[zxcdw]

How would you define trolling and a troll? I'm sincerely asking since it is my understanding that these days harassment over the internet is often cited as trolling, as in for example "We trolled Jane by spamming her inbox full of animal abuse and violence lol".

I work part-time at a school with kids ranging from 7 to 16, and of what I've tried to inquire them about the subject(I'm 22 myself, so it's quite easy to go into the subject by mentioning some local websites and memes, kids open up voluntarily very well), it's exactly the online harassing and bullying which is considered(perhaps a form of) trolling. These are exactly the imageboard kids who find it cool to "piss people off". Why? "I dont know. For the lulz". It's like a hobby for some.

I personally find this stuff disgusting and directly relate it to bullying in school. Just because it happens online is not any more tolerable. Turns out many people disagree.

[citricsquid]

Trolling is short term, it's fucking with someone for the sake of fucking with someone, anyone. If you attack one person over multiple years that becomes more than trolling, it becomes personal. Trolling is not personal. As you say, it's "for the lulz", it's to get a reaction, any reaction. If someone wants a reaction they don't care who from.

I've never met anyone that would call years of harassment that extended into real life "trolling". That's personal and it's a serious problem. I run a large forum (I'd guess some of the kids you mention use it) and I've had all manner of insults and threats, all of which are trolling, they're from people that want to annoy me or upset me but only because they see me as a target at that moment. If someone were to come to my house and leave things in my postbox, or mail me stuff, or follow me around the internet for years that would be harassment.

I just asked a bunch of my staff members (people that deal with this sort of thing every day) and everyone considers what the OP went through harassment, it's not in anyway considered trolling.

[zxcdw]

I am not saying it is not harassment. Though, I don't consider the terms to be orthogonal(as in, they can co-exist within the same context). I am saying it is my understanding that many kids(not all) consider the stuff in the blog post as very successful trolling in fact. The act of trolling, as I see it, is to delibirately cause harm and grief to the victim regardless of means. What differs it from just simply bullying the victim is that it happens online, and that's how many (victims) have put it too.

[jarrett]

The term "trolling," as the folks I know use it, doesn't refer to stuff intended to cause harm or grief. Rather, it usually refers to something that would cause fleeting annoyance, or perhaps an eye roll. Or something designed to stir up a tempest in a teapot, e.g. an exaggeratedly controversial forum comment.

What the OP describes wouldn't be called trolling in my social circle. It would be called stalking. I think this goes far beyond a source of lulz.

[stcredzero]

>* The term "trolling," as the folks I know use it, doesn't refer to stuff intended to cause harm or grief.*

That's very interesting. I don't think you'd have to look very hard to find someone who would include harm and/or grief short of murder as "trolling." Just making someone feel like they have a target painted on them can cause substantive harm to someone. Do this in the context of gender, and it can be called sexual harassment. Do this in the context of race, and it could be called racism or a hate crime.

I remember the time before 9-11 and McVeigh when talking about a bomb in the US was a joke, because it was inconceivable such a thing would really happen. Amazing how a change in experience changes that. All of you college students and suburban kids in your teens and 20's out there, keep in mind that there's a whole lot of experience out there you don't have.

[dkarl]

We shouldn't let sociopaths define the language we use to describe them. That's how "hacker" came to mean "criminal."

[SoftwareMaven]

I think the 4chan crowd would have considered what they did to Jessi Slaughter "trolling for lulz", yet I don't think you could reasonably say it wasn't harassment, too.

[SoftwareMaven]

Off topic, but just a note: as a decidedly-not-teenage (by over 2x ;) person, thanks for Curse. It was a godsend during my WoW days.

[bau5]

Good definition of trolling. I have but one thing to add to it.

Trolling is a art.

[dkarl]

Trolling means posting something insincere to elicit a response. The point of trolling is to fool the target into investing time and emotion into responding seriously. Insincerity is the defining aspect of trolling, and seeing the victim's response is how the troll gets his kicks. What the asshole kid in this story was definitely stalking, but it wasn't trolling unless he posed as an antisemitic hate-filled stalker for the malicious fun of watching the victim react. Unlikely. Honestly, I think the guy is being way too easy on the kid by calling him a troll. The kid is a stalker. The police should have been called, because he's likely to do it again.

[zxcdw]

I think the terminology has evolved a bit(at least among the younger generation, those who are trolling almost as a hobby), although it might just be me since I don't spend time around communities dedicated for trolling.

Are you aware of Encyclopaedia Dramatica for example? Many of the 4chan stunts are done "in name of trolling" and "for the lulz", when infact they may involve stalking the subject and even physically being in contact. I think in cases like these it's first and foremost a social thing for the "trolls" to stir shit up, the more the better.

Or perhaps I'm just ignorantly stretching the term.

[dkarl]

Eh, I wouldn't call what 4chan does "trolling." They get their lulz by hurting people, both to prove they can do it and just to enjoy inflicting pain. They usually want their victims to know exactly what's happening, who's doing it, and why.

I hope trolling doesn't come to mean any kind of maliciousness, because it won't enrich the language much for it to take on such a broad meaning. Thanks to human nature, we already have a pretty comprehensive vocabulary for obnoxious behavior. Trolling in the narrow sense is a handy addition for a behavior that has emerged as an everyday fact of life in the internet age, but trolling used in the broad sense is usually a lazy replacement for a better expression.

Edit/PS: To be clear, what 4chan does is bullying. Harassment, spreading embarrassing information, vandalism, insults, reputational attacks: there is nothing novel about this pattern of behavior. In second grade (the early '80s) my entire elementary school was taken out of class so we could watch a short film about bullying. If I remember correctly, a kid was bullied until one day he fell over dead because he didn't want to live anymore. Cheesy, but it shows that 4chan's methods and intentions aren't new and don't merit a new name. The only novelty is that the bullies' unashamed voice has been added to the conversation, so now we know they do it for the lulz. (Which is what everyone assumed about bullies anyway until someone invented the idea that bullies were abused and miserable themselves, which became the new conventional wisdom until it was challenged recently, and now I think even the touchy-feely types think it's really all about the lulz. But I digress.)

[sukuriant]

Perhaps it's the intensity that's the real issue. I "troll" my friends with great frequency. Screw with them, tease them, hold clearly contrary positions just to get them riled up, but it's all in fun and stops before their feelings honestly get hurt (or if they are, I apologize). That's clearly a different level than the other sorts of trolling that I've seen. ... admittedly, people that are "from the internet" are familiar with trolling and know when they're being trolled. They can take the bait and play along, or stop it in its tracks by not feeding the troll the frustration he desires. People that aren't "from the internet", or perhaps aren't from the self-mocking parts of the internet haven't developed the thick skin (why should they?) required to deal with trolls.

... and I suppose some people just enjoy going after the people that aren't thick skinned. That's ... while fun to some, not really a civil thing to do. I suppose there's some level of initiation into the "Internet" that includes being trolled -- and trolling back, or growing some skin, etc. This wasn't one of those cases, from what I gathered (I didn't finish the article, as the very beginning it started looking clearly like harassment instead of the level of trolling I'm familiar with).

I started this response with a point, but I've lost it. Either way, there is clearly a level of taking it too far.

[GrumpySimon]

Yes, but calling it all "trolling" lumps it together. In the replies to your comment you can see people equating trolling to everything from slight teasing to serious harassment.

The problem with calling it all "trolling" is that it normalizes the seriously nasty things (e.g. threatening to kill someone's wife) by analogy to the less serious things ("I tease my friends all the time").

At some point, these are very different things. And they need to be treated very differently. Calling them different things (e.g. "harassment" or "hate speech" vs "trolling") helps set up that mental boundary in peoples' minds and helps them demarcate what's right and wrong.

[wisty]

The original meaning of "trolling" comes from the fishing technique. It's not targeted, it's just provocation. Trolls might follow up, and target the people who took the bait (getting them more riled up, misinterpreting them, claiming they misinterpreted your point, accusing them of trolling), but they don't tend to hold a grudge. It's just a (juvenile) joke.

Harassment isn't trolling. It's goal is not provoking anyone who is un-savvy enough to take the bait, it's goal is to upset a specific person. It's harassment.

You're right that trolling means whatever people want it to (words mean whatever you think they do), but if you expand the definition "trolling" to include harassment, then it's no longer fair to say it's "just" trolling; under the assumption that "trolling" isn't a bad thing.

[ZoFreX]

Trolling, as I first encountered the term (on 4chan, many years ago, back when "trolling was a art") was nothing new. My dad's generation calls it "fishing", and engages in it offline by parroting Daily Mail-esque views in the pub because they know I will "bite".

These days it seems to be a cover-word for the sickest, most malicious bullying, and also the most yawn-inducing unimaginative pranks... basically, any behaviour that could possibly be frowned upon by anyone is defended after the fact with "no, I was trolling" (a valid defence when you're espousing views of the far right with no sincerity... a less valid defence when you actually have just done something terrible)