts, I share a pair of interviews with two wonderful colleagues who’ve encountered these two types of trolls first-hand. After that, we’ll take on the Wolf Packs of the Web where trolls lead coordinated attacks, overwhelming their targets with waves of concentrated hostility.
Very informative and helpful, thanks Paul.
This is so good, Paul! Did you come up with all these categories yourself or is there a “troll classification” in the DSM or some other psychiatric text? Otherwise, you need to write a book! 🧌