back in the mid 1990s it was very common to see naive sounding marketing about
how the internet was this remarkable new tool that could connect you to people
all over the world and while that was certainly true giving every random
person out there a keyboard a platform visible to anyone on Earth and some
degree of anonymity was also The Perfect Storm for internet trolls to start
antagonizing everyone of course people including non- trolls anger each other
online on a regular basis by the way trolling is not the same as
getting into a heated argument with someone who's expressing a sincere
opinion rather trolling is intentionally
posting something misleading or inflammatory in order to trick or upset
people and often to provoke some kind of
response as well but why did people even troll in the first place especially as
there's already enough Strife on the internet perhaps unsurprisingly there
have been psychological studies done on the subject that have found a
correlation between trolling behavior and so-called dark personality traits
such as narcissism and psychopathy tying into the idea that a commonly suggested
motive for trolling is that it makes the troll feel important and better than the
victim as they can elicit very strong emotional reactions from people with
just a few keystrokes wait what well okay obviously not every Internet troll
is a completely self-absorbed psychopath but the point is more that General human
curiosity of drama combined with our natural desire for attention makes
online gathering places a fertile ground for people who like watching the world
burn or maybe just the message board and speaking of forums one common variation
of trolling takes the form of concern trolling where someone goes into a forum
of something like a rival sports team or say political candidate and pretends to
be a supporter then tries to undermine the group in some way this could be
anything from pointing out dubious weaknesses in other people's positions
in order to sew Discord and doubt or
simply saying things to make the group look illegitimate or unhinged some
political campaigns and corporations have even been caught using sponsored
trolls to attack opposing Brands politicians or ideologies in fact a
Harvard study concluded that the government of mainland China posts
nearly half a billion troll messages on social media every year in order to sway
public opinion but assuming the trolls you usually encounter on a day-to-day
basis aren't covertly backed by government or business another proposed
motivator for trolling is something called
deindividuation which is the tendency people have to lose their sense of self
in crowds just as people in a large group can sometimes end up rioting or
engaging in other Shenanigans due to the individuals involved thinking they don't
bear as much responsibility since everyone else around them is also
throwing rocks or whatever trolls often see themselves as part of an anonymous
mass of people which lowers their inhibitions and makes it easier for them
to go at people online when they wouldn't say the same things in a real
life conversation one-on-one and this type of trolling doesn't even have to be
verbal one such famous trolling incident happened back in 2005 when a glitch in
World of Warcraft allowed trolls to spread intentionally an in-game sickness
called corrupted blood to lots of other users creating an in-game catastrophe
for tons of unsuspecting players at the hands of an anonymous mob of trolls but
as widespread as trolling is because of these psychological Tendencies much of
it comes in the form of calling people who play a certain game or buy a certain
thing Fanboys or saying stuff like my local sports team will surely defeat
yours in the upcoming athletic competition a more directly threatening
concern when it's bad enough to have more direct consequences such as doxing
where trolls publish personal information or private details about a
Target online you can learn more about real life effects of online abuse here
but if you're dealing with a particularly nasty Troll and what
they're doing isn't spilling into the realm of the real world remember that
trolls are nearly always looking to get a rise out of you so follow the old and
please do not feed the trolls with with as many people as there are who get
sucked in by troll comments anyway they
love salt and they've already had plenty to eat but if you need plenty to listen
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let us know in the comments down below what other stuff you'd like us to explore the psychology of don't forget
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check out Channel Super Fun there's some crazy trolling over there including
pranks and other various Shenanigans and lonus Tech dips because that's where
probably most of you came from anyways