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So, what is a troll, really?  And why are you dressed like a member of the Banana splits at Guantanamo Bay?  Believe it or resolve it on your own - these two questions are related.

Well (I hear you say) a troll is someone who aims to provoke a reaction by acting "badly", perhaps?  But (I crisply retort) this wouldn't suffice to distinguish trolls from flamers or griefers.  The former, crucially, believe in what they are saying, or at least disagree with the people they are abusing, and the latter, too, fail to attain to the status of trolls by essentially the same failing - they mean to do what they appear to be doing - in this case, to cause grief, or at least pique.

No, trolls qua trolls must, at heart, not have any sincere connection with their apparent actions - what they appear to be doing cannot be what they actually are doing.  The will use Nazi slogans in a Jewish chat room, (or vice-versa), with predictable results, but if they meant them, they would just be a joy-riding Nazi (or anti-Nazi).

The essential features of trollery are these: tactical (or strategic) insincerity as method, and lulz as motive.

From this, I conclude that many activities not normally considered trolling may be brought into the fold - or, if you prefer, under the bridge.

Sure, someone posting a link to goatse in a knitting forum with the intent of provoking hundereds of posts to the effect that poster's granny panties are in a twist is arguably trolling, and someone posting for the hundredth time about Barack Obama not having proven he is a U.S. citizen to a liberal forum is definitely trolling (or a sincere cretin) - but so, in my opinion, is a streaker, or even someone who mails inert white powder labelled "ANTHRAX" to members of government, business or media (unless they have a Higher Motive, I suppose). The key elements are expectation of a strong reaction, an amoral streak, contempt for the targets, and, of course, the anticipation of lulz.

So, if any insincere means are allowable, and any strong reaction that amuses the troll, I hypothesize that the only rational explanation for the rapid post-intertubes growth of bizarre fetishes - vore, balloons, clowns, and so on, endlessly (and who could forget alt.butt-harp?) - is that they were deliberatly made up, in the specific hopes of getting people to adopt them.  Consider the potential for trollish gratification!  We must imagine that somewhere out there is a jolly troll whose heart is immeasurably warmed by the knowledge that they caused someone's entire life to veer away from work-TV-titties-'n'-beer to a full-time committment to artificially inflating their abdomen in order to produce huge - yet subtly erotic - farts.  (Massive props to Xaos for that one!)

All must bow down to the master - this is clearly the ultimate form of trolling.

 

Tags: Sex ; Memetics ; Trolls