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A deeper look at Internet Trolls

Trolls. Cyber-bullies. Bashers. Whatever you want to call them, they all do the same thing; they pisses the hell out of you through their opinions. But have you ever wondered why they do what they do? If you’re curious to know, head past the break and we’ll shed some light on these despicable online dwellers.

YugaTroll

In a nutshell, the term troll is defined as a person who takes pride and joy on making other members of a forum or site miserable either in a form of words and/or memes. Also, these creatures divert a thread of online conversation by expressing their thoughts about something that’s totally irrelevant from the topic at hand.

Tools of the Trade

Just like any other master of a particular discipline, Trolls too have a handful of tricks up their sleeves that are readily available whenever they feel like being a huge jerk in a site/forum. At the top of my head, these are the things I came up with:

• Freedom of speech – For an imbecile creature, trolls actually know their rights and their most favorite one is the Freedom of Speech. Because we live in a democratic country, by law, trolls are eligible to express their offensive thoughts and walk away unscathed. They’re so drawn to this idea of being able to say/write anything they want that they’ve totally forgotten about the possible consequences of their misdemeanors.

• Anonymity – Besides a functional brain and a good grasp between right and wrong, another thing that trolls lack are BALLS. Why so? Notice how most of the trolls don’t put their real name and/or include a mean to communicated with them (email and/or twitter in our case) whenever they comment? That’s because they don’t have the balls to do so.

trolls1

• Lack of face-to-face interaction – Trolls may appear like high and mighty in the online world, but I’m willing to bet my ass that they’re not so tough in the real world. That’s because in the web they can be whoever they want as long as they can back it up with their crappy statements. And besides, whoever they’re bashing won’t know it’s them even if they crossed paths in the physical world.

• Asynchronicity (occurring in different times) – Because most online conversations doesn’t happen in real time, these bastards feels more comfortable saying nasty stuff to anyone knowing that they have ample time to get away with it.

• Audience – The bigger the audience the better. For trolls, a site that has a lot of active readers and commenters is a honeypot. They know that if they post something the chances are high that it will get noticed and get some response. Trolls are like morons who shoves everyone until someone shoves back. The next thing you know everyone’s in a dirty mosh pit and the troll is enjoying the show. In other words, if you engage the troll the wrong way you’re actually making it worse.

Reasons behind the horrible act

As the old adage goes, everything happens for a reason. And as lowly as these pain-in-the-necks are, they too have a reason why they like dumping craps on comments board. Here’s some of it:

• Attention – Trolls tend to bully others because they can easily get attention out of it, regardless if they’ll look good because of it or not. In some cases, these trolls have or are suffering from inferiority complex which leads them to being online jerks which in return gives them a false sense of superiority.

• Trolling as a way of outlet – People who are often scolded at home, school or office oftentimes look for an outlet to get even with the imperfect world. Unfortunately, since they cannot get back to their superiors, teachers and/or parents, they bring their anger online and pass it on to an innocent reader.

grammar nazi

• Narcissism/Self-righteousness – Whether or not people would agree to them or not, Trolls feel that they know it all and that they can speak in behalf of a group. Well guess what, nobody died and made you king of anything.

• Monetization – Here’s something you don’t hear that often. Some netizens are actually paid by companies to say crap about their competitors. If you’re a regular reader, there’s a big possibility that you’ve already come across some of these sheep lurking in our comments board.

• They’re losers – calling them losers is an understatement. There’s a big chance that a troll is just a lazy dumbass who can’t kick it back in real life. They’re mostly unproductive and spends most of his / her time playing god with the keyboard. Ever wonder where they get the time to post crap?

• They’re just pathetic – Let’s face it, nobody in their right mind would just wake up every day feeling the need to bash somebody in a forum or site. And they take pleasure out of it, if I may add.

Handling trolls

As complex as their techniques are, the solution for trolls is rather simple; don’t feed them. Instead of being angry try to understand their nature. Do your best to be the bigger person and not fight fire with fire. Or to be more precise, don’t stoop to their level and deny them the fulfillment that they usually get from getting a violent reaction from you by giving them the cold shoulder.

trolling

Final word…

It’s a well-known fact that one cannot please everybody. Somewhere down the line, somebody’s eventually gonna stand up and criticize your work/opinion. But the thing is, there’s a fine line between constructive and destructive criticism and, depending on which side you choose and how you express it, you can be identified as a troll.

While we don’t typically filter the comments that are coming on our site, do the other readers a favor and keep the conversation as friendly and relevant as possible. Remember, it’s because of these trolls that many governments/sites have resorted to implementing rules that limits the things that we can say on the web, and we don’t want that to happen here, don’t we?

Editor’s Note: Some parts of the article was deliberately written in a troll-ish manner to give more emphasis on the thought. Oh and Louie Diangson also shared his sentiments in this post.

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Avatar for Ronnie Bulaong

This article was written by Ronnie Bulaong, a special features contributor and correspondent for YugaTech. Follow him on Twitter @turonbulaong.

48 Responses

  1. Avatar for mang kan0r mang kan0r says:

    abuzalzal dun tayo sa page ko mapag-uusapan natin yan
    -mang kanor

  2. Avatar for freking freking says:

    copy paste

  3. Avatar for freking freking says:

    another copy paste from freking

  4. Avatar for David Z David Z says:

    Pwede kaya magpakita ng husay na trolling sa Pilipinas Got Talent?

  5. Avatar for Jes Jes says:

    May troll sa lahat ng website. Bigyan mo lang ng comment function. Hehehe!

  6. Avatar for Justin Justin says:

    On the bright side, reading ‘troll’ posts can sometimes be quite entertaining. Lalo na pag na-babara yung troll. Hehe. :)

  7. Avatar for jayron jayron says:

    Retired na ako sa trolling. I used to terrorize ImDb several years ago. These trolls have much to learn how to really piss people off hihihi!

  8. Avatar for Hehe Hehe says:

    Trolls yung mga taong kulang sa pagmamahal. Their LOVE TANKS are empty. Just let them be. Dont condemn, dont judge. Dont hate them.

  9. Avatar for abuzalzal abuzalzal says:

    hahahha mga t@ng@

  10. Avatar for amused amused says:

    This article is an example of troll-baiting, with intentional grammatical errors. Happy hunting, everyone.

  11. Avatar for trolcopter trolcopter says:

    the internet is not for the weak minded… “these are not the trolls you’re looking for, move along…”

  12. Avatar for awdog awdog says:

    troll has been around when i got online in 1998. this article is way too late. live and learn

  13. Avatar for Edwin C Edwin C says:

    Happy trolling everyone!

  14. Avatar for Curly Curly says:

    Sinadya ba ng writer yung part na “they pisses you off” na maling grammar for this article about grammar trolls?

  15. Avatar for trollibee trollibee says:

    we all have a troll within us

  16. Avatar for harold harold says:

    ako una ko na alala yung mga freking trolls. that kid is good, he got talent but not yet polished like other contributors dto..

  17. Avatar for benchmark benchmark says:

    nice article! :)

  18. Avatar for HardEtu HardEtu says:

    I agree with some points in this post, kasi lahat ng website na may comments section ay merong troll, but some of the statements can be used against the writer.

    Ok sana tong article na to kaso nga diba kaya may mga troll dahil gusto nila ng attention? This article acknowledges their presence, at baka nga ma-encourage pa silang ipagpatuloy ang “pampalipas oras” nila. Don’t feed the troll. Pag hindi pinansin, hindi magpapapansin.

    Ang tools of the trade daw ng mga troll ay hindi lang applicable sa kanila pero pati sa lahat ng netizens. Tingnan mo ko, may freedom of speech, may anonymity, may lack of face to face interaction, may asynchronicity, may audience. Troll ba ako? Hindi naman. If I seem like a troll, hindi ko intensyon.

    Sabi sa article na to “don’t stoop to their level” tapos sa baba may note na “deliberately written in a troll-ish manner” para may emphasis. So ano ba talaga?

    At medyo harsh. Imbecile, moron, losers, pathetic… No need for offensive words kasi suffering na nga sila from inferiority complex diba?

    Self-righteousness. People may or may not agree with this post, and the minds behind this are speaking in behalf of a group, in this case the group is the people affected by the trolls. The ‘tools of the trade’ part of the article says that the ideas came “at the top of [my] head;” that you came up with these ideas, then you start pointing out the tricks that they allegedly use. Kaya medyo know-it-all ang dating dito. Well guess what, baka hindi naman affected masyado yung mga troll?

    About monetization, well wala naman akong masasabi dyan. Actually at least dumadami ang comments sa mga articles dahil sa troll eh, meaning may increase in traffic.

    “Nobody in their right mind would just wake up every day feeling the need to bash somebody in a forum or site” pero anyare dito? Nagising ka na lang ngayong araw at nafeel na gusto mo i-bash ang mga nagtotroll sa’yo. Baka naman napleasure ka rin pagkapublish mo nito?

    Linawin ko lang na hindi ko gawain ang mang-troll at wala akong kilalang ganun, at hindi ko jina-justify ang ginagawa nila. Ayoko lang ng kinocontradict ang sarili at ng hypocrisy. Siyempre ang comment na to ay may points din na pwedeng gamitin against me pero gusto ko pa rin i-share ang opinions ko.

    • Avatar for june june says:

      Your pointing na apektado ka!? I can see that in ur comment. Smile!!!

    • Avatar for june june says:

      “People may or may not agree”, common man, mas matalino k p dito. It is always given, in GENERAL that people do have twisted mind. Speak the essence of ur aggruments. And the mere factssss that the writer post this is also true because trolls pisses all the writers here, kelangan p bng i-memorize yan?. Well in the end its ur opinion anyway. Hehe. Smile!

    • Avatar for HardEtu HardEtu says:

      @june hindi naman ako apektado ng article dahil hindi nga ako troll. Pinoint out ko lang na hindi maganda yung pagkakasulat :)

      Wag ka na mag-english magulo eh :)

  19. Avatar for countrymouse countrymouse says:

    wag nalang pansinin na kahit minsan ansarap patulan. their egos are just gonna soar rocket high if you’re gonna feed them and if you’re gonna give our precious time to them, they’ll pull you down to their level and beat you with experience.

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