It's sad the Troll now means asshole. Ken M [1] style trolling is one of my favorite things on the internet. Even David Thorne's [2] slightly more aggressive Trolling is fantastic.
I think we need to separate this from online bullies.
The only people who cling to this idea are the ones who need it to excuse their own shitty behavior.
E.g. I'm pretty sure some people might think that "swatting" is a form of trolling.
That was the OG trolling, you were wasting peoples time for laugh while they were educating you about something.
Term got hijacked and morphed into causing mental trauma to people.
One was harmless prank causing eye rolling, other mental trauma.
i remember a time when seeing the troll emoji meant someone was being pranked and the small communities i was part of enjoyed the laughter.
nowadays, i wouldn't bother using that emoji. besides, i don't think it made it to the standard emojis.
there is... just something about things becoming popular or going mainstream and turning bad. countless of benign things became harmful once they went mainstream.
Thank you so much for the recommendation!
Also, it reminded me of http://dontevenreply.com/
This guy tracked down every man's spouse and told them what was up. He was sued (and lost, iirc, after about 100 men were divorced), and ended up being interviewed by the nyt. BUT he picks up the interviewer in a limo with his gf near an abandoned mall or something. he thought trolling was going to change the world, his gf thought he was jesus, there was champagne and it was an all around weird experience for the reporter. They honestly sounded like real live discordians.
This is probably getting close to being 15 or 20 years old now, but it was pioneering.
Yeah I had a few what of it.
Just your regular, garden variety rapscallion, right there. Not at all a perfect example of the title thread's point.
So it seems like this study's findings are probably not far from the truth.
1. https://www.newsweek.com/neo-nazi-andrew-weev-auernheimer-da...
Honestly, who gives a fuck. It was funny, and not a racist deed. He fucked with scumbags here.
E: been on craigslist lately?
Then someone says they miss the non-malicious strain of trolling, where the person wasn't a jerk.
Then you bring up an example of that, and he happens to be a jerk.
Seems relevant to the article. I didn't say anything about disbanding NASA, that came out of nowhere. And I have no idea what the rest of your comment (craigslist?) means.