I've never totally understood the psychology of trolls. Most people seek agreement and acceptance in their daily interactions, but there's a certain subset who spend enormous amounts of time in the comments sections of folks they appear to regard with hatred and contempt, tossing off racist or offensive comments in order to get shouted down by the rest of the community. Always struck me as a weird way to spend an afternoon. So it was interesting to read this profile of a few truly committed, distilled, and nihilistic trolls. For these guys, trolling seems to be a way of life, not a way to pass the workday. I'm not sure that's a mindset that's particularly common among folks trolling political blogs -- my sense has been that my trolls are more interested in attention than destruction -- but it's still a disturbing look at some extreme practitioners of the art. Which reminds me: What would be a good definition of a "troll?" There's a tendency n political blogs to define "troll" as "someone who comments frequently but does not agree with you." I don't think that's quite right. Wikipedia says a troll is "someone who posts controversial and usually irrelevant or off-topic messages in an online community, such as an online discussion forum or chat room, with the intention of baiting other users into an emotional response or to generally disrupt normal on-topic discussion." That seems a bit closer to me: Disruption is the key element, like the folks who pop up in comments with racist lines on Obama. What do you guys think?Image used under a Creative Commons license from MyGothLaundry. TROLLS.
I've never totally understood the psychology of trolls. Most people seek agreement and acceptance in their daily interactions, but there's a certain subset who spend enormous amounts of time in the comments sections of folks they appear to regard with hatred and contempt, tossing off racist or offensive comments in order to get shouted down by the rest of the community. Always struck me as a weird way to spend an afternoon. So it was interesting to read this profile of a few truly committed, distilled, and nihilistic trolls. For these guys, trolling seems to be a way of life, not a way to pass the workday. I'm not sure that's a mindset that's particularly common among folks trolling political blogs -- my sense has been that my trolls are more interested in attention than destruction -- but it's still a disturbing look at some extreme practitioners of the art. Which reminds me: What would be a good definition of a "troll?" There's a tendency n political blogs to define "troll" as "someone who comments frequently but does not agree with you." I don't think that's quite right. Wikipedia says a troll is "someone who posts controversial and usually irrelevant or off-topic messages in an online community, such as an online discussion forum or chat room, with the intention of baiting other users into an emotional response or to generally disrupt normal on-topic discussion." That seems a bit closer to me: Disruption is the key element, like the folks who pop up in comments with racist lines on Obama. What do you guys think?Image used under a Creative Commons license from MyGothLaundry. 
