You Can be a Fearsome Troll!
Did you know there are people on the internet, called trolls, who sow chaos and destruction?
Do you think other people need to be brought down a few notches? Do you enjoy putting others in their place, making sure they know they can’t succeed or their efforts are misguided or even stupid? Do you like creating chaos on the internet, making people go practically insane from anger, self-doubt, fear and hatred?
You can accomplish all this and more by becoming an internet troll!!!
What is an internet troll?
I’m glad you asked. No, it’s not something out of the Lord of the Rings or other fantasy novel, although the concept is similar.
In fantasy, trolls are huge, offish creatures that smash and destroy anything and everything around them for no reason. They just enjoy blood, gore and watching others suffer.
If that sounds like you, well, you’ll love being an internet troll!!
How does it work?
Lurk around message boards, Facebook groups and walls, LinkedIn groups and anywhere else people have discussions online. Spend your time reading messages until you come across some nice, juicy discussions that are going well. Everyone is enjoying themselves, having a great time, getting along and being nice to one another.
Can’t have that, can we? An informative and entertaining discussion where everyone is happy just can’t be tolerated. After all, what kind of troll would you be if you let that kind of opportunity pass? It would be shameful.
Amateur trolls drop obvious hostile remarks in an attempt to add some fun to the discussion. They’ll say Trump is great in a Democrat group or something equally spicy. These trolls can produce effects if they are taken seriously. Unknowing commentators, thinking the troll is making rational remarks and just needs to be educated, will spend hours responding to the remarks, pointing out logic errors, discussing obvious falsehoods and pointing to Snopes for false information. But since the troll is making obvious malicious remarks, good moderators will catch them fast and ban them before they cause too much harm.
So that was fun. But wait! There’s more!
Better trolls, the really good ones, drop subtle comments in message threads. Just enough to get a response, then they’ll drop another and another. Nothing blatantly obvious, but enough to give others talking points. Before long, the thread will be alive with harsh words and shouting (in all caps yet). A good troll can keep this going on for hours, days or even longer. Think of the fun!
But it gets better! Oh yes, you can create all kinds of fun with multiple accounts. Let’s say you find a nice, calm message board. Create four accounts and start commenting on a thread. Make one of them the good guy, another the reasonable guy, a third is just misguided, and the forth is actively hostile.
Now you can have so much fun you’ll fall off your chair. You’ll laugh so much at the chaos you create that you’ll throw up!
When the actively hostile troll account gets banned, you just create another with a slightly different personality. You can keep this going as long as you want. The fun will continue until you get bored, couples get divorced and friends unfriend each other.
Okay. .Seriously now. This is REALLY how internet trolls act. Why do they troll? Because they are malicious and want to hurt people. They enjoy starting arguments, breaking up marriages and friendships and generally being a pain in the butt.
What can you do?
DON’T FEED THE TROLLS.
When you’re having a nice online discussion and it suddenly becomes venomous, you’ve got a troll. Pure and simple.
What do you do? Example the thread and find out who started the arguments. It may be obvious or subtle. Just work it back until the argument starts. The troll is just before that.
Once you find them, ban or unfriend their ass with no appeal.
Don’t worry, they’ll be fine. They will find some other group to destroy. That’s what they do, after all.
Richard is the Owner and Senior Writer for The Writing King, a bestselling author, and ghostwriter. He’s written and published 63 books, ghostwritten 40+ books, as well as hundreds of blog articles.
