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Trolls

Sidebaro

Is it just me or are trolls usually male, mostly quite young, very often white and frequently straight? At least, that's how they appear from their profiles anyway. I know the straight thing is harder to identify. I'm not on Twitter anymore and I rarely look at the comments on YouTube these days either but it always seemed to be guys that were doing the trolling. Why aren't more women encouraged to follow this online rite of passage?

I'm referring to obvious trolling. The 'jury's out' type trolling complicates things because the 'are they trolling or are they revolutionary minds?' debate derails my original point - I've never seen female trolls.

I swear I'm not trolling, genuine observation I made and want to see am I right or just some old prejudiced fart.

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the purple tin

Were those Westboro Baptists trolls or just loonies?

Maxpfizer

kunst nugget wrote: »

Nah, I didn't need to bring up post history. I just remembered it because I thought it was gas that he was so affronted by being blocked by someone on Twitter for his cogent arguments.

I'm just messing.

kunst nugget

the purple tin wrote: »

Were those Westboro Baptists trolls or just loonies?

They're trolloonies. A special breed.

jimgoose

The Cherokees use the same word - di-ti-yo-hi-hi - for troll as they do for lawyer, translating literally as "he argues repeatedly and on purpose with a purpose".*

* I may have made up part of that.

alchemist33

Maxpfizer wrote: »

Suuuuuure.

*proceeds to take bait*

Trolling has evolved a lot over the years but posts and comments that open with things like "are trolls usually male, mostly quite young, very often white and frequently straight" are classic old school trolling.

FFS. Probably every 13 year old with access to a computer has at one point used "hey guys, has anyone ever noticed that <insert group you want to trigger> tend to be <insert negative statement>" as their entry level trolling technique.

You need to git gud.

Have you ever noticed that black guys tend to have names like Carl and white guys tend to have names like Lenny?

Maxpfizer

the purple tin wrote: »

Were those Westboro Baptists trolls or just loonies?

Grey area, for me.

Sure, they are winding people up but I think trolls have to still be deliberately funny on some level. Like the public reaction to a troll can be funny. Or the troll can be doing things for their own amusement.

It's hard to imagine Westboro Baptists were going home and having a good old laugh about winding folk up. Hateful little people.

A good troll is like the kids who will knock on someone's door and run away. It's not that much of a big deal, the kids laugh about it but nobody get's actually hurt.

Westboro Baptists are more like malicious kids who would turn up at your funeral with banners saying "God Hates Fags" and upset your friends and family...

Maxpfizer

alchemist33 wrote: »

Have you ever noticed that black guys tend to have names like Carl and white guys tend to have names like Lenny?

No, I have not noticed that... you racist.

Thomas__.

Sidebaro wrote: »

Is it just me or are trolls usually male, mostly quite young, very often white and frequently straight? At least, that's how they appear from their profiles anyway. I know the straight thing is harder to identify. I'm not on Twitter anymore and I rarely look at the comments on YouTube these days either but it always seemed to be guys that were doing the trolling. Why aren't more women encouraged to follow this online rite of passage?

I'm referring to obvious trolling. The 'jury's out' type trolling complicates things because the 'are they trolling or are they revolutionary minds?' debate derails my original point - I've never seen female trolls.

I swear I'm not trolling, genuine observation I made and want to see am I right or just some old prejudiced fart.

On another message board I have met some female troll and she is from Co. Donegal (which she claimed to live there), is an outspoken Unionist hater (she originally is from NI) and allegedly is a drunk (as it often appeared) and in my imagination she must be some really ugly old woman too. The very only female person over there I really despise. Just some other DUP / UKIP Unionist chap comes right behind her in the negative rankings. But I have to point out that harassment is a thing I include into trolling and it is more that than spoiling threads with rubbish posts.

I can say that I have observed many things the way you describe them. Trolls are indeed more often male than female posters. On this other board there was some Belfast lad who posed as an psychologist, more acting like a psychopath himself and he did his trolling as well (right in the sense as I have pointed out above), worse so by claiming that he believes in his 'right to offend' which turned out to be his 'right to insult' other people by his remarks. That man was the worst of all, accompanied by another idiot who was his sycophant and who had his own mental problems himself, but telling everyone else that it is not him who is mad but the others. They were both real wretched posters.

One could really write a book about all those characters one meets on the internet, the ones who simply are the way as they are in the real world and the others who can't abide with themselves and invent some 'virtual character' which they live on the internet with. Some others are just funny and have a sense of humour which is sometimes refreshing.

Trolls are very frustrated people, I think. Maybe females have different ways to deal with their frustrations and aggressions than to go on a trolling rampage on the internet. I suppose that this might be some reason for why there are less of them among the trolls.

Thomas__.

Maxpfizer wrote: »

alchemist33 wrote: »

Have you ever noticed that black guys tend to have names like Carl and white guys tend to have names like Lenny?

No, I have not noticed that... you racist.

Me neither.

pleas advice

QUOTE I'd say it's calling someone a mentally unstable looper and hoping that they're never allowed to serve on a jury. That sort of thing…

I'd say whatever elicited that response would be more likely to be 'trolling' than the response

Hector Savage

kunst nugget wrote: »

Dig deep? Not really, I happened upon the Louise O'Neill a week ago when you were playing the victim after being blocked by someone on Twitter.

playing the victim!!!

Sidebaro

Maxpfizer wrote:

Don't be too hard on yourself. It was an OK troll attempt.

It wasn't a "run rings round a bunch of politicians and become President" level troll job but it was OK.

Proud of ya.

Quit trolling. Troll-ception!

Irish Guitarist

You'll see plenty of young black women (assuming they are who they say they are) saying racist shite about white people on Twitter. If anyone argues with them their retort is usually "get out of my mentions".

Then there's the women on any social network site who post scantily clad pictures of themselves and then complain when a man sends them a message. They'll make an absolutely massive deal out of the fact an unworthy male tried to talk to them. Other men will then come to the aid of this damsel in distress by abusing the man who dared to send them a message and the female troll will be happy.

pleas advice

Trolling is a art,

Sidebaro

Gravelly wrote:

Katie Hopkins is the ultimate expression of "anyone who's opinion I don't agree with is a troll" - if she chose to support mass immigration and attack white South Africans, rather than the other way around, she'd be lauded for it (a la Bob Geldof, that Harry Potter woman, and yer man from Sherlock). If Hopkins was really trolling, and only in it for the fame, she'd have done a big public u-turn at some stage, and professed a new-found love for the Calais Kidz, as many a Z lister has done to good effect before her.

I dont know about her more recent views but this is the woman who condemned naming children after locations only to be questioned why her daughter was called India. If she holds proper views now then fair play to her but it was trolling that got her her initial fame.

Thomas__.

pleas advice wrote: »

Trolling is a art,

:woot:

Thomas__.

stimpson wrote: »

I'm an old black lesbian and I love to troll.

LOL!!! Can't stop chuckling reading this.

jimgoose

stimpson wrote: »

I'm an old black lesbian and I love to troll.

"...but my baby just loves to dance, yeah-yeah-yeaaaahhh..."

Thomas__.

Permabear wrote: »

This post had been deleted.

Oh, completely agreed. I've definitely seen female posters cultivate a "sweetness and light" persona to mask or distract attention from the nasty, vindictive underside to their personalities. That's what makes women less likely to be categorized as trolls, and enables them keep on trolling sometimes for years -- whereas men tend to be more overtly nasty from the get-go and get banned more quickly.[/quote]

I think that this observation hits the nail on the head.

garbo speaks

There is no such thing as "trolling"; it's just some snowflake liberals going berserk over a different opinion to their own, so they must label it something.

Thomas__.

garbo speaks wrote: »

There is no such thing as "trolling"; it's just some snowflake liberals going berserk over a different opinion to their own, so they must label it something.

Says it all (about your intentions).

mcmoustache

In my day, trolling was a bit of an art form.

Now it just means "being an assh*le online".

It's not all lost though. There's still a few on here who's troll game is pretty good.

garbo speaks

Thomas__. wrote: »

Says it all (about your intentions).

I suppose you are one of these people who claim we have a "rape culture" in Ireland too?

GavRedKing

I troll Brexiters on Daily Mail because its easy.

Sidebaro

garbo speaks wrote:

There is no such thing as "trolling"; it's just some snowflake liberals going berserk over a different opinion to their own, so they must label it something.

I assumed this was a joke.

garbo speaks wrote:

I suppose you are one of these people who claim we have a "rape culture" in Ireland too?

Now I'm not so sure...quite a leap?

Jack Kanoff

There used to be some spectacular trolls on here over the years...
not sure if it's because of other sites, or people get bored... but not a huge amount of quality trolling around here anymore

andekwarhola

There's certain types of trolling, like the more light hearted 'persona' ones that can be very funny but they seem to be increasingly supplanted by the more tedious types albeit, as said, it's hard sometimes to tell if people really are the latter or just socially retarded, plain dislikable or agenda-driven.

RobbingBandit

Yore a towel

freshpopcorn

Since I became a moderator I learnt that some people can't handle any negative comment about anything or have a difference of opinion. It's all trolling to them.

CrankyHaus

mcmoustache wrote: »

In my day, trolling was a bit of an art form.

Now it just means "being an assh*le online".

It's not all lost though. There's still a few on here who's troll game is pretty good.

Yes when I think of trolling I think of people winding up groups in a way that is genuinely funny and/or highlights double standards and hypocrisy.

Google KenM as a great example of light hearted trolling.

Nowadays it's just 13 year olds and the mentally disturbed spewing semi literate vitriol.

In addition the term has become a shorthand to oppose any negative or critical commentary online. Recently the Irish Times had a piece by Lorraine Higgins championing her proposed Censorship Bill entitled "stopping the trolls" with sad face emojis around it.