My wife has horrible luck with assholes on the internet. Like, ridiculously so.
When I first moved in I wondered why she was so extremely distrusting of people, especially online. She explained that it was because most people she'd interacted with online (with a few exceptions, like like the small group of friends both she and I are in) treated her like garbage. I was skeptical at first, until she pointed it out to me every time someone was unreasonably hurtful toward her. She got harassment almost weekly while playing some of her favorite games, even when trying to be as invisible as possible. This isn't just "lol u suk" type jerkass behavior either, but "I'll send you hateful messages over and over again despite your attempts to mute me." People going out of their way to spew shit.
I'm not always playing together with her so I can't always be there to white knight her (and ignoring people is often the best response anyway; no need to sink down to other people's level, as it'd just encourage them). Instead I end up holding her in my arms for a half hour or so and yet again reassuring her she's not worthless or dumb, despite what assholes might say.
The most recent example was particularly bad. She asserted to someone that she and women like her should be treated the same as anyone else, and got hit with someone comparing her to the people who abused Alan Turing. She was called a bigot for calling out other people's needless hate. A particularly twisted "you should tolerate intolerance" thing.
I don't know if some people out there are just hate filled sacks of shit, or if they're just naive and don't understand the power of words. I'm optimistic and guessing the latter. "Sticks and stones will break my bones but words will never hurt me" is an old lie a lot of people believe, and it's sad.
Thankfully the number of incidents seems to have been going down over time. At least from my perspective... she might be getting more resilient to them and just not telling me when they happen