Sunrise star Sam Mac recalls the day he confronted his biggest troll

Sunrise weather presenter Sam Mac has opened up about an online message he received from a viewer which he called a “targeted attack”.

Sunrise weather presenter Sam Mac has opened up about the day he confronted one of his biggest trolls.

Mac details the hilarious saga in his new book Accidental Weatherman by Sam Mac which will be available on April 28 through Hachette Australia (RRP $32.99).

You can read an extract below.

Hi Sam … I’m actually starting to like you these days, I think you’ve settled into your role and you are not so annoying now.

Except … please chuck out that army fatigue coloured shirt in dirty green. That colour is not TV friendly. You suit blue tones and bright greens, not browns, tans or motley green.

Okay, I’ve done my motherly deed for the day. Of course you will say I will wear what I want, go ahead, it just doesn’t suit you. Keep smiling, you’re growing on me.

Regards, Carol

That was an actual Facebook message I received on January 24, 2019. It’s important to point out that this message arrived completely out of the blue – or out of the dirty green.

I had never met or heard of this mysterious lady named Carol, but something told me I needed to investigate further.

I remember reading the message and being slightly confused. Was this stranger complimenting me or was she absolutely savaging me? I mean, if they were compliments, they were so backhanded they were forehands. But there were no swear words, no threats, and Carol sounded like the name of a lovely old lady who lived next door and took great pride in her garden.

I immediately read the entire message again, taking time to digest every single word. I suggest you do the same.

After the third read, I burst out laughing. The whole message really tickled me. And there was a lot going on in those short paragraphs, so I started to unpack them.

Sunrise weatherman Sam Mac. Picture: Sarah Reed

In the first sentence Carol congratulated me because I was ‘not so annoying now’, which implied that she found me extremely annoying initially. Thanks, Carol.

Next, she told me the two colours I could wear on the air and three colours I couldn’t. So she effectively just appointed herself head of the Channel 7 wardrobe department. Bravo, Carol.

And finally, she wrapped up this emotional rollercoaster by telling me to ‘Keep smiling, you’re growing on me’. Passive aggressive much, Carol?

But let’s make no mistake: at its core, this message was a targeted attack. And Carol, the smiling assassin, was not going to stop until that dirty green shirt had been banished from my wardrobe.

Receiving unsolicited feedback and criticism from random people comes with my job. It’s a daily occurrence. Sometimes it even happens face-to-face. And some people seem to think that because I’m on TV it’s fair game to say whatever they want to me. Often before they’ve even told me their name.

They say things like, ‘You’re shorter than I thought’, ‘You’re taller than I thought’, ‘You’re skinnier than I thought’, ‘You’re bigger than I thought’, ‘You look younger on TV’, ‘You look older on TV’, ‘Your nose is bigger in person’, etc.

It’s true, I once had someone say my nose looked bigger in person. It was the first thing he said to me. Now, he was probably right: I do have a big nose. Or a ‘strong nose’, as my mum, Loretta, calls it. Aren’t mums great?

I also used to get teased at school for having a lot of freckles. But Loretta put my mind at ease by saying, ‘Every freckle is just a little kiss from the sun.’ Beautiful.

I’m not precious about this kind of thing; I often find it funny. But there are times when it’s definitely rude. It would be like meeting someone via a dating app then seeing them in person and saying, ‘Geez, you’ve got more chins than I thought.’ I mean, you can think that, but you don’t always need to say it out loud.

As for online feedback … wowee. It’s a jungle out there. I’ve been called every name you can imagine. I’ve received actual threats of violence, and I’ve even been told a handful of times to go and kill myself. It can be really nasty stuff. But those messages say more about the sender than they say about me.

If a TV weatherman riles you up that much, maybe just use an iPhone app for your forecast? Or try some meditation, bro.

Sunrise cast: Sam Mac, Edwina Bartholomew, Natalie Barr, David Koch and Mark Beretta. Picture: Sam Ruttyn

Occasionally I’ll try to understand why I’ve enraged them so much, and I’ll take a look at their profile.

The profile is basically the same every time – a guy with a goatee who only posts photos of the ‘sik’ exhaust on his VK Commodore.

His bio is something like, ‘We grew here, you flew here.’ The page will also contain some sort of conspiracy theory about how the government is controlling our minds. And he shares all of this riveting content with his 28 followers.

Simple fix for me: Block and move on.

I was so enthralled by Carol, on the other hand, that I decided to share a screenshot of her message with my followers on Instagram. It blew up. Almost ten thousand likes and hundreds of comments.

I think it resonated because everybody knows a Carol. She’s often an aunty or a friend’s mum who happily shares her opinions on everything, whether you’ve asked her or not.

It’s important here that I make the distinction between a Carol and a Karen. Two very different beasts.

Karens are troublemakers with no self-awareness. They’ll steal your parking spot and laugh about it with their kid. Whereas Carols have redeeming qualities. They’re often sweet natured and genuinely well intentioned, which is why their critiques can catch you off guard and cut extra deep.

After reading Carol’s message, my followers were quick to jump to my defence and return serve.

Ruth commented, ‘Shush lady, let Sam be.’ Daniela added, ‘Carol needs to dial it down a few notches.’ Bonnie got a little more personal towards Carol and said, ‘She sounds like she would be the mother-in-law from hell.’

But there was also a legion of Carol sympathisers, like Liane, who chimed in with, ‘It’s true, dirty green is such a primary school uniform colour. Vomit. Thank you for speaking up Carol.’

Great, now my own Instagram account was divided. It was very quickly becoming Sam vs Carol.

The next morning I was doing the show from Parramatta Park in the lead-up to Australia Day. And if you know me at all, you’ll know exactly what colour shirt I was wearing – you betcha, dirty green! I even began each of my seven live crosses by saying, ‘Good morning, Carol.’

Admittedly, that would’ve been slightly confusing to people who didn’t follow me on Instagram. But it was personal now. And I needed her to know that I wasn’t backing down.

Sam Mac on Sunrise with a message for Carol.

I even showed Carol’s message and discussed it on air with the rest of the team. Now the whole of Australia knew who Carol was. This saga was gaining some real momentum. But something was missing.

Everybody knows it’s not a legitimate saga until there’s an official hashtag. So I launched #PutYourDirtyGreensOut4Carol. I encouraged viewers to wear the colour dirty green and send me a photo using that hashtag.

Yet again, an unbelievable response. Hundreds of photos within an hour. Some of my favourites included a lawyer wearing a dirty green scarf to work despite it being the middle of summer. Footy teams who had dirty green uniforms using it as an excuse to rep club colours at work. And I even had a lady send me a bedroom shot of her in a matching dirty green underwear set. She was putting her dirty greens out, all right.

By this stage I was wondering how Carol was going to react to her new-found fame. Sure enough, right on cue, not long after the show, I received this message:

Hi Sam,

Thank you for saying good morning to me on Sunrise today. I will be a celebrity at the leisure centre now. I am liking you even more. But remember, the green shirt is not for you. It’s worse than the khaki. Blue shirt next week to suit your twinkling smile. Hehe.

Regards, Carol

She doubled down! It had become very apparent that Carol was relishing this battle. She was as cool as a cucumber (cucumbers are, coincidentally, dirty green).

Then it dawned on me: I had met my match. I was legitimately being trolled by a chardonnay-sipping, bob-cut-sporting senior citizen named Carol who lives in a Central Coast retirement village. What a time to be alive.

Over the next few days, I mentioned Carol regularly on the show. I was also receiving countless messages from other viewers asking if Carol approved of my shirt colour, or if Carol had sent me any new fashion critiques.

The in-joke had become an out-joke. Excellent.

You have to reach a certain level of fame before you can be instantly recognisable for your first name alone, but that’s what had happened. Beyoncé, Mariah, Carol.

The Human Emoji (Sam’s producer) and I knew exactly what had to happen next. It wasn’t an easy one to get over the line with the powers that be, but we kept pushing and pushing, and eventually we got the (dirty) green light to do the show live from the Central Coast leisure centre where I could meet my new nemesis, Carol, live on air.

I remember Friday, February 7, 2019 like it was yesterday. At 3.07am my alarm is buzzing. But so am I on a day like this. I leap out of bed with a spring in my step. The absurdity of what we’re about to do genuinely excites me. These are the days I live for.

On the ninety-minute drive to the coast my body is full of the kind of nerves you only normally get before a first date. In many ways, this is a first date. Only, Australia will be watching …

I arrive at Valhalla Lifestyle Village 20 minutes before my first cross. Wow, I must be excited, because that’s uncharacteristically early for me. The Human Emoji and I converge in a quiet side street away from the action so we can concoct a plan. We agree that Carol and I should meet for the first time live on air. We want the audience to see our actual meeting, not a fake, rehearsed TV meeting. Again, pushing for authenticity.

Next, Sean and I have a five-minute conversation about whether or not it’s socially acceptable to put a blindfold on a senior woman purely to add drama to a reveal. The decision is unanimous: Carol will be blindfolded.

Before the big reveal, I am hiding behind a shrub. A dirty green shrub. I have my earpiece in, listening to the show, so I know exactly when to emerge.

This gives me a private moment to really appreciate how ridiculous my job is. A couple of weeks ago a lady wrote a random message to me on Facebook about the colour of my shirt. And now here I am at her retirement home, about to meet her for the first time, with hundreds of thousands of viewers across the country coming along for the ride.

I trusted my gut with this storyline. If you took a few of Carol’s quotes in that original message out of context you could be forgiven for thinking she was attacking me. And some people did think that. But there was also warmth in that message, and it made me think she wasn’t just another troll – she had strong opinions, but she also had a very funny turn of phrase. This made me believe she’d be great talent. Well, we were about to find out.

‘Five, four, three, two, one, yeahhhhh …’ The Human Emoji removes Carol’s blindfold. Our crowd of seniors goes berserk, cheering, whistling and whooping. It’s like schoolies for old people. I’m wearing a dirty green headband, dirty green socks, dirty green sleeveless army jacket and the star of the outfit: a fluoro-green Lycra full- body morph suit. Hello, ladies.

Carol is in complete shock. Or she’s dirty green with envy. We give each other a big hug. I start to interview her about her new-found fame when I notice her gazing down towards my business section.

‘My eyes are up here, Carol,’ I say. The crowd laughs.

Carol pats my hips.

Sam Mac with Carol on Sunrise.

I’m normally very good at keeping it together on the air, but there is something about this whole scenario that is making me laugh uncontrollably. It is completely preposterous that a huge TV network would put time, money and resources into doing an entire show from a retirement village all because a lady named Carol complained about the colour of the weatherman’s shirt. Perfection.

Carol lived up to all the hype. She was friendly and funny and sweet, but she also had a sinister side to her that could cut people down with just a few words from her acid tongue.

In the next cross we were live from Carol’s house. We sat down on her couch and discussed all of the breakfast TV shows. Sadly for the ABC, it wasn’t a glowing review.

‘No, that show’s no good,’ said Carol, ‘Virginia Trioli talks over people too much.’

I opened the door to Carol’s study, where she had a desk and a laptop. I labelled it her ‘trolling office’. Nobody’s safe when Carol is on the case.

I asked if we could show our viewers her bedroom. Carol’s husband, Phil, said, ‘We’d better hide the toys first.’ Wow. This was wild!

I opened Carol’s wardrobe and gave her a taste of her own medicine, pulling out garment after garment and telling her that the 1980s needed their shoulder pads back.

Going through Carol’s wardrobe.

Sean (producer) did an incredible job that morning. He backed me and it paid off with some outrageously memorable and feel-good TV. I still have people mentioning how much they enjoyed that morning’s show, even years after the fact.

The Human Emoji went above and beyond by arranging some gifts for me to present to Carol before we left. The first was Carol’s face on a T-shirt and the words ‘Keep smiling, you’re growing on me’. The second was a coffee mug with the inspirational quote she dedicated to me at the beginning of this entire adventure: ‘You’re not so annoying now.’

I ended the morning by serenading Carol with a version of the classic Everly Brothers song All I Have to Do Is Dream. It went like this:

When I want you, my judgey friend

When I want you … to slide …

Into my DMs

Whenever I want you

All I have to wear

Is gree-eeen, green green green

The whole village joined in as back-up singers. At the end of the song I went to give Carol a kiss on the cheek, but she had other ideas. Live on air she changed the angle of her face at the last second and planted one on my lips. It might have been the only action I would get that year …

I still keep in regular contact with Carol. I should probably sell my story to New Idea: ‘How I befriended my online troll.’ I know I can always count on Carol to tell me which segments I nailed and which segments I failed.

She seems to be at peace with my wardrobe these days. For now, at least. And when I was up for the Gold Logie later that year, as a special nod to Carol I wore a custom- made velvet suit, in dirty green, to the awards ceremony. I found that more satisfying than you’ll ever know.

But all jokes aside, I think people should wear what makes them happy. Don’t dress for others – dress for you. That’s my Oprah-style editorial for the day.

Carol now has actual fans. People ask me about her often. There’s a genuine affection towards her. Some of my followers comment on my posts with the #TeamCarol hashtag. I love it. The tide has well and truly turned.

Kelly wrote, ‘I love Carol and her sass, yass kween!’ Toney gave me a word of warning: ‘Never mess with a Carol or a Susan, Sam.’ Lisa articulated why this whole thing really struck a chord: ‘I’m so invested in this, there’s a little bit of Carol in all of us.’ Hayley seemed to have adopted Carol as some sort of mentor: ‘is cazza available to do a personal run down on where I need to improve because I’m ready for a wake up call.’ And Lucy fell in love with Carol: ‘Ahhh, I wish she was my friend, bless her and her khaki socks.’

Even Sunrise host Sam Armytage seemed to have joined #TeamCarol. She once finished a segment by saying, ‘I agree with Carol – you’re not so annoying now.’ Gee, thanks.

The final word in this story, though, has to go to the great Carol Embleton. A few days after I visited her she sent me another direct message. This one made me suspicious that perhaps she knew exactly what she was doing the whole time, and maybe, ultimately, she played me for a fool. She wrote:

I am getting lots of new followers on my page … All these women want to befriend me as I think they believe I have a secret passage to your bedroom. They are all in love with you. It’s hilarious, the 66 year old pensioner got to kiss you and they didn’t. Speak soon xx.

Accidental Weatherman by Sam Mac (Hachette Australia, RRP $32.99), is available from April 28.

This is an extract from Accidental Weatherman by Sam Mac (Hachette Australia, RRP $32.99), available April 28. Get it here.