Gay writer, actor and podcaster Dylan Marron knows what it’s like to deal with internet trolls. His sexual orientation and liberal views have made him a target of abuse. But instead of avoiding his critics, the 29-year-old has started talking to them.
In his podcast, Conversations with People Who Hate Me, Marron telephones people who have insulted him and tries to find out why. “These are real people who have said things to me online that they wouldn’t necessarily say to me in person,” he told The New York Times.
Marron says he can talk to people he disagrees with because he loves talking to people in general. “When I was younger, I got a job at Whole Foods, which was an amazing job for me, because I had a different human in front of me every three to five minutes, and all I wanted to do was hear everything about them.”
Learning more about others makes it hard to hate them, Marron says. “Once you hear someone’s story, once you ask them that magic question that opens a lot of doors — ‘Why do you feel this way?’ — the world opens up a little.”
Marron’s friends warned him against doing the podcast, so to stay safe, he doesn’t call anyone who has made death threats against him. “I’m still in the process of learning from this show,” he told Fast Company magazine, “but it’s helped me confirm a hypothesis: most people soften when they feel listened to. And they’ll even listen to you in return.”