EPT
As I went through the responses, my heart started to sink. Here was a response about the time someone's dad goaded them into stepping on a slug; there was a story about a person's friend who wore a paper hat. A lot of these tales were funny. I wish I was at some of them. But nothing of those registered as the real deal to me. Schadenfreude, a good time, an inside joke, sure. Not trolling.
There are a lot of reasons why you can call the internet stupid, but I never thought that it would take away my love of trolling. After all trolling originated on the internet due to its unique nature of the medium (which I will explain below). However it depresses me that the concept of "trolling" has been so watered down and diminished that everyone is capable of trolling. All it takes these days is a mildly inflammatory statement and a total lack of context. Post away and watch lurkers rage at what you are supposedly saying. And this is considered typical and rewarding behavior! Check on any popular Twitch.tv stream and you will find hundreds of people all trying to be funny, witty, offensive, and spontaneous at the same time. Eventually everything they say melts into a homogenized pile of mush.
As someone who has trolled forums for years, it makes me sad that the term is so pedestrian. I knew other trolls and I deeply respected their ability to make people rage over an extended conversation. It is easy to provoke, but hard to troll. So today I will be posting a guide on how to troll according to the old way. For those who believe trolling to be easy, don't be surprised at the wall of text. The art of trolling is very nuanced and it takes a long time to figure it out.
On the reverse side moderators are becoming incredibly lax. I see too many examples of people getting temp banned for dumb obvious attempts to cause a stir, yet the real trolls are left alone. I hope this shows how the better ones avoid censorship.
The Art of Deception
A forum on abortion rights, in the far distant past...
Me:
IDroppedtheSoap, your post was amazing!
I'm glad that both sexes are gaining equality as far as legal rights go. Even though women are genetically inferior to men in a lot of categories, that does not that they should gain access to the same opportunities. We have to account for outliers among a population and reward them for their accomplishments. It would be wrong to deny Marie Curie the two Nobel Prizes she legitimately earned just because no other women could do the same at the time. Maybe a lot of women are limited to being housekeepers but it is impossible to determine that unless they are given a chance to succeed.
Now, as a man I'm not privileged to know what it's like to have a child; I really don't want to know as it seems like so painful and disgusting. The only thing I do know is that motherhood is a process that can be extremely worthwhile and extremely exhausting. A woman shouldn't be forced to have children just because she is a marriage or she made a dumb mistake by going outside alone and in the middle of the night. Abortion is a choice every woman should have on demand.
IDroppedtheSoap3071:
Uhhhh, thanks but what the hell are you talking about? Women are just as smart as men when it comes to science and other intellectual activities. In sports, women athletes are not as strong or fast as men, but that has more to do with muscle mass. It's not necessarily proof of "inferiority" anymore since we don't need that type of strength and speed in modern society.
Me:
There are many scientific studies showing that women are more likely to make decisions based off emotions instead of logic. If a mother had to choose between her child and a stranger, Isn't it true that a mother will overwhelmingly choose the child regardless of who the stranger is? Even if it's the president of the United States or one of the greatest scientists on Earth, they will not matter to her as much as her offspring. The studies also showed that women who attempt to logically debate the dilemma are often paralyzed with indecision.
Science has shown that men have better spacial recognition, motor control, cognitive activity, capacity to self-motivate, and ability to project and explain their thought-processes. These types of things usually mean that the vast amount of innovators, leaders, and administrators throughout history are men. Of course you have certain exceptions such as Boadicea and Cleopatra, but they are exceptions.
It's dangerous out there. A girl should not walk alone at night when she knows the risks of what might happen. Yes, the guy is the main problem and I wish that people like him were thrown in jail for the rest of their lives. But she has to share some of the responsibility. I always tell my female friends that if they are in this situation, they should either call me or call their friends to come pick them up.
IDroppedtheSoap3071:
That kind of reasoning is so stupid. Patriarchal societies were initially formed because men were stronger and faster than women, and therefore could subdue them. They developed ideologies that supported the distinction between men and women and justified their superiority of the former. It's not even like it was the norm. Hell we still have matriarchal clans in Africa that operate according to completely different beliefs.
(two more paragraphs after that, fourteen more paragraphs and a lot of screaming after those)
The Foundations of Trolling
![[image loading]](http://files.sharenator.com/gu_20100326_The_Internet_Troll-s600x750-61277-580.jpg)
I actually look much better than this. Or so I claim!
Trolling is not lying about an outside subject with a straight face, it is not confusing people with a scenario that creates cognitive dissonance. It is an extended sequence of acting with the aim of provoking genuine anger and confusion from the target while selling the act. Establishing a persona is what separates trolling from the activities I mentioned at the beginning of the blog. You can deceive your friend by telling him that those spicy pepper slices are actually an exotic type of apple, but that's not trolling. That is you taking genuine pleasure from your friend's suffering, a real personality trait that can be observed by people around you. It is similar to trolling in the sense that both actions take pleasure from exerting power over another person, but the troll never reveals that he is enjoying the experience.
As displayed in the example, a careful balance must be maintained between maliciousness and naivete. Believe it or not most people do not like arguing over retarded shit on the internet. Ordinary people are usually very busy with responsibilities, chores, and decisions and your trolling is eating into their precious time. It is very easy for someone to stop talking to you once they reach their breaking point. They will dismiss you as a moron or a waste of time.
A troll master understands this and knows the moves of this dangerous dance. If he is too belligerent, he will either push the person past the point of no return or show his hand. If he is too soft the conversation turns sour (relatively speaking) and the rage-inducing parts are overlooked. The ideal troll sticks the target in a supremely uncomfortable position. In their eyes, you are a person who holds onto some very messed-up beliefs but you are not a messed-up person yourself. You "are" intelligent enough to understand your position and the reasoning they lead to it, possess the necessary social experience to have a decent conversation, and appear to be a morally decent human being. But for some reason you stick with that particular belief. The target is frustrated at multiple things: your position, your personality that seems to clash with the position, and their inability to convince you otherwise.
From here the troll can move down several different avenues. You can use their ego against them by subtly disagreeing with them on certain topics, knowing they will respond since they cannot stand to be wrong. If the individual identifies themselves as someone with clearly defined ideals (e.g. Republican, Christian, atheist, etc.) you can maintain opposition to their fundamental ideals while being relatively nice. A powerful tool is appealing to their moral compass, presenting yourself as a person with terrible beliefs but who can be saved with the correct approach. With the right words you can convince the person to go on a crusade to save your soul, wasting innumerable paragraphs in an attempt to rescue you from your barbaric ideas. They will get angry at themselves for being unable to persuade you.
Proper Approaches
Young trolls who want to follow this example ought to start in dedicated forums. Critics of Reddit and similar sites are correct when they say that the majority of posts represent the vocal minority. Similarly an atheist forum will typically consist of hardcore atheists. As you start to master the specifics, you can move onto general forums and start doing it on an individual basis.
A frequent opening tactic is to agree with the target on some important position. You may laugh at their jokes, express admiration for their character. or say that you share the same beliefs. Regardless of the actual post you aim to establish common ground with the target. The poster will unconsciously relax their guard once they believe you are on their side. The level of connection varies with the individual. Idealists are better targets when talking about "big ideas" and abstract notions while passionate people with some measure of ego are more liable to get into fights over the demonstration of facts (when the demonstration implicitly leans towards a certain position). Egotistical people are the easiest people to tick off; they identify their self-value with the responses their posts receive, and anyone who is less than 100% in tune can grind their gears. By extension they are the lamest targets. If they can be pissed off unintentionally, how much pleasure can you gain from doing it on purpose?
One of the primary mistakes amateur trolls make is overemphasizing one part of the act. They see that people are angry at their posts and grow full of themselves. They start getting really aggressive with their propositions and move from the merely frustrating into the amusingly bizarre. By the time they realize their mistake it's too late. The audience figures out that he is there to antagonize and stop responding to their posts. Maybe one or two truly stubborn posters will continue fighting with you and that could be somewhat fulfilling. For an experienced troll it is pretty bland: they are aiming to eat caviar, not chicken eggs.
Another is time management. The anger you inspire in someone must be deep and calculated over a certain period. A person is only capable of a finite amount of rage when the reasons are petty; think of the difference between a guy who was insulted on the street and say, the Punisher from Marvel Comics. Too many posts in too little time will burn out the victim.
Turning a Virtual Persona into a Real One
When someone tells you that they are a real life troll, they are probably lying or referring to the sadsack definition of the current word. Why is this true? Well, think of it this way. If trolling from a computer is a form of acting, how many people in the world can consistently fool and aggravate complete strangers with a false persona while keeping their big secret hidden? How many actors in Hollywood are good enough to consistently draw the audience into the fantasy world they are portraying, without any effort from the latter? Now imagine how hard it is to troll once the level of the medium is stripped away. We instantly move into the world of con artists and spies (playing for much smaller stakes, of course).
Trolling in real life is incredibly hard, much harder than on the Internet. The Internet has several inherent properties that make trolling much easier. There is no time limit on how quickly you must respond to a post, allowing to carefully construct an answer that will maximize the frustration and rage of the other person. You can sit back and mull over what the person has said, gleaning their personality from small details of the conversation. You do not have to worry about changes in vocal tone, body language, your surroundings, how you physically appear, or any unexpected issues that will interfere with your goal. A forum on a website is a controlled environment.
Unfortunately I have not made a proper study of real-life trolling. I only have some general guidelines:
- Stay general with your trolling. The success of a fake persona directly correlates with the spontaneity of its traits. Good trolls use a mixture of their real personality (twisted towards their particular end) and simple principles. The more you rely on a set of memorized responses, the easier it is to stumble over your statements.
- Don't show off. People can detect bullshit pretty well and if you look desperate for attention, you've already lost the war.
- Watch your body language. A guy who "knows" that turkey breast is tainted with iridium doesn't stand around like a wooden dummy when he says it
- Don't engage for too long. Every second you spend as a troll, you waste a second doing your own stuff. Everybody is busy with something; you need to show that you have some responsibilities.
Now that you know how to troll, you also know how to identify the hardcore trolls who know all the angles. Whether or not you want to put these principles into action I hope I have shown some light on the ancient craft of trolling. If people are going to troll they might as well do it correctly; if moderators are going to stop trolling, they might as well recognize the signs of the best ones.
