CaptainChip said:
Therumancer said:
Dr. Cakey said:
Therumancer said:
Hi, I'm a full-time liberal and part-time troll, which I believe linguistically makes me a lib-troll, and I think you're both misrepresenting my views and dramatically overestimating my intelligence.
Unless a lib-troll is someone who trolls Mad Libs, in which case your posts do not apply to me.
alphamalet said:
This is officially my favorite thread ever. I can't count how many times I've bursted out laughing at some of this crap.
We have misguided anger, political manifestos, and humor all in 120 posts. It's fucking brilliant.
We need to get this thread stickied so years from now people can go back and read it.
Snip
How about using something like... Social Justice Warrior or White Knight? Those seems like better, less politically charged terms than lib-troll (in a sense that liberals who don't actually agree with these types of people wouldn't want to be lumped in with them).
Nah, because we're dealing with trolls, nothing so noble. Lib-Troll, seemed quick and to the point. You could also in return use it as a Rep-Troll, or Con-Troll for a right winger doing the same thing with views from the opposite side of the fence I supposed. That said I will put some thought into it, it was kind of spontaneous.
In the final equasion the people I'm talking about have no interest in social justice, or white knighting someone, it's all about spreading chaos and "lulz" by watching the chaos that ensues from getting something going.
In the case of Anita Sarkessian <SP... I can't remember how to spell her last name off the top of my head> the problem was compounded by White Knights who got involved because they saw a girl in trouble, which made things more complicated than they should have been. She was a troll, was getting pretty much driven off, people White Knighted her, not quite understanding the issues, especially given the degree to which some of the people she irritated were taking it, and it made the situation worse. I don't really hate on those that White Knighted her too badly because their hearts were in the right place, they just happened to choose the wrong person and the wrong battle. The White Knights also arguably made things worse, Anita was such a huge troll, and operating on such a large scale (or planning to), that we saw people actually turning to hacking her system and such to put up private information and such to show she was pretty much the worst kind of person, largely in order to show the White Knights who they were actually defending. This met with mixed results, but basically a straightforward act of troll slaying turned into an internet clusterfuck of legendary proportions because of it.
The thing a lot of people seem to miss, is that the best trolls come accross as trying to be reasonable and socially relevent in places where they know there are people predisposed to agree with them. It's not just a matter of writing rude messages in a forum with a temp account. You show up, you established a few base messages on differant topics, then drop into starting touchy discussions using inflammatory rhetoric and exagerrations about what is actually there to rile people up over something where there is no issue by trying to convice them there is one. Then you sit back and watch the chaos. Entire online communities have been wrecked this way, and you see it coming from blogs and the like all the time. That's at the root of the entire issue, and the point I've been bringing up for those who haven't really been watching the trend and what this has been about over the last year or so.
I've also gone on lengthy tangents in the past to sort of demonstrate why you know specific accusations were trolling, as opposed to simply someone being a bit contreversial, or pointing out a real problem. When you look at the big picture and the facts in many of these cases it's pretty clear from an objective perspective there is no issue, and never was. To the point where it's easy to wonder what the problem was to begin with, and why anyone would care. The reason why was trolls decided to drop a few "-isms" and political inertia took it's course. Once an "-ism" gets involved people rapidly become afraid to say "whoa... hey wait a second, look at this" for feat of being called out as a bigot or whatever. In the last year or so we've seen people doing exactly that. In my case it's less of a big deal than most because in most communities I'm in I'm not at all concerned about people approving of my opinions or political beliefs to begin with. It's not like anyone is going to (incorrectly) accuse or label me of being something that I haven't heard dozens of times before, or like I'm going to lose popularity points or whatever. I'm thus a lot more straightforward about pointing out the issues without mincing words.... of course it would help of people a bit more popular and socially apt would occasionally try and step up and run point when it's hard once in a while. Someone else usually gets the kudos when things like this are established and looked back at in retrospect, while I go "yeah well, that's what I was saying a year ago... remember when I spelled it all out... no, my posts were too long... you didn't like earlier political rants or my manner of speaking... okay".
Ah well enough rambling. I'll think on the exact term I use, I suppose in the future I could just leave it as "Troll".
