Until recently, I would intone the internet’s big catchphrase – “don’t feed the troll”. There’s always the undeniable feeling that, as you castigate a troll, he’s rubbing his Red Dwarf mouse-mat against his crotch, sighing, “Angry liberal women typing at me. Oh yah, that’s how I like it.”

But then I started to notice that, as a phenomenon, trolling isn’t just confined to pseudonymous IT workers hanging around Justin Bieber fan-sites. When, on Top Gear, Jeremy Clarkson made his “amusing” remark about Katie Price having a “pink whore’s box” – “I meant PINK HORSE BOX!” he corrected, knowingly – it occurred to me that Clarkson’s entire career is essentially an exercise in trolling: gleefully vexatious comments on Mexicans, homosexuals and women, thrown out with the, “Ho ho! Our ‘PC’ friends won’t like THIS!” expression that is the carat-mark of the true troll. Clarkson isn’t the only professional troll on the block: consider his friend, the Sunday Times columnist AA Gill, with his liberal sprinkling of references to “dykes”, “ferret-faced Albanians” and the “ugly Welsh”. Both Clarkson and Gill know these kind of comments provoke massive reactions – in their cases, to the point where ambassadors from other countries get involved. Essentially, they’re trolling the entire concepts of diplomacy and civilisation for a reaction. This is something that some hopelessly small-town troll, flaming for kicks on the breastfeeding boards of Mumsnet, can only sighingly aspire to.

If there is one thing that defines the troll world-view, it’s a sour, dissatisfied sense that the world is disappointing. Trolls never troll enthusiasm. The default troll attitude is one of inexplicably vituperative disapproval for something millions find joy in. The first time I thought that sentence, I went, “Oh my God – you know what this means? The Daily Mail is the f***ing LODESTONE of trolldom! It’s the Magna Carta of trolldom! It’s the Dead Sea Trolls!” Because if you look at its website, your presumption that Daily Mail readers actually like bitchy headlines about female celebrities putting on weight (“Fuller-Faced Cheryl Cole”), is blown out of the water. All the comments are actually from reasonable people baffled by the Mail’s tactic (“Can’t celebrities put on an ounce without it being news?” Ivy, Barking) – making you realise that the Mail is, in practice, trolling its entire readership. Amazing.

So this is why I can’t agree with “don’t feed the trolls”. When millionaire celebrity broadcasters and entire publications start trolling, ignoring them isn’t really an option anymore. They are gradually making trolling normative. We have to start feeding the trolls: feeding them with achingly polite emails and comments, reminding them of how billions of people prefer to communicate with each other, every day, in the most unregulated arena of all: courteously.

q2: Is there actually a seed of truth in the American pro-life campaigners’ stance?

Caitlin Moran's new world order