The art of trolling

I miss the funny trolls

Shibetoshi Nakamoto @BillyM2k

trolling is an art being a dick is not trolling. that’s just being a dick.

Back in my AOL days, I was a troll. I would poke at people who seemed like easy marks in video game chatrooms - usually the sanctimious hall monitor types - and annoy them enough that they would report me, summoning a guide into the room. When the guide came, I would act completley innocent and kind. This usually resulted in the person who reported me getting very belligerent that the guide wasn’t yelling at me, and they would often start breaking rules themselves, in front of the guide, which occasionally led to their account getting suspended.

This was very amusing for a socially awkward, douchey middle school kid like me. In the real world, I was an very shy, nice kid. Online, though, I could be anyone I wanted. And all I wanted to do was make fun of stuff that I thought was dumb.

Now, I’m not proud of any of this, but in my mild defense, I never targeted anyone who actually seemed like a nice and cool person. Even at my most douchey, I felt like there had to be some honor in trolling. It was intentional, not emotional. The other people in the chatroom were “in on it,” except for the mark. It was meant to amuse and to overall make the chatroom better for everyone else - to manipulate the obnoxious person to shoot themselves in the foot - not to simply bully the target. It took finesse. It was an art.

Nowadays, the word “troll” is just used to describe people being dicks on the internet. Insulting people, leaving hateful messages on their YouTube channels, harassing them on Twitter. But I don’t think this is trolling at all, it’s just being a dick. It’s an uncontrolled emotional outburst, not something with any intention. There’s no humor behind it, just sanctimony and moral grandstanding.

If you’re gonna troll, be a good troll.

So then, what’s a good troll?

greg @greg16676935420

Got him!

Greg here is demonstrating some solid trolling form. For context, it’s quite lame for a celebrity - particularly one with a past history of cheating in his sport - to try to create a worthless new crypto token in the ocean of worthless crypto tokens we were subjected to in 2021. Thus, the mark wasn’t someone trying to do something good for humanity, they were someone trying to do a cash grab - appropriate to troll.

Greg throws his net out and connects - the mark took the bait. Greg doesn’t go too far here, though - he ends the troll with a joke that is so overly lame it is quite amusing in context. He then shows everyone else his successful troll so we can all be in on the joke. Well done, Greg.

Here’s another good troll - a classic from bash.org, an old school internet website that that took user submissions of amusing IRC conversations, and people could vote on their favorites. This one is the top submission of all-time:

<Cthon98> hey, if you type in your pw, it will show as stars
<Cthon98> ********* see!
<AzureDiamond> hunter2
<AzureDiamond> doesnt look like stars to me
<Cthon98> <AzureDiamond> *******
<Cthon98> thats what I see
<AzureDiamond> oh, really?
<Cthon98> Absolutely
<AzureDiamond> you can go hunter2 my hunter2-ing hunter2
<AzureDiamond> haha, does that look funny to you?
<Cthon98> lol, yes. See, when YOU type hunter2, it shows to us as *******
<AzureDiamond> thats neat, I didnt know IRC did that
<Cthon98> yep, no matter how many times you type hunter2, it will show to us as *******
<AzureDiamond> awesome!
<AzureDiamond> wait, how do you know my pw?
<Cthon98> er, I just copy pasted YOUR ******'s and it appears to YOU as hunter2 cause its your pw
<AzureDiamond> oh, ok.

In this case, we see some mild poking fun of some naivety in an amusing way. “Cthon98” creates a particularly unconvincing story designed to make someone do something they very much shouldn’t do, put their password out for the whole internet to see. “AzureDiamond” very nearly catches the lie, but “Cthon98” makes up another unconvincing story which saves the day.

We don’t know the rest of the conversation, or even if it was real, but it is amusing and relatively innocent, and taught a lesson.

Dogecoin

Photo by Kanchanara on Unsplash

Dogecoin is, essentially, a troll. The cryptocurrency community tends to take itself far too seriously, which makes it quite easy to troll. As the first meme coin, Dogecoin was poking fun of the scene, and just meant to be stupid and ridiculous. And, in my opinion, it still is - considering how many people don’t get the joke still, it clearly shows that the entire space continues to be quite ridiculous, and that many participants still take everything way too seriously.

But it’s not mean spirited, it’s just a silly dog mascot on a technically working cryptocurrency. It should make people take a step back and consider how absurd everything is - not just cryptocurrency, but finance, investing, money, the whole nine yards. And my preference is that people are in on the joke, rather than act like the people the joke was targeting.

But that’s a lot to ask.

What can we learn from this shift in trolling?

In my opinion, as a culture, we should never lose our sense of humor. The shift in the definition of trolling shows how our culture is really starting to lose its sense of humor and fall into the traps of anger, judgement, and moral grandstanding. The most trivial things are setting people off, innocent statements are viewed as attacks, people trying to make positive change are viewed cynically and selfishly.

But the world is absurd, and we’re all just trying to navigate it. So when people are more and more resorting to lashing out at each other for no good reason, attacking comedians and others who are simply pointing out all the absurdity and making jokes, my feeling is that immaturity is taking over our culture. We really gotta get over ourselves, recognize that our entire lives are surrounded by absurdity, and navigate it the best we can - with levity, honor, and humor.

Even if it’s just in the way we troll.