The first time I was trolled was back in 2010. After watching Andrew Breitbart destroy Shirley Sherrod's career, I fired off an angry tweet and he retweeted it, inviting thousands of his followers to defend his honor.

And defend they did. I was a number of “dumb black bitches” and “stupid ni**er bitches,” with a few “dumb c**ts” thrown in for good measure. My mentions were a crime scene for hours.

Last week, I decided to tweet Raffi Williams, he of the manufactured Ebony Magazine scandal. I fully admit to camping out in his mentions like Tisha Campbell did Eddie Murphy in "Boomerang." But this time, the trolling I received was markedly different. Save for a few homophobic tweets, the worst insult I received was “libtard.” But this time, they thought they were engaging a white hipster.

Being a white dude on Twitter has its advantages.

To be clear, this whole thing started as a joke. Or a bet, really. Last fall, one of my Twitter followers dared me to change my avatar and assume the personality of a DudeBro for a week. It seemed easy enough. I'd spent my formative years studying white culture, and considered myself an expert on all of The Things White People Like™, like yoga, collie shepherds, and Stephen Colbert. So I hit Google, searched for a random picture of a random white guy, and threw it up on my profile. I left my name and bio unchanged.

Sure enough, people (most of them, white dudes) engaged me differently. The number of snarky, condescending tweets dropped off considerably, and discussions on race and gender were less volatile. I had suddenly become reasonable and level-headed. My racial identity no longer clouded my ability to speak thoughtfully, and in good faith. It was like I was a new person.