The Experience of Being Trolled (video)

[Cramulus]

I am a big fan of this youtube channel called IdeaChannel. It's a weekly 10 minute show which mulls over pop culture topics and gives a new spin on them. It's usually pretty interesting, and was recently picked up by PBS, which gave it a nice shot in the production quality.

I wanted to share a video posted this week about our favorite past time, internet trolling. I want to say -- this is not the best first taste of IdeaChannel, (because I don't exactly agree with a bunch of the conclusions in this particular video), but it is at the very least thought provoking. It's also nice to see somebody talk about Internet trolling in a bit more depth than the typical "Trolls are just bullies with inferiority complexes" explanation.

Without further ado, The Experience of Being Trolled



I have my own opinions but I'll wait until some people have seen the vid before I weigh in.

[Cain]

I'll try and watch it, although I wont be able to for a few hours.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Cram, I'll watch it when I get back to my laptop this evening.

[Cardinal Pizza Deliverance.]

I watched it. I agree that the argument challenging effect, when you've isolated yourself into sphere of yes-men can be beneficial.

Everything else though, including this, http://www.psmag.com/navigation/health-and-behavior/women-arent-welcome-internet-72170/ which is linked to in the description of the video, is a bigger problem than just being pissed off by some asshole online.

It's easy to say "Don't feed the trolls." and "Just ignore it." As always, it's far easier to put the onus on the recipient of bullying and harassment than to actually take on the bully/harasser. I think that is wrong and I'm so tired of hearing it.

[P3nT4gR4m]

I am a big fan of this youtube channel called IdeaChannel. It's a weekly 10 minute show which mulls over pop culture topics and gives a new spin on them. It's usually pretty interesting, and was recently picked up by PBS, which gave it a nice shot in the production quality.

I wanted to share a video posted this week about our favorite past time, internet trolling. I want to say -- this is not the best first taste of IdeaChannel, (because I don't exactly agree with a bunch of the conclusions in this particular video), but it is at the very least thought provoking. It's also nice to see somebody talk about Internet trolling in a bit more depth than the typical "Trolls are just bullies with inferiority complexes" explanation.

Without further ado, The Experience of Being Trolled



I have my own opinions but I'll wait until some people have seen the vid before I weigh in.

Fuck you, you cocksucking fuckpig - I just lost The Game. I've been winning for about two years now

[East Coast Hustle]

Pent, you son of a bitch.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Okay, watched it.

Don't give a crap, gonna keep doing what I do.

[Cramulus]

I watched it. I agree that the argument challenging effect, when you've isolated yourself into sphere of yes-men can be beneficial.

Everything else though, including this, http://www.psmag.com/navigation/health-and-behavior/women-arent-welcome-internet-72170/ which is linked to in the description of the video, is a bigger problem than just being pissed off by some asshole online.

It's easy to say "Don't feed the trolls." and "Just ignore it." As always, it's far easier to put the onus on the recipient of bullying and harassment than to actually take on the bully/harasser. I think that is wrong and I'm so tired of hearing it.

I had never considered "don't feed the trolls" in the context of "dressing like that is asking for it". And I can see what he means, but I think it's missing the point a bit.

I've always seen "don't feed the trolls" as advice to a community rather than advice to an individual being trolled. Communities need to develop antibodies against trolls. As we've repeatedly observed on this forum, if the forum isn't united in ignoring a dedicated troll, the troll wins. It only takes one person flipping out or engaging them to ensure that the troll will remain lodged there until it gets boring.

"until it gets boring" - that's really the key. The Internet functions as an attention economy. If you ignore somebody, you remove most of their incentive to harass you. The best defense against trolls is not to flame them back or to tell them off, but to be too boring to entertain them. By responding, you keep them engaged, keep their threads bumped to the top, and draw more attention to them.

I agree though that if somebody is being repeatedly harassed online, telling them "just ignore the trolls" isn't good advice. Very real harassment can take place and it can escalate into pretty dark stuff. I don't want to give a pass to the sociopaths on the net.

That being said, I think we should be educating kids at a very young age about how to relate to crowds. This is not a skill regular people needed before the Internet explosion. If you create content for any audience, especially an audience as big as the net, there will be a spectrum of reactions to it - many will not be the reactions you wanted -- or expected. People's desire to to focus on / engage the shittiest feedback they get gives a lot of power to trolls. So I think you've gotta take things with a grain of salt. Being untrollable is a learned skill.

The trolls and haters are always going to be there. They're not going to go away just because we've out-reasoned or shamed them. Everybody who posts to the net should learn how to cope with the presence of haters. Personally I don't think that's victim blaming.


As for the question "Is there a difference between trolling and harassment?" -- around here I'm sure it goes without saying that yes, there's a difference, however the line is pretty fuzzy. I mean, in the months years we've spent trolling TCC and MW and various other communities, I'm sure we've done some good (in the form of exposing / intensifying stupidity and control freaks) and some bad (in the form of harassment and hurting people's feelings).

My favorite trolls still remain the Exotic Internet Safari. Which was far more about dicking around than it was hurting anybody's feelings. People might have gotten angry because of it but I can't really feel any guilt about that, it was a very light hearted expedition.

[P3nT4gR4m]

So, 30-odd seconds in he nails trolling down to practically anything. This is how I feel about trolling. It's a label that describes a fuckton of stuff from arguing an idiot into a frothing mess right up to death threats and/or actual murder.

I'm kinda loose with my morals. I'll judge the "phenomenon" on a case by case basis if I judge the shit at all. Most of my dealings with trolling has been laughing at funny shit. If it makes me laugh then it rules, I don't really give a fuck what it is or who gets their delicate fee-fees all bent out of shit.

I'm very much of the - fuck 'em if they can't take a joke - persuasion. I'll judge of the joke is funny to me anything approaching objectivity breaks down to a difference in taste, imo.

[Cramulus]

I was intrigued by the moment which gave him pause and caused him to reverse his opinion.

He started to explain how trolls are trying to teach us not to take the Internet so seriously. Then he paused and thought, "wait a minute, am I saying that we shouldn't take any strangers seriously?"

I gotta chew on that a bit more. Because I think connecting with strangers is one of the amazing things about the net, but also, some people need to chill out. Would I want a net where we had all learned this lesson, so nobody took each other seriously? I don't think so.



Perhaps a good object case is Ben Mack, author of Poker Without Cards. The fact that we didn't like his book really got under his skin. We weren't trolling him (at first), we just wanted to discuss his book, but it rapidly got out of hand as he got increasingly judgmental about us and tried to "correct" our opinions and interpretations. We didn't seek him out to piss him off, he came here. He simply felt the need to engage our negative opinions to an obsessive degree, and eventually it snowballed. It would have been a good moment for him to learn to cope with negative feedback. Instead it drove him insane.

That's what I'm talking about... if we were to view Ben as the victim of trolling (which I really don't think is the case), would it be wrong to tell him "don't feed the trolls"? If he hadn't kept posting these condescending walls of text, we wouldn't have jumped on him so much, we probably would have merely disliked his book. I think he was driving that negative feedback loop and could have stopped the vehicle at any time.

[P3nT4gR4m]

I liked his book. Thought he was a right dickhead, tho 

[The Good Reverend Roger]

I just think I'm getting a little sick of the over-use of the "don't tell me to be careful, tell them to not <whatever>."

I agree with it with respect to the whole rape thing.  "Don't tell me how to dress, tell guys not to rape me" (although my agreement doesn't really have much of a real-time effect, taken all by myself, the idea is to attack the culture).

But extending it down to "don't tell me not to get pissed, tell that other guy to stop U-MAD-ing me" sort of cheapens the argument.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Ben Mack trolled himself.  Not sure what you can do about that.  I mean, it's not like we went to his website and gave him shit.  He showed up to...

...
...
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...Steward his reputation.   

[Cramulus]

related: http://theoatmeal.com/comics/making_things

(apologies for the image wall)

[hooplala]

Perhaps a good object case is Ben Mack, author of Poker Without Cards. The fact that we didn't like his book really got under his skin. We weren't trolling him (at first), we just wanted to discuss his book, but it rapidly got out of hand as he got increasingly judgmental about us and tried to "correct" our opinions and interpretations. We didn't seek him out to piss him off, he came here. He simply felt the need to engage our negative opinions to an obsessive degree, and eventually it snowballed. It would have been a good moment for him to learn to cope with negative feedback. Instead it drove him insane.

OMFG, I somehow completely missed this episode.  Sorry to derail, but links for hilarity??