Troll Culture

[funguy2121]

Hm... like the trolls who go looking for any Republican/Fox News/Conservative/Christian related stories and begin to spout their thinly veiled liberal-progressive agenda to everyone under the guise of discussion? Or people that would rather debate the way something is said rather than the substance of the topic? Those are the trolls I hate the most.

I find them to be annoying regardless of their political leanings.

If you can back up your argument and you aren't just pontificating or spouting hate, then I'd say you're not a troll.

My mom has a troll on her facebook, a childhood friend who hates all things christian and conservative. And man, is that dude hateful for a supposed liberal. But I see far more trolls on the Escapist who try to throw the stereotype blanket over a certain group (arabs/muslims and women seem the most frequent target at the moment), and when someone debates them or asks them to source, they're told that they are a stupid, lying hypocrite who tries to make statements under the pretense of being open-minded and progressive, when they have never made such a claim.

 

[Wildrow12]

Trolls come in many different flavors and do what they do for as many
different reasons as there are stars in the sky.

Some are merely lonely souls screaming out for attention, a never-ending quest for acknowledgment that they exist, in the hopes that they may yet not go mad from the silence of
solitude.

Others, like Fortuny, are simply sociopaths: individuals who due to trauma and biochemical imbalances do not possess empathy or even a rudimentary concept of social norms. They do what they want, when they want, and how they want, and are unable to understand the pain they cause and are unable to form deep connections with other humans. The internet offers these trolls the chance to do what they want without the very real fear of being harmed.

Still others are fanatical crusaders for some cause who have lost touch with reality. These are people with an axe to grind who have become so blinded by rage and indignation that they have failed to realize that the axe has been grinded into a sharp stick. These zealots turn on their allies just as easily as they would a detractor, and over time they tend to lose the ability to distinguish friend from foe (or for that matter the life they had before they took up their cause).

 

[Wicky_42]

People confuse 'guy who does funny stuff to piss of people' with 'guy who lets angry out on the internet'. I occasionally do the former, but the latter is a troll.

I remember when lolcats didn't exist and it was caturday, I remember when /b/ was an underground thing but now every 12 year old on the internet is part of anonymous :/

Actually, I thought the former was trolling, whilst the latter was venting. Winding people up for your own pleasure is pretty much the definition of trolling...

 

[DuplicateValue]

what the hell is Fluffybunnies? I'm afraid to look it up (never mind found out) lol

any ways trolling is simply put, hilarious. Thats why they do it.

I was wondering about this too.

Anyone?

 

[Cherry Cola]

But "Trolling" is a art!

No, trolling is a pathetic way of trying to achieve satisfaction by being a jerk.

Now, taking down a troll and reversing his trolling onto himself, that is art.

 

[neoman10]

I was wondering about this too.

Anyone?

I will get that to you in a PM, because it is just rude to say

 

[skywalkerlion]

**

PM me too. I'm too scared D:

 

[Dawntheif]

It's oddly comforting to know that the reporter was being trolled without realising when interviewing these trolls.

 

[DracoSuave]

One man's troll is another man's reasoned debater, and another man's devil's advocate.

I take screams of 'TROLL!' with a grain of salt.

 

[funguy2121]

Funny thing, the battle cry of the troll seems to be, "I'm not a troll, you're a troll!"

Trolls are heavily influenced by PeeWee Herman. There, I said it.

 

[ShadowsofHope]

**

..I will never look at that word the same again. (I just did as well)

Trolls are lulz, though I rarely pay attention to them.

 

[bodyklok]

One man's troll is another man's reasoned debater, and another man's devil's advocate.

Well said, I don't think that I need to point out that everyone here is saying that trolls work by using racial slurs, though quite a few do this isn't always that case.

For example, would you say that someone who started making people on... I don't know, say,.. Stormfront, or the BNP website, really angry (for their own amusement) simple by pointing out how their ideas are wrong is a troll?

But "Trolling" is a art!

For simplistic purposes, yes.

But under intensive scrutiny we can reduce trolling to more of a science. Some sort of Agropsychology.

 

[DracoSuave]

For example, would you say that someone who started making people on... I don't know, say,.. Stormfront, or the BNP website, really angry (for their own amusement) simple by pointing out how their ideas are wrong is a troll?

Depends on the motivation, I suppose.

I know -I- would be a troll for doing so.

But someone else might not be.

 

[nativebelle]

Trolling does have a certain amount of skill to it, sometimes. But if you're just flooding or being obviously a dick then you're, well, a dick and probably a 13 year old with a V mask screaming 'LOLLLL YHBT LOLL AM TROLLINZ!111;

 

[geldonyetich]

The article is over a year old, but fascinating nonetheless.

I'm not sure if calling /b/ flat out "trolls" is accurate though.

First, because it gives trolls waaaaaaay too much credit. Trolls are simply any snot with an agenda to get peoples' goat. An attention-starved 5-year-old can be (and probably is) an effective troll, chalking trolls up as a subculture is (again) giving trolls too much credit.

(The stars of this article, well-established hackers, are something else entirely. Geniuses would be a fair label for them. Granted, on the flip side of genius is madness, and there reaches a certain point where one is doing more harm than good, and this label, too, seems inappropriate.)

Second, I would say this article might be a bit off target because 4Chan and/or /b/ is not, strictly speaking, trolls. They're more just a message board with far too much circulation and too little moderation. Naturally, they who "do it all for the lawls," laughing and mock everything because they have decided it's more fun, has come about. Over time, this can only polarize, as more civilized people tend to eschew this sort of thing and the vaccuum is filled by more like-minded folk. I'd say they're less trolls so much as naturally evolved absurdists [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Absurdism].

By and large, a message board is no "culture," and 4Chan's /b/ is (in their own words) the anus of the Internet. You can't label everything that passes through the Internet as anything - not if you don't want to delude yourself. When you are pointless static for the point of being pointless static, then defining you is the worst possible way to describe you.

 

[neoman10]

**

oh god you looked it didn't you, didn't you see I was explaining it to people by PM?

there, there

 

[cartoonlovinaspiekid]

One thing I can't stand about Trolls is that they're always making references to fucking
G.I. Joe and Transformers PSAs.


And don't even remind me of the whole "OPHRA IS HILARIOUS FOR TALKING ABOUT CHILD PORN THAT WAY" Bullshit.

 

[Squarez]

I found a mathematical answer to this somewhere..
Person + anonymity + audience = Jerk

It's from Penny Arcade, the exact quote goes as thus.

"Normal Person + Anonymity + Audience = Total Dickwad."