Since my daughter’s been born, mythical wife and I haven’t watched a tremendous amount of television. I may have mentioned it before, but ultimately we’re hoping to avoid exposing our child to too much screen time until she’s around two years old, because we’d prefer to be parents who can stimulate their child’s brain without having to resort to plopping them in front of a television and hoping to let digital technology raise her. Needless to say, since having a kid, we’ve watched maybe a handful of things, mostly bullshit like 90 Day Fiancé or My 600 Lb. Life.

In addition to TLC’s greatest hits, one show in particular we’ve actually worked our way through has been FX’s What We Do In the Shadows, which has been great because the episodes are short, and the plot is funny in the mockumentary style of format. The cast is outstanding and the general plot is so ridiculous and quick-paced that it’s an easy show where we can watch one or two episodes, step away from viewing for a few days or a week, and then pick right back up without much difficulty.

After blowing through the two available seasons, I’d have to say that the one character that I enjoyed the most was Colin Robinson, the energy vampire. Mostly treated as a tertiary character, his whole spiel is that he’s not one of the traditional blood-sucking vampires, but rather one who feeds off of the energy of others, including the ability to drain from other vampires. He’s basically the troll among trolls in Nandor’s house, and in my opinion, he’s the funniest character among the entire cast.

There’s one episode in particular where he’s expanding on his powers to drain energy from victims by utilizing the internet, and then it occurred to me that Colin Robinson is basically the living embodiment of every internet troll on the planet. We re-watched the first episode recently, and there’s a line he mentions during the initial character introductions where “you probably know an energy vampire,” and then it hit me like a ton of bricks that he couldn’t be any more accurate that basically we all do.

Every anonymous internet troll, asshole whom you don’t know who chimes in on a social media conversation, is a Colin Robinson. An energy vampire who’s deliberately trying to deliberately trying to get under your skin and get you to tilt, so that they can drain your energy, even from afar. Once this connection is bought in, it’s actually quite amusing to envision the face on the other end of the keyboards in any sort of internet confrontation, probably looking like Colin Robinson, a bald, middle aged Dilbert looking guy. And as much as the Colin Robinsons probably got their rocks off on feeding on your energy, there’s something empowering to know that such a dorky looking dweeb is probably the one on the other end of the interwebs from any sort of online debate.