Trolls are the worst type of internet citizen.
They cowardly hide behind computers and phones saying harmful and disgusting things to strangers. You'll find them in comment sections, Twitter conversations they weren't invited to, or if you're a woman, everywhere you click. They're the mosquito bites of the digital age; pointless, but difficult to ignore.
But one woman is making trolls eat their words ... literally.
Kat Thek is a baker in Brooklyn, New York, and founder of Troll Cakes. Her business is exactly what it sounds like: You send in a troll's comment, and Thek bakes a cake with their words lovingly inscribed in frosting or edible letters and ships it to them.
There's nothing wrong with the cakes: no poison, no weird flavors, nothing — unless the troll has a problem eating their own vitriol. It's killing them with kindness; death by chocolate chip brownie.
What could've possibly started all of this? A swipe at entertainment icon Dolly Parton.
"Somebody wrote: 'Your Mamma be so disappointed' and I just couldn't stop laughing," Thek writes in an interview over email.
"Trolling anyone, especially Dolly Parton, is like aggressively giving the finger to a sunset or telling a panda that it has bad taste in film," she explains. "You're just letting everybody around you know that you're a grumpy idiot. It's fun to maintain that idiocy but then flip the grumpy into something obnoxiously cheerful, like a surprise cake in the mail."
Thek's business just started a few weeks ago, but she's been swamped with orders.
Her favorite thing to have put on a cake so far is this fantastical equine insult:
"I'm not exactly sure what a donkey witch is, but I think I want to be one for Halloween," she says.
She also creates cakes of President Donald Trump's more offensive remarks and sends them to the White House because trolls come in all shapes, sizes, and government positions.
As you might guess, Thek — as a woman on the internet making cakes for trolls — has been trolled for this idea.
But don't worry, she's not creating a vicious cycle.
"Troll Cakes subscribes to the 'Scarface' school of business: we don't get high on our own supply. That means we don't send Troll Cakes to trolls of Troll Cakes," Thek says.
Troll Cakes is not so much for revenge or anger; it's just to make people stop and think about the words they use.
After all, it's a cake in the mail, not a horse head in the bed. And so far, most of the cakes are sent between family and friends. It's simply a way to make people think twice about what they say and do on the internet.
"Customers are mostly looking to have (or share) the last laugh — if you take heated or petty words out of context and plop them onto a cake, they're usually pretty funny," Thek says. "We're very big fans of using Troll Cakes to playfully troll people you love. The typical Facebook 'overshare' is hilarious on a cake."
It's also delicious. You can't beat that.