EPTOn January 06 2012 15:47 Fruscainte wrote:
"Troll" has lost its meaning. I know I'm going to get a lot of flak for this, but trolling used to be something one had to be relatively intelligent to do. Let me explain. Back in the day, as in a few years ago, if you said something stupid -- people would just call you a fucking idiot and end it there. Much like real life. There was no "LOLLTROLLXD" or whatever. It was just, "You're an idiot go away" and everyone ignored them from then on out. So, to get people pissed off or mislead them in some fashion (far more fun) -- which is the intention of trolling -- you had to be.....what's a good way to put this.
Perhaps intelligent was the wrong word. Clever makes far more sense. Yes, you had to be clever to do it back in the day. You needed to take something true, misconstrue it, and get someone with it. It's not about correcting errors in someones post. It's not about looking like an idiot. It's not about doing something stupid. It's about saying something so incoherent, yet intelligent. Something so stupid, yet with foundation. Something so inflammatory, yet partially true -- that people would get either pissed off or genuinely believe it. Trolling is just selling bullshit to people, to put it straight.
Nowadays, "troll" comes in all shapes and sizes. If someone disagrees with you, you are a troll. If you say something silly on Facebook, you're a troll. If you act like a complete and total idiot, you can just say "lolol I was just trolling! XD GOT YOU!" and use that as a backdoor out. You would think that with this surge of awareness of "trolls" that it would go down. Quite the contrary, in fact, it's one of the greatest ironies of modern internet "culture", if I may put it like that. That people respond to all the bullshit that isn't even remotely trolling with "TROLL XD LOL UR SUCH A TROLL", but stuff that is legitimate trolling people seriously reply to.
As Endymion put it oh so eloquently. "True" trolling is deceiving someone, and that small grin you get on your face when you do it successfully. I do also agree that people who go around "trolling" are pathetic and childish -- however, who doesn't like to fuck with gullible people every once in a while?
"Troll" has lost its meaning. I know I'm going to get a lot of flak for this, but trolling used to be something one had to be relatively intelligent to do. Let me explain. Back in the day, as in a few years ago, if you said something stupid -- people would just call you a fucking idiot and end it there. Much like real life. There was no "LOLLTROLLXD" or whatever. It was just, "You're an idiot go away" and everyone ignored them from then on out. So, to get people pissed off or mislead them in some fashion (far more fun) -- which is the intention of trolling -- you had to be.....what's a good way to put this.
Perhaps intelligent was the wrong word. Clever makes far more sense. Yes, you had to be clever to do it back in the day. You needed to take something true, misconstrue it, and get someone with it. It's not about correcting errors in someones post. It's not about looking like an idiot. It's not about doing something stupid. It's about saying something so incoherent, yet intelligent. Something so stupid, yet with foundation. Something so inflammatory, yet partially true -- that people would get either pissed off or genuinely believe it. Trolling is just selling bullshit to people, to put it straight.
Nowadays, "troll" comes in all shapes and sizes. If someone disagrees with you, you are a troll. If you say something silly on Facebook, you're a troll. If you act like a complete and total idiot, you can just say "lolol I was just trolling! XD GOT YOU!" and use that as a backdoor out. You would think that with this surge of awareness of "trolls" that it would go down. Quite the contrary, in fact, it's one of the greatest ironies of modern internet "culture", if I may put it like that. That people respond to all the bullshit that isn't even remotely trolling with "TROLL XD LOL UR SUCH A TROLL", but stuff that is legitimate trolling people seriously reply to.
As Endymion put it oh so eloquently. "True" trolling is deceiving someone, and that small grin you get on your face when you do it successfully. I do also agree that people who go around "trolling" are pathetic and childish -- however, who doesn't like to fuck with gullible people every once in a while?
Yeah, kids and idiots have no idea what the word is supposed to mean. To pin it down even more...
I think the heart of the matter is that it's easy to fuck with people in anonymous situations (as online), especially because most people are dumb and lack awareness, but more so just because there's no prior reason to doubt or avoid you. Thus, the true meaning involves first getting intelligent people to ignore you as an idiot, and then win back their serious attention with nonsense that flirts with legitimacy. This definitely requires either cleverness or a knack attained through practicing your nearly-coherent gibberish, laced with just the right amount of incendiary bait.
Anyway, it involves a trick of judgement, where the object of the trick relents on their doubt and succumbs to the human urge to "be real", which they were lured into and then the deception was successful.
This OP is pretty bad either way, and the world has passed by another phase where words meant something, so none of us should get wistful; it gets worse all the time, meh.
Yeah this wasn't bad, in fact it has some very nice touches, even inspired you could say. But the angle of attack gives it away as an example and not a real effort. Not to be critical.
